As the world has been forced to slow down and the future still holds so much uncertainty, I find myself pouring over old photographs, dissecting memories of trips most dear to me, remembering places which I’m glad I’m took the time to visit. Prominent among them is Barichara in Colombia – a place I barely […]
We’re a trip-planning company – that’s where our expertise lies. But we’re joining a rising tide of voices coming from companies, communities and countries in declaring a climate emergency. Why? You don’t have to live in California, or Greenland, or Australia (or Burgundy) to recognise the scale of the crisis facing us all if nothing […]
The mercury reads 32º C and the narrow tarmac road is already shimmering at 10.00 in the morning as we drive south from Taroudant. We have only the vaguest idea where we’re going, and without a map or any helpful info from the official Moroccan tourism websites this is a pure shot in the dark. […]
I like maps. I like how they help me understand large swathes of land that I am unable to see with my eyes and feel with my senses. I can picture a planet whole. It’s reduced to a handful of parts, for sure, but a picture is formed that helps in understanding. I will never […]
The year is 1999, I’m a nerdy 7-year-old obsessed with dinosaurs, planet Earth, and sci-fi video games. I hear the TV talking about some grown-up commemoration on the other side of the ocean, in the United States… some vice-president with a strange name. They’re celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. Nothing too […]
You are called papa not ‘patata’, you were not born Castillian: you are dark like our skin, we are Americans, potato, we are Indians. – Pablo Neruda, Ode to the Potato Similar to other fuels on a grand scale, the quest to harness sources of consumable energy has been the cause of migrations, the root of […]
I am not a person who wears a hat well. Top-hat or touk, I’ve never been able to quite pull it off. I envy those boys looking beatific in a beret, languidly posing in a Parisian cafe smoking Gauloises. I am not a milliner’s delight. When behatted, I tend to look a little like a […]
In good news, the world of travel is moving towards a greener, cleaner way of sashaying across the globe. Trufflepig is right in the scrum on these efforts. We are tickled pink that whatever momentum Al Gore attempted, Greta Thurnberg is striking into a butterfly effect. But this is not an article about environmentalism or […]
In 1977, NASA launched two probes into space, Voyager 1 and 2. Hurtling at 35,000 miles an hour, they are still exploring and sending back photos from the outer limits of what we have seen and known from our pale blue dot Earth. It was decided that it would be a missed opportunity if we […]
I love being out in the woods. Listening to the sounds of trees swaying in the breeze, sitting by a gurgling stream, observing the change of the colours. Forests and parks allow me to slow down and take in the small things. I find them soothing, nurturing, grounding. Everything feels connected. I thrive on a […]
July 21, 1969. My parents were traveling to Spain on their honeymoon, racing their tiny, overpacked Fiat 500 convertible beyond the laws of physics. They pulled over at a cafe in Tossa de Mar, a Medieval town in Catalonia, hastily parking the car on the sidewalk. It was very early in the morning (or very […]
“On most spare weekends for the past seven years, Mrs. Fowke has loaded a portable tape recorder and a bottle of whisky (an essential ice-breaker) into her battered Peugeot and driven through the farmlands of southern and central Ontario hunting for old singers and older songs. She’s found plenty. Since 1957 she’s taped about a […]
Everyone at Trufflepig has some kind of connection to Canada, whether they were born here, moved here, or just visit the HQ every other winter and discover that what passes for an overcoat in other countries doesn’t really cut it in an Ontario blizzard. Below is a very short list of books that have informed […]
If I had to choose a word to describe Canada’s West Coast, it could easily be crinkly. Shaped and scoured by massive glaciers, raging rivers and wild Pacific weather for millennia, the BC coast is one of the more spectacular pieces of wilderness I have ever laid eyes on. This crinkliness has shaped a unique […]
I spent a lot of time in China in the early 2000’s, trying to make up for an overly euro-centric upbringing. I knew there was a world I’d overlooked, and hadn’t been taught about in school, a missing hemisphere. I’d read books like Ernst Gombrich’s History of Art which ignored the “East” side of the […]
Fans of fermentation know that, undisturbed and with the right food and environmental conditions, wild yeast will thrive and create magic. Through history one could say that humans have behaved in a similar fashion. Geomancers and lovers of ley lines can surmise why a particular time and place gives rise to cultural richness to rival […]