C is for Cocktail

I’m no expert. I don’t have bitters at home or dried fruits, nor proper stemware. Those who know me know that typically I drink straight from the can. But every once in a while I do like to treat myself to a cocktail. Something fancy. And a few weeks ago I was in Colombia for […]

Oporto, My Porto

“Just look out for two old codgers standing in arrivals.” This was the closing sentence in an email I received from my father’s cousin, and even though we had never met, I knew instantly that we would get along. Sure enough, after a flight across the Atlantic to Lisbon, and then another north to Oporto, […]

Pig Tails – Joe Perez and the Merchant Marines

This week, a conversation with Joe Perez, Trufflepig’s new Operations Manager. Previous to the travel business, Joe worked on a number of ships with the Merchant Marines. He describes a different pace of life in international waters: days are counted differently, maps become faulty and you quickly realize there is a difference between Magnetic North […]

Anton’s two wheel tour

Our man Anton lives at the pace of a cruising bike in the grand city of London England.  There is something special about the pace of a free-wheeling bicycle – it allows you to float past the riff-raff, watching life roll by, almost unseen. The bike, since its invention, has barely evolved, a perfect invention […]

Biltong and Farmstalls

Much like on Route 66, prior to the days of interstate highways and big service centres, when travelers found food and gas at roadside stands, in South Africa you stop at the farmstall. These little snippets of nostalgia are a step back in time and a delight to visit. Farmstalls are generally family-run businesses set […]

Something About Slovenia

A few months ago, when there were still leaves on the trees and the temperatures hadn’t yet dipped below the freezing mark, my friend Susanne joined me on a research dig around the often overlooked country of Slovenia. Together we spent ten days roaming the land and trying to absorb as much as possible. While […]

A lo Cubano – Agua!

I’ve freshly returned from Havana where I spent time as an ordinary traveler. A trip on my own time, on my own dime, of my own curiosity. I boarded the plane wide-eyed, and with dance shoes and dusty Spanish in tow.  I’ve been fascinated by the dance/music of Rumba, Son, Salsa, Casino Rueda for some […]

Hail the Rail

Modern beasts made from steel that hurl their futuristic shape from city to city at great speed, or rather rundown carriers of nostalgia that crisscross the countryside at a snail’s pace: trains. Manmade machines on tracks. I love them all. I’ve always had a great fondness for this quintessential way of getting from A to […]

Verde que te quiero verde

The first stanza of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem ‘Romance Sonámbulo‘  (‘Sleepwalking Romance’) translates: Green, how I want you green Green wind, green branches The boat out on the sea The horse on the mountain Written by the 20th century Spanish poet, the poem was arguably inspired by a European landscape and context, an azure Mediterranean sea and […]

Namibia in Pictures

Namibia delivers wide open spaces in a way that few other places on earth can. Dominated by a massive and ancient desert, the dominant image in people’s mind seems to be landscapes of unchanging and endless sand. While it’s true that there is a lot of sand (and I do mean a lot – I […]

The Wine-maker, the coffee roaster, and the Ethiopian Farmers putting their minds together for flavour

Matt McClune, coffee roaster extraordinaire at St Romain Coffee Co. in Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune, approaches all his projects in life with an untiring conviction that everything benefits from more thought, more attention and more deliberation. I should know this, because I’m in a village rock band with him (we trademarked the musical genre of […]

WPIG: gobble gobble gobble

Drop it like it’s hot, peoples –  pick up them vibes, grab a wishbone, call a friend and celebrate thanks. We figured we could all use the funk to soak up some of that gravy. Here are 45 minutes of funk, rock, soul, jazz, all loosely based on the theme of that holiday we all […]

The Salty Bay of Poets

To travel is to hold smelling salts to our senses, to go wide-eyed, to become hyper observant, run on sheer curiosity. I dive into a research trip scanning for the beauty, the stories, the connections between where I am now and other places I’ve been. I pick a local caffè to hear the morning gossip […]

And to you, your wassail too

Here’s the thing about cider (or hard cider); it’s incredibly simple to make and anyone can do it. I have been consistently making average to disappointing cider for the last five years, but that’s not the point. You don’t need any special equipment or ingredients other than apples.  You crush them, squeeze them and then […]