Airships were the future once. In an era before mass air travel (or transit, as it increasingly feels) airships provided an alternate means of travelling long distances in the comfort and style more expected of ocean liners. With good weather conditions an airship could hit 80 miles an hour. They… Continue reading
Two hundred years ago this week when Scottish missionary, African explorer and Victorian hero David Livingstone was born public transport was still in its infancy. The London Underground system – the world’s first – was still 50 years into the future; the steam engine had been invented only a few… Continue reading
The AD122 must be one of the most picturesque bus routes I have encountered in Britain. It is a relatively new creation following an ancient path, running the 84 mile route of Hadrian’s wall as it crosses Northumberland and Cumbria from central Newcastle (not quite the end of the wall,… Continue reading
The future cities exhibition at The Crystal building points out a startling truth early on: half the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2050 this number will have risen to 70%, something like 6.5 billion people. Every second another two people move to a city. The Crystal proclaims itself… Continue reading
Check out encircleafrica.org for this month’s updates now! (You made need to refresh your browser.) In 1872 French author Jules Verne ensured that English gentleman Phileas Fogg made it from London’s Reform Club and back within the novel’s 80 day time limit. Using predominantly public forms of transport – anything from… Continue reading
It’s rare for a region to change its name from one European explorer to another, but that’s exactly what happened with Tasmania. The territory’s name officially changed from Van Diemen’s Land on 1st January 1856. I have yet to make it to Australia, a fact that echoes the actions of… Continue reading
At the very heart of the geographical establishment, London’s Geographical Society (now the Royal Geographical Society) laughed at the thought of snow in Africa. Rebmann’s sighting of the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro in 1849 was considered complete fantasy for the next decade. Bob Geldof ignored the existence of snow in… Continue reading
Scientists like a working holiday. Under the auspices of scientific research I managed to make it as far afield as Singapore, New Zealand, and Manchester. Charles Darwin made it to the Galapagos Islands. Alfred Russell Wallace reached the Malay Archipelago, a catch-all term relating predominantly to modern day Indonesia. … Continue reading
Around AD 150 a man called Ptolemy sat in Alexandria. This was probably not unusual for the time. Perhaps, in need of a break, he watched the fishermen coming to harbour beside the long lost pharos lighthouse. Modern Alexandria lines the same harbour of ancient times Ptolemy was… Continue reading
Up until 1975 Lourenço Marques was the largest city in Mozambique. Almost overnight it disappeared from the maps of the region. Its disappearance wasn’t the result of war or pestilence, but that of a name change. As Maputo, the city remains the largest in the country, the capital, and home… Continue reading
