Dear Paul, It is doubtful you will ever come to hear of, let alone see, this letter; nonetheless my passion is so great that these words came to write themselves. You are renowned for being pessimistic in your travel writing, something you have readily admitted to in the past. But… Continue reading
An early birthday gift of a replica mid-eighteenth century globe depicting the best cartographic knowledge of the era, and the arrival of my thirtieth birthday, got me thinking just how much the geography of our cramped little planet remains in flux even today. Dating to the time when calculations were… Continue reading
Who wouldn’t want to be an adventurer, constantly scouring the earth for lost tribes, intriguing paths, and new species (or even sitting in a small flat desperately searching for additional sources of funding)? Most people with a mortgage to pay, some might respond. John Lennon one said something along the… Continue reading
There’s nothing quite like making a foreign city a home, if only for a few days. The discovery of the best patisserie in town, entirely absent of other tourists and staffed by men and women only speaking the local tongue, for instance. I take special pleasure in being able to… Continue reading
Heading back to Britain recently from a small regional airport in southern France brought to mind what is perceived in the collective consciousness as ‘the kindness of strangers’, and what often in reality means ‘the kindness of foreigners’ (or even ‘the kindness of people we can’t understand’). I had just… Continue reading
I certainly wouldn’t have started recreational running (I say ‘recreational’ since I’m neither quick nor elegant) if I made any money from foot modelling. What made me start was a need to get out the house, improve my fitness, and counter my consumption of cake, biscuits, and any other foodstuff… Continue reading
Upper-class Georgian and Victorian folk – including the British royal family – are known to have expended a lot of energy taking in the healing air of the coast. Doctors don’t frequently prescribe travel as an alternative treatment for ailments any longer, but they could soon well be. As a… Continue reading
I have to confess that the idea of a bucket list only entered my consciousness a few months ago. For anyone even less up-to-the-minute than I am (it was the title and central theme of a film starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in early 2008 apparently), a bucket list… Continue reading
When I left the clean, modern hub of Berlin’s hauptbahnhof, its main railway station, in search of a cheap night’s accommodation a couple of years ago, a small sign to one side of an ordinary length of pavement noted the demarcation between old borders. I was crossing from what was… Continue reading
Some people just don’t get out much. Out of their home nation that is. Sometimes there’s a good reason for this: North Korea and Zimbabwe are going to be difficult to leave alive, Andorra has no airport or railway stations, and the police might be taking care of the passports… Continue reading
