It’s official: the best way to make your travel memories stick is writing them down by hand. When I first started writing for Wheel & Anchor, I was fresh from being a professional travel writer – and I felt like I knew the danger that cameras face to our travel memories, as I wrote here:
It might be one of the three most famous gifts in the world. Stop me if you’ve heard this one. It’s just before the year zero, and three distinguished foreigners approach a house, over which they have observed a star taking position. Upon entering, they find a mother and child. Opening their treasure chests, these
We’ve been driving all morning, and everyone is hungry now. The day’s turning out to be a hot one (not an unusual thing for Costa Rica in February, which is midsummer in this part of the world) and it’s time to stop, fill our stomachs and glug back a litre or so of something cool
“Trust me, this is the traditional Greek moussaka,” I tell my student friends in the early 2000s. “I got it out of an old Greek book. I bet this recipe goes back a thousand years!” Luckily none of them were Greek, or else they would have laughed in my face. At this time as an
It’s that special Khmer magic. The moment you land in Cambodia, a sense of ease, lightness, and joy should descend upon you. Surprisingly, this isn’t marketing hyperbole, as most of the country’s visitors seem to feel this way – in 2021, a poll by the Rough Guides travel company voted it the “world’s friendliest country”.
It’s 5:30 am as the sun rises over the Caribbean coast (as it does at this time pretty much all year round, being so close to the equator). A soft golden light shines over the tranquil sea, creeping up the tree trunks in search of their tops, and slides its way up the sides of
A big part of the fun of travel is those local restaurants, so excitingly different from everything you’re used to back home. But when the main course of your meal is over, and everyone is eyeing the dessert list, do you ever feel a lingering sense of disappointment that you have to leave soon – that *this* meal in *these* surroundings will soon be over?
If you’re looking for a way to make your morning coffee a bit more exciting, try the following: – take one egg yolk – add two teaspoonfuls of condensed milk – sprinkle on some sugar, according to how much of a sweet tooth you have – whisk it like crazy until it’s as thick as
Meet seasoned British traveller Hilary, tackling life with an enthusiasm that seems to border on recklessness: ‘‘No one hitchhikes any more, do they?” I often hear people saying this and am proud to reply that I’ve hitchhiked every decade of my life, except the first. And I don’t intend to stop just because I’m now
It’s horribly early in the morning, and I really shouldn’t be awake right now. I have a long day tomorrow, travelling from Athens to Crete on a ferry that’ll take me all day. The weather will be good, and the views magnificent, and I won’t want to miss any of them due to exhaustedly napping
Check out the webinar replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our W&A Spring Trip Overview (2024):
I first encountered a Highland Cow in a lonely field in Orkney – and my first thought was, “Oh, hello. What are YOU doing here?” He wasn’t the only cow in sight, but Doug (a name I gave him after a guy I knew at school with very long hair) was the only cow who
Check out the webinar replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our Colombian Mosaic (Feb 2025) program:
Check out the webinar replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our W&A LiveAways: Koh Samui (Jan 2025) program:
Around this time of year, there’s an article that reappears in a certain type of British tabloid newspaper with a regularity you could set your watch by. It is, of course, a ridiculously sensationalist headline, riddled with what journalists call ‘FOMO’ (Fear Of Missing Out) – the anxious, shame-inducing fear of being so out-of-touch with
Check out the webinar replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our Costa Rica Eco-Adventure (Jan 2025) program:
In my second term at University, I was a little desperate to make some new friends, so I started cooking Cypriot food. I did this for three reasons: I didn’t know any other students who were from Cyprus, so that was my best shot at creating a meal so unusual and “exotic” that it was
Check out the webinar replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our W&A LiveAways: Bali 2025 program:
A week before Christmas, I stepped outside on a cold, grey, windy day and walked to the train station. It’s a route I’ve now taken well over a hundred times since moving to this seaside town in Western Scotland – and so I saw none of it. My thoughts were elsewhere: worries about squeezing work
Check out the webinar replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our Europe’s Best Christmas Markets (Nov 2024) program:
Imagine, if you will, that you’re a 40-foot tall goat in Sweden, desperately just trying to survive Christmas without something really terrible happening to you. I know, this isn’t one of my most coherent opening lines of anything I’ve written. You may be extremely confused, and rightly so – what follows is something that attracts
Greetings and happy new year from Ubud, Bali! The thing I like most about New Year’s is the opportunity it gives us to look back and forward. I gave up resolutions a while ago – it started to seem too much like armchair quarterbacking your own life – but what I find works really well
Greetings and best of the season from Ubud, Bali! I hope you’re all tucked away in your slippers, Slanket, or climate of choice with a good book or bingeable series and a snifter of brandy, a mug of hot chocolate and getting the very most out of one of my favourite times of year. Though
Check out the webinar replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our AW Czech Slovakia (Oct 2024) program:
