Get inspired by stories and reflections on travel as an experience, a lifestyle, and an identity.
Greetings from Sao Miguel island in the Azores!
I stopped here for a few days to do a little reconnaissance for our March 2020 'Weekends' trip to the Azores after finishing my trip to London for World Travel Market.
I made a short video showing you some of the views and highlights of this beautiful archipelago sitting out here in the Atlantic Ocean:
I mentioned our 2021 member survey in the video but I was a bit premature.
“Look. We’ve got bananas in our garden!”
I point, and M. looks up the garden. A tree from next door, a years-derelict property with an overgrown jungle of a back garden, has collapsed against the concrete wall lining our rental property. Like many homes in Costa Rica’s San Jose, our place is protected with bars on the windows and razor-wire on the tops of the walls - a callback to when things were a lot less safe than they are today.
Check out the replay from our recent Q&A webinar about our May 2020 trip to Japan and South Korea:
To get all the details and download the full trip itinerary, click here.
Or, for some more inspiration, check out one of our stories about Japan:
How Japan Mastered The Art Of Staying Alive
Shinto: How Japan’s Religious Soul Is Surviving An Age Of Change
A Polite Visitor’s Guide To Bowing In Japan
The Irresistible Appeal of Japanese Art and Aesthetics
Soak Yourself in a Japanese Tradition
Kyoto culture and cuisine: Where to go and what to eat
The House That Flowed Like Water
From the Jet Age to the Bullet Age
Cheers!
Trondheim is Norway’s third-largest city, and is home to colorful waterfront warehouses, scenic waterways, and lush, wooded hills. The city is the country’s historic capital, and it holds a wealth of wonders to be explored.
Check out this short itinerary of Trondheim’s sensory adventure:
At the break of dawn
Trondheim’s quiet beauty is best experienced at break of day, on the colorful wharves along the River Nidelva.
Imagine you’re flying over the Atlantic, heading for an island getaway on the way to Europe - and at the push of a button, you could make the sea disappear.
The button’s in front of you, and there’s a window to your left. You’re flying at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet - and 10.6 kilometres below, the blue sea stretches to the horizon in every direction, with not a cloud in the sky.
Jan van Riebeeck is regarded as one of the founding fathers of South Africa. He also effectively started the wine industry in the country. Tasked with establishing a supply station for Dutch sailors travelling from the Netherlands to the East Indies, he planted the first vineyard in the Cape of Good Hope, producing the first bottle in 1659. From then on, many other enterprising winemakers established their own vineyards in and around the region now known as the Winelands.
You’ve seen it at the end of every modern sporting event: the triumphant winner with a bottle in their hand, struggling to get the cork out, and then BOOM! away it goes, closely followed by a jet of frothing liquid. They laugh, they shake the bottle violently, and the wine fires high into the air - or power-hoses sideways, if they’re mischievously redirecting the jet using their thumb over the end of the bottle.
I’m in a shop in Edinburgh, it’s the first time I’m seeing my Scottish family’s tartan (the Maclennans, on my mother’s side) - and it’s not going the way I expected.
“Um. It’s very...blue, isn’t it?”
I’d imagined something evoking heather, trees, the soft pastel colours of the highlands on a soft, drizzly afternoon.
