St. Helena – A very, very distant land It is ten years today since I departed from Cape Town on the RMS St. Helena, one of the world’s last working Royal Mail ships, for the six-day run to the remote island of St. Helena. I like remote and unusual places, and adding St. Helena to my list of Odd Islands had been a long held dream. The island is one of the last vestiges of the British Empire; home to Napoleon in his final years of exile, and in its time, a vital chandlering port for the trade between Europe […]

The Luxury of a Sleeper Of all the many modes of travel, perhaps the most evocative is the sleeper train. Travelling through the night over hundreds of miles, ensconced in a comfortable cabin can be the epitome of a travel dream. Or the setting for a murder mystery. Dining in a pleasant restaurant car, sipping a quiet drink as the sun sets and you fly past the evening lights of a hundred small villages, is one of life’s most reassuring pleasures. The comfort and security of the Night Train, Hercule Poirot notwithstanding, is a marvellous experience. There are many such […]

North Macedonia – a fascinating find! I like travelling to unusual places: Turkmenistan, Mauritania, North Korea – all sorts of odd places. But this time, I felt it time to continue my exploration of The Balkans with a look at one of the more quiet countries in the region, North Macedonia. A week in North Macedonia has been a remarkable transition. From what and too what, I am not quite sure, but suffice it to say, that this rather off-the-beaten (actually any) -track has been a tonic. I have loved it for its ordinariness. There was no particular draw. It […]

Who goes to Mexico City?  Mexico City is simply a wonderful place to visit. But few do. It is one of those destinations that, through media coverage and staring at atlases at school, we think that we know. We have all hear of the country, Mexico, and by extension we assume a familiarity with Mexico City. And how wrong I was. Landing in Mexico City is like devouring a mouthful of bursting flavour. It is a city of colour, music, people and life in every form. It is extravagant and modest; loud and full of quiet parks; beautiful and unsightly. It […]

Edinburgh is pretty, and it knows it. Like those infuriating teenagers bestowed with the best looks, Edinburgh preens and lies in the occasional sunshine smiling at everyone who cares to pass. It is truly a wonderful city, and a city for both the jaded traveller and the excited novice. It is a city of spires, crags, castles, museums, pubs and music. It is a city to wander or explore, a city that can be taken passively or aggressively, and a city that will inevitably enchant. Edinburgh, a City of SpiresIt is old. And its spiny monuments a testament to Victorian […]

Cities are curious places, particularly those big and famous enough for us all to believe that we know them, even before we have visited. We know them from photographs of their monuments and streets; from television programs and books, and from years of knowing that London, Paris, New York and Buenos Aires simply exist. We become almost intimate as we imagine being there, and when finally, the opportunity presents itself to visit, like deer in the headlights, we book the first property that lies in a recognisable location. And so, for London, we book near Hyde Park, Kensington or Piccadilly, […]

The Pyrenees and Andorra are curious places; high in the mountains, isolated for centuries, these borderlands are fascinating. Borderlands are edgy, interesting and unique places. They are locations where cultures collide, languages meld, economies spill into each other, and the political life is delicately balanced between Macro International Policy and local sensibilities and the practicalities of day-to-day life. I like borders; even today, in the European Union where most practical border inconveniences have been abolished or suspended, the cultural clash is always evident, and change is always evident. Outside the relatively stable EU, borderlands can be empty, dystopian places, strewn […]

Adak is a most interesting place The Aleutian Islands are distant, remote and fascinating; Adak, being the island farthest west that is actually inhabited, is of particular interest to map-gazers and travellers. Frequent Flyer miles are addictive, and often propel collectors to undergo some most curious journeys. “Aspirational Travel” is the phrase used within the Points Community to describe these behaviours, using points to fly in Business or First Class or journeying to some destinations that would otherwise be out of reach. In this spirit, a few years back, I used some Alaska Airlines miles to travel to Adak, the […]