Twenty-eight nights, every flight and every day I actually spent, across a country I’d tell anyone to give real time to. I’ve been to forty-three countries, and this trip is still one I’d point to first if someone asked which one to copy. Australia is a genuine island, a long way from almost everywhere, and that isolation is exactly why it rewards a...
I got into Nagoya on a late Shinkansen from Tokyo, checked into a hotel two minutes from the station, and had exactly one day to see a city most people skip entirely. Nagoya sits on the Tokaido Shinkansen line between Tokyo and Kyoto, and a lot of travellers treat it as nothing more than a place the train passes through. I wanted to know if that reputation was fair...
This is the 7 days in Tasmania itinerary I actually did, Launceston to Hobart, one way, no backtracking. It is not the only way to see the island, and if you have longer, I have included an honest section on what I would add rather than pretend a week covers everything. But if you have seven days and want to see the real range of what this island does, this is the...
I spent five days in Hobart across a longer Tasmania trip, and I could have used every one of them. But most people do not have five days, so this is not a diary of what I did in order. It is the itinerary I would hand a friend with three or four days, built from everything I actually saw and checked, reordered where a stranger’s trip benefits from a different...
I did not plan this post the way I planned the others. There was no single walk, no single day. This is what happens when you add up four nights of wandering Hobart’s waterfront, its heritage streets, its markets, and its museums, then step back and look at what you actually did. If you are planning a Hobart trip and want the real shape of the city rather than...
I have been asked more times than I can count: “How do you actually plan a trip to Bhutan?” It is a fair question, because Bhutan does not work like anywhere else I have travelled to. You cannot book a flight, land, and figure the rest out as you go. Almost every visitor arranges their entire trip — guide, driver, hotels, permits — through a licensed...
Nikko is a small but beautiful city in Japan. It is located in Togichi prefecture in a mountainous setting and is a popular tourist weekend gateway from Tokyo. This photo guide will tell you about a list of things to do in Nikko.
I had four days in Melbourne. No rental car, no local knowledge, no group to share the planning with. Just a Myki card, a rough idea of what I wanted to see, and a city that turned out to be far more generous to the car-free visitor than most guides suggest. This is the 4 days in Melbourne itinerary I actually followed – four days, four genuinely different...
I had three to four days in Melbourne, based in the CBD, and no rental car. That combination sends most travel guides into a mild panic – suddenly the Great Ocean Road “isn’t really possible”, Phillip Island is “best by car”, and you’re left staring at a list of laneway coffee shops wondering if that’s all there is. It...
The train arrived at Sreemangal past midnight. The platform was surprisingly alive for that hour. Travellers in winter jackets pulling bags off the train, vendors hovering at the edges with tea and snacks, the blue-green Sreemangal station sign glowing overhead. We had boarded in Dhaka after dinner, half-asleep before the train left the city, and woken here: the tea...