The Reality of Vancouver: The City With a Rainforest at the...
Walk fifteen minutes north-west from a glass office tower in downtown Vancouver and the noise stops. The light goes green. There are cedars with...
The Reality of Medellín: The City That Made Cable Cars Public...
You queue on a platform above a river, in a station as clean as a hospital, and the thing that arrives to take you...
The Reality of Riga: The City One Boom Built
Stand at the top of Alberta iela at about nine in the morning, before the tour groups arrive, and look up rather than along....
Cheap flights to Riga: the airBaltic hub, the airport 15 minutes...
For years my standing advice on late arrivals in Riga was three digits long: get the 322. It was the night bus,...
The Reality of Dubrovnik: The Republic of Libertas
Come out of the Pile Gate tunnel at eight in the morning and the first thing you meet is the light coming back up...
The Reality of Muscat: The Capital That Chose Not to Build...
You come over the last ridge expecting a skyline, because this is the Gulf and that is what the Gulf does. There isn't one....
Surgut: Siberia’s Oil Capital, and Why People Actually Go
Surgut is a company town on a continental scale. There has been a settlement on this bend of the Ob river since 1594, but...
The Reality of Fez: the city that never let the car in — what...
Fes el-Bali is widely cited by convention as the largest car-free urban area in the world. The medina's lanes are simply too...
Cheap flights to Marrakesh: the low-cost boom into RAK, the airport six kilometres from...
On one of my early trips to North Africa, I booked a cheap flight to Marrakesh, planning to spend my summer exploring...
Cheap flights to Cairo: the two-airport question nobody asks, the visa you sort out...
On my first flight to Cairo, I arrived at the terminal assuming that purchasing a visa on arrival would be a simple...
The Reality of Tunis: The Medina and the Ghost of Carthage
Stand in the Tunis medina in the middle of the morning, and the city hits you all at once. The vaulted, stone-roofed...
Cheap flights to Marrakech: the budget-carrier city, why you shouldn’t route through Casablanca, and...
On my first journey to Morocco, I booked an international flight to Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, assuming that reaching the...
The Reality of Tangier: The Interzone Myth and the Working Port
Sit with a glass of sweet mint tea on a high terrace above the medina on a clear afternoon, and the coast...
Cheap flights to Johannesburg: the Southern Africa hub, the Gautrain, and a smart arrival
On my first transit through O. R. Tambo International Airport, I booked a ninety-minute layover before a connection to a domestic flight...
The Reality of Fez: Tanneries, Craft, and the Working Medina
Step through the great blue arches of Bab Boujloud and you immediately lose the daylight to the covered, narrow lanes. The amplified...
Cheap flights to Nairobi: the safari connection, the two airports, and the eTA
Here is a quick way to spike your blood pressure: land at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, collect your luggage, get into a...
The Reality of Rotorua: Geothermal Power and Living Māori Culture
Walk down a quiet suburban street in Rotorua at dawn, and you might see thick white steam drifting casually from a front garden, or a boiling thermal vent neatly fenced off next to a municipal pavement. The heavy scent of sulphur—which earns...
Cheap flights to Auckland: the long haul, strict biosecurity, and the NZeTA
Here is a quick way to earn an instant, non-negotiable fine: walk off a fifteen-hour flight at Auckland Airport, feel a wet nose nudge your carry-on bag, and realize you forgot to discard the complimentary apple the flight attendant handed you before...
Cheap flights to Sydney: the long haul, the Kangaroo Route, and the airport curfew
Here is a quick way to experience pre-flight panic: stand at the check-in desk in Los Angeles, hand over your passport, and watch the agent's face go blank as they inform you that you cannot board because you do not have an...
The Reality of a Holiday in Australia: Visas, Flights and Distances
Australia has a strange place in the imagination: everyone wants to go, and almost everyone assumes they can't. It sits in the mind as the far end of the earth — impossibly distant, ruinously expensive, a trip you take once you've retired or won...
Sydney Opera House: History, Architecture and How to Visit
Some buildings are famous; a much smaller number have become shorthand for an entire country. The Sydney Opera House belongs to that second group. Designed in a Danish studio by an architect who had never set foot in Australia, it rose on a harbour...
