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Sweet life in Sucre

Mark Kennedy travels to Sucre, Bolivia, to find a backpacker couple turning a local watering hole into a nationally known restaurant and tour company.

Travellers in Bolivia looking to get off the usual backpacker circuit are increasingly finding themselves in Sucre. Unlike the more popular destinations of La Paz, the salt flats near Uyuni and the mines of Potosi, Sucre offers all the modern amenities and culture of a large city and more, despite its relatively small size (the city has about 200,000 residents).. more....

True Chianti classic: Tuscany, Italy

It's almost a rite of travel writing passage: Mark Woods falls in love with a Tuscan villa.

The British have long been in love with Tuscany. Along with Provence it is the region that encapsulates best what many Brits dream about swapping their rain drenched existence for – namely good food and wine, good views and more than a good deal of sunshine.. more....

Grains of truth: culinary travels in NY, USA

Nadia Arumugam gets a taste of the Big Apple with spoonfuls of rice.

It’s a fact: every corner of the globe can boast a vibrant rice culture. After all, over half of the world's population relies on rice: according to the International Rice Research Institute it accounts for 20 per cent of the world population’s calorie intake. Countless countries proudly proclaim a national rice dish - paella, risotto, nasi goreng and bibimbap, to name but a few. But the good old US of A? New York, no less?. more....

Worthy of a book or ten: Tuscany, Italy

Olivia Hambrett lives la Dolce Vita for a week in sunny Siena.

Half an hour out of Siena, in the South Siena region of Italy, lies Tocchi, a tiny four-house village. It is home to a castle, one restaurant that may or may not be closed down, and a greater population of geese than people. . more....

Survival guide – Moroccan Riads

To glimpse the softer side of Morocco, best stay in one of the country’s many Riads – traditional houses or palaces noted for their interior gardens. Only in their often opulent confines, writes Dave Wise will no one wave a cobra in your face and charge you for the pleasure.

The square’s snake charmers and drummers told me which direction to head in. Ten minutes later I was there. One brown toothed monster greeted me by throwing a limp snake over my shoulder and demanding money for the service; another jumped in my path, waggled the tassel on his fez hat, gargled like an angry camel then thrust his open palm into my chest and yelled “Twenty dirham!” . more....

Hostel heaven in hell: Fabric, Naples Italy

Chris Cook finds a glimmer of hostel hope in the chaos of Naples.

Let's face it, you want to see Pompeii but frankly Naples isn’t a city you want to visit for its charm alone. Many travellers tell of how unsafe downtown can be. It isn’t the most pristine urban environment, either - the city’s lack of landfills has led to standstills in terms of trash removal. When locals incinerate their garbage in the streets, the gases force schools to shut down.. more....

The Quiet Corner: Kep, Cambodia

Tim Patterson rates a bungalow in a shunned Cambodian village as the place to stay longer than you planned.

The most romantic bungalows in Southeast Asia are tucked high on a hillside overlooking the bullet-scarred and abandoned seaside villas of Kep, Cambodia, a small town near the border with Vietnam.. more....

Book review: Blue List 2008

Published by Lonely Planet. Review by Chris Ord.

Lists are an editor’s ever-faithful lapdog; a guaranteed reader magnet, or so the given wisdom goes. And admit it: as a reader you’re bound to cop a peek at what they’ve rated as the best Carassius auratus of all time. Let’s face it, you WANT to disagree. That’s half the fun. I mean, c’mon, the Lionchu? That’s so not the best goldfish in the world. It’s a cross breed for chrissakes.. more....

Book review: First pass under heaven

Author: Nathan Gray. Review by Chris Ord

A lawyer, a monk, a photojournalist, a recording artist and a Mormon golfer go for a walk. Don’t expect a punch line, there isn’t one. It’s not a joke. Rather it’s the beginning of New Zealander Nathan Hoturoa Gray’s first book, First Pass Under Heaven. . more....

Boots 'n all: hiking boot reviews

It’s guaranteed to ruin your maiden Inca Trail trek: blisters exploding like cluster bombs two days in and miles from anywhere courtesy of those new, bloody expensive, boots. Chris Ord risks heels and toes testing the best in the biz.

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BOOK REVIEW: Even A Daughter Is Better Than Nothing – Mykel Board

By Chris Ord

It’s right there, on the second page of Mykel Board’s travel offering, Even A Daughter Is Better Than Nothing: a photographic hint that his stay in Mongolia isn’t going to result in the same old sanctimonious cultural dissection we’re used to reading in the travel tome stakes.. more....

Rasta Residencia in Brazil

Cable TV, air hockey, well-stocked private bar…these days 'roughing it' in hostels is getting pretty comfortable. Time then to follow Helen Clark, you pampered bastards…

I could never open the damn door of the place I was staying in in Salvador, Brazil. I had a key, but I would've been better off with a sharpened starfish or something. But let’s begin at the beginning . more....

BOOK REVIEW: A Place To Stay – Hotels of New Zealand

Chris Ord dreams of a plush stay in New Zealand’s frontier hotels.

The classy cover of A Place To Stay – Hotels of New Zealand by Shelley-Maree Cassidy and Grant Sheehan evokes what we’re all looking for, at least in some measure, in our travels: absolute calm.. more....

Something Fishy

Cid Busarow fulfilled a childhood dream when she moved to Montana last May. Another dream was reached when she and her husband, Dan, opened Fish Creek House, a bed and breakfast just outside of Whitehall.

"When I was young I always told my parents I wanted to live in Montana," says Cid Busarow. Living in New York and later California, she wasn’t quite sure how her dream would be realized but the persistent . more....

Tight squeeze: Capsule Hotel, Osaka Japan

Mark Yabsley bunkers down for a night in one of Japan’s capsule hotels.

Much like drinking sake, singing karaoke or haemorrhaging yen, a night in a capsule hotel is a quintessentially Japanese experience. It wasn’t exactly recommended in my guide book, but it is cheap, unforgettable and answered any questions regarding my susceptibility to claustrophobia. . more....

Going outback Japanese-style

Megan Flamer gets a taste for Asia in the rolling hillside country of Western Victoria in Australia.

The drive to Australian spa country in the south eastern state of Victoria is a pretty one, punctuated by rolling green hills, dense foliage and sweet looking bed and breakfasts.. more....

Anything but cold feet

Real men get pedicures, says Chris Ord after a visiting a day spa on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia.

“A pedi-what!” I couldn’t believe it. Booked in to the only five-star day spa on the Great Ocean Road incumbent with all its delights of remedial massages, flotation and hydro-therapies, and I’ve been slated for a pedicure.. more....

Jungle Adventure

Few of us would choose to celebrate our 60th birthday swimming around an island, but that’s what Queensland resort owner and manager and perennial adventurer Ian Gasking did prior to leaving the Seychelles. He talks to W.McAteer about time travelling and his new venture, Quamby Falls Lodge.

It took three hours forty-five minutes to circumnavigate Fregate Island against strong ocean currents and open ocean conditions. more....

Room at the Inn – Purrumbete Homestead

Greg Clarke gets cosy at a historic homestead in western Victoria, Australia.

Purrumbete homestead sits to the end of a long tree-lined drive and cosies by the lake from which it takes name. Purrumbete was built by the Manifold family who came to Victoria in 1838 and, suitably impressed by the freshwater. more....

Sweet dream cave

David Stuart cracks the caveman myth of sleeping rough in Turkey.

There was a time when the term ‘roughing it’ could be thrown around with some semblance of credibility. We’ve all been or known travellers who like to boast of hard times on the road, sleeping rough in train stations, cockroach-infested hostels and parks. . more....