Because travel isn't always as magical as the internet makes it seem. But sometimes it is….
We'd thought it'd be fun to put together a list of our last two decades of New Year's Eves, accompanied by a pithy sentence or two. So that's what we did…
Our very Somali Christmas of 2010 was the absolute gold standard of all Christmases (past, present and future - including the original Bethlehem one)….
Not for the first time, and surely not for the last, Uncle Google took us down some unexpected paths, through what turned out to be something of a village on the outskirts of Pokhara proper and then up an ungodly number of steps, on the way to visit the World Peace Stupa.
After we'd exhausted our biographical small talk, he asked me 'Do you know the British guy?' The British Guy? I knew some British guys, but couldn't say I knew the British guy, no. Who is this British Guy? Oh man, you don't know the British Guy? You've got to meet him! Can't argue with that. It's not like I had any other plans that day anyway. So off we went down the alleyways of Marrakech…
In the first of what will hopefully be an ongoing series of interviews with notable real life characters from the world of travel, we had the pleasure of sitting down with one Mr John Bills - a prolific author, ambler and aficionado of all things Slav. If you don't know him from a pub somewhere, then you might recognise him as the man behind An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery.
What's so great about this dusty desert town in the middle of nowhere? We're glad you asked, because we've got 22 great reasons never to leave Riohacha. From the arriving flight path, friendly locals, food carts, fruit vendors, fresh seafood and fair prices to the fishermen, flying fauna, graffiti, festive atmosphere and fist-bumping police, there's lots to love, and those are just the half we could shoehorn into our unhealthy obsession with alliteration.
So, 2020 was quite a year, wasn't it? Our preferred adjective since at least mid-March of that year was ‘exciting’, which garnered us no small amount of criticism at our day job. That said, when coming up with our annual list of winners and loser from the previous 12 months, it was a bit more difficult than in years past to try and balance out the two sides. As always, we've put in maximum effort, tried our best and not cut any corners or procrastinated in the least.
Yes, you read that correctly. It's official: Bogotá's El Dorado is the world's best airport! And no one was more surprised to discover this than us. Still don't believe us? Well, fasten your seatbelt, stow your carry-on and make sure your seat back and folding tray are in the full upright position, because we've got a little story to tell you…..
Almost every place we travel immediately exceeds our expectations, and we usually already get pangs of future nostalgia on day one, and we had no reason to assume our experience in Riohacha would be any different.
A Romanian wedding? Of course I was going. I packed my feathers, heels, sparkly underwear and headpiece, and in the high heat of summer, set upon this long, land-ridden journey to Transylvania.