Archives: Guide

It was a balmy night in Mandalay. (Sometimes it’s hard to avoid clichés, especially when writing about exotic tropical locales that evoke nostalgia.)

The cold, hard all-night unforgiving concrete of the North West Australian Main Roads Department depot floor, told him more about his real condition than any guide, best friend or philosopher ever would.

It was with some confidence that I parted the blue noren obscuring the door of the Tokyo bathhouse, slipped off my shoes and strode up to the 'bath mistress', a formidable woman of middling age, with forearms like a sumo wrestler who was staffing the counter.

“Yokoso!”, an honorific warm-hearted welcoming expression from Sumiko-san and Shinji-san, or Mrs. Sumiko and Mr. Shinji, decorated my first arrival in a small, serene, and green village of Yuno, at Shizuoka prefecture, Japan.

Today, I stepped into an ice cold lagoon and made a forever friend. Dotty, the mischievous bottle-nosed dolphin, may have cost a fortune to meet but she was worth every penny. In true dolphin style, she made her first appearance with a splash.

Adrian and I are seasoned winter travelers due to the availability of cheap flights and our anniversary falling at the end of February. We’d seen some of Europe’s finest cities at their coldest...

Researching family trees and ancestral blood lines has always been a popular hobby. Especially for those whose families moved to the new world - finding connections to ancient lands is incredibly novel.

Visitors to Seville today might claim that the Real Alcazar is more palace than fortress but thankfully, I found it can still provide a refuge for the unseasoned traveller.

“Riding a horse,” said Juan Manuel, “is like sex. Do it with confidence and personality.” My previous experience consisted of trail rides.

I still have the grass skirt; it’s lasted amazingly well. All around it in the wardrobe, woollen coats get eaten by moths and cotton fades, but this fragile piece of clothing made of dried pampas grass and vegetable...