Last stop San Francisco: Where old streetcars go to retire

Melbourne tram in San Francisco

View the interactive photo gallery The green-and-gold tram trundled down the road, a small Australian flag hanging out the driver’s window. I stared in amazement, my morning coffee momentarily forgotten. As it rumbled past, I could see the words “Melbourne, Victoria, Australia” emblazoned on the side. But I was half a world away, at an [...]

City by the bay: Best of San Francisco

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Chic, cosmopolitan and with a relaxed, happy-go-lucky vibe, San Francisco has much to offer visitors, as Caitlin Fitzsimmons discovers. When gold fever struck in 1849, San Francisco was transformed from provincial shanty town to thriving multicultural city. As much an idea as a place, it has seduced fortune seekers ever since – from the wide-eyed [...]

Guardian article: A marriage of inconvenience

Hind and Sami wedding

Violence and political instability made weddings in Baghdad virtually impossible in the years following the Iraq War. In July 2008 I joined one family who crossed the border to celebrate. Hind Al-Rubawawi twirls on the dance floor with her groom. Dressed in white, including the obligatory hijab, the 22-year-old university student from Baghdad beams as [...]

A matrilineal, Islamic society in Sumatra

Life is changing for the Minangkabau people of Sumatra, Indonesia, reports Caitlin Fitzsimmons The emerald terraces of the rice paddies stretch to the edge of the valley, bordered by sheer cliffs and a fringe of dark green forest. A makeshift tent is perched at the edge of the fields, almost swallowed by the dramatic landscape. [...]

7 Seconds with Youssou N’Dour

My interview with world musician Youssou N’Dour at his home in Dakar, Senegal in May 2007. You have just come back from New York – what were you doing there? “I was invited by Time magazine. Every year they nominate the 100 most influential persons around the world, sometimes artistically or politically. I was there [...]

Coffee in Nicaragua

Caitlin Fitzsimmons explores the coffee country of Nicaragua – the ‘land of lakes and volcanoes’. On the old coffee farms of Nicaragua, some things never change. The farmer, a cowboy hat on his head and a whip in hand, rides his horse. The giant wooden water wheels mill the ripe coffee cherries. The farm hands [...]

Close encounters with Arctic wildlife

Travel article for Australian Women’s Health on a kayaking trip to Spitsbergen in the High Arctic in 2006. By Caitlin Fitzsimmons The seal reclined on the ice floe, its stumpy flippers looking slightly ridiculous against its tubby body. We stopped paddling and let the kayaks glide in silence for a closer look. The seal lifted [...]

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