Dear Airlines: Humans come in all shapes and sizes

Dear Airlines, You are in the business of transporting humans through the air. Humans come in all shapes and sizes. Deal with it. There are tall humans and short humans, fat humans and skinny humans, humans in wheelchairs, humans on crutches, humans who max out their carry-on luggage, humans with small children and solo humans [...]

Photo Friday: Travel back in time to Victorian England

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

London, UK; May 2009 / 19th century Discovered – a rare colour photograph of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens in London. Since colour photography didn’t exist in the Victorian era, this clearly proves the existence of time travel. Maybe the Doctor and his TARDIS had something to do with [...]

Driving Highway 1 in California – Big Sur Lodge and Pfeiffer Falls

Our cabins at Big Sur Lodge

This is part 4 a series about a road trip along California’s famous Highway 1. Please check out my other posts on Highway 1 and don’t forget to subscribe. After visiting the beautiful lookout at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, we wanted to find somewhere in Big Sur country to stay the night. We had [...]

Photo Friday: Tidal power device on test in Orkney

Tidal power device Orkney

Orkney, Scotland, UK; June 2009 The series on stone-age Orkney was one of my favourite things I did on the blog last year. But the day or two I spent playing tourist came after several days working on a story that is very much rooted in the modern era. The real reason I went to [...]

Travel writing tools of the trade – Californian driving licence

Green means go

My Twitter friends may be wondering why I asked them to wish me luck this morning. But many of them did anyway and I now have some good news to share. I am now the proud owner of a California driving licence! First-time driver This is also a confession – until an hour ago, I [...]

Security theatre and what might actually make air travel safer

My thoughts on the proposed new security measures in the wake of the attempted Christmas Day terror attack. Christmas Day was peaceful in my home. All I had to worry about was opening presents, taking a walk up to a nearby hill with panoramic views of the city, and cooking and eating a great feast. [...]

Steinbeck country: The Carmel Valley Road

Back roads are often the best. Given the choice I will always take the byway, not the highway. And so it was on our California road trip. We planned to drive south from Monterey to San Simeon and then explore the scenic Big Sur stretch of coast line. My mother-in-law was not keen on taking [...]

Photo Friday: Modern smuggling – black market petrol in Tunisia

Road from Djerba to Matmata, Tunisia; December 2006 A word of advice if you ever go to Tunisia – pay attention to the local holiday calendar. This is advice that could apply anywhere but travelling on a holiday is more difficult in Tunisia than in many places. On 30 December 2006 we were ready to [...]

California Coast by Twitter

Last Friday my husband, parents-in-law and I set off south of San Francisco in a hire car. We drove back up via scenic Highway 1, visiting Hearst Castle, Big Sur, Monterey and Santa Cruz. Along the way I shared snippets from the trip on Twitter, just like I did earlier this year with Scotland. This [...]

Hotel tips from travel writers

Travel blog 101 Holidays has a useful new feature for travellers – a series where travel writers recommend a hotel they would stay in themselves, with their own money. The rules are that the hotels must be under £150 ($250) a night for two people and the tip has to be written in the form [...]

Bad Behavior has blocked 689 access attempts in the last 7 days.

Switch to our mobile site