Inside the Travel Lab

So, if you remember from last year, people regularly spam me with press releases that they think I should publish over here. They’re usually totally inappropriate and utterly dull, a description that many may think qualifies them perfectly for a slice of cyberspace here on my blog, but that I, delusional as I am in matters of quality and relevance, usually reject. I’d like to call it a discerning eye but I suspect that’s because a mosquito bit me on the eye(lid) last night and hence…

Today’s post comes from a woman whom I very much admire. It first appeared on her own blog and it moved me so much that I had to get in touch and ask whether I could cover the story here. She gave her permission for me to reproduce the whole article – and since…

I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve longed to visit Ljubljana. I’ve longed to let my tongue run over the improbable syllables of its name before I even knew how to say them…

Trieste, Italy Behind me, I know that sapphire lights stud their way across the stone. Right now, though, I’m watching darkness. Behind me, flames from an occasional car streak across the empty velvet sky, backlit by the brilliance of a long forgotten empire. Ahead I see nothing. Black, dark, empty, silent. Just the sound of [...]

Eighteen days ago I set out on a journey of more than a thousand miles. It took me through nine different countries, six different currencies, two continents and it strayed both in and out of

The sign on the platform read Budapest. I climbed onto the train, no easy feat at the moment as I clutched…

A man casts a glance over his shoulder before arching back and casting his line into the water. The street chatter and rush hour traffic drown out the subtle splash but from the look on his face, you’d think he stood alone in the countryside, miles from anyone, miles from anywhere.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. I was at school at the time and I wasn’t entirely sure what all the fuss was about. Fast forward through the years and despite – or perhaps because of – having studied it briefly, watched the odd Bond film and read plenty of spy thrillers (both fact and fiction,) I’m still not all that sure.
Then There’s Ljubljana…

Today, I am doing something unusual. At least unusual for me.

“You have blood on your hands,” she said as she jabbed me in the ribs. “And you’re celebrating mass murder.”

As a travel writer with a British passport, the first statement is something of an occupational hazard…