I’ve been travelling the world, on-and-off, for almost 16 years—ever since an adventurous 4 week train journey took me through Germany, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic into Romania back in the days when they each had separate currencies. …
According to the dictionary, spectacular is an adjective that means ‘beautiful in a dramatic and eye-catching way’; synonyms of which are striking, picturesque, breathtaking, arresting, glorious, and my two favourites, sublime, and awesome. Awesome as in the Romantic poets’ …
Argentina is a vast and diverse country where you can experience mountainous grandeur, tropical jungles, spectacular waterfalls and cosmopolitan cities.
But the sprawling expanse of Argentina is difficult to cover without plenty of time on your side, so here is …
While looking through my photographs in order to participate in this week’s #FriFotos, which has the theme of ‘Peaks’, I realised something.
I have not spent nearly enough time in the mountains.
I love mountains, but tend to migrate more …
“Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars” J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘The Lord of the Rings’
The Atacama Desert in the north of Chile is the world’s driest desert. Some parts of the desert have never recorded rainfall. It is a …
In my last post I made the shocking confession that I prefer South American food over South East Asian food. Many people can’t understand why the thought of Pad Thai or Pho sends me into a cold sweat, as Thai …
South America and South East Asia are both very popular tourist destinations, but unless you are on a RTW trip you are probably going to have to choose one region or the other. Having spent the first decade of my …
Whether or not you should try to learn a few phrases of the local language is a question often discussed among travellers. Some take phrasebooks with them and steadfastly learn a new phrase every day, while others lazily believe that …
There are so many different lists about the Seven Wonders of the World that it is pretty difficult to remember which ones are actually on the official lists, but this post is not about the official lists—it’s about my personal …
This post is based on my experience of travelling in South America where I visited Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Colombia.
I travelled around South America for five months and I did not get mugged. None of my property …
Recently I posted Five Things I Did Right in South America to highlight my best decisions during my travels. In this post I intend to highlight some of the things that I didn’t know before I went to South America, …
According to this article in TIME, Peruvian plantations are “…working to identify Peru with chocolate, the way Colombia is identified with coffee”, to the extent that many of the coca plantations, for so long associated with the production of …
As my journey around South America is now over I can reflect on some of the good choices that I made in order to ensure that my trip was successful and enjoyable. There is much debate amongst the travel community …
You have been travelling around South America and you want to get to Central or North America but the Darien Gap makes land travel impossible. You could fly: the quick and efficient method.
Or you can cruise the warm waters …
With no road passing through the Darien Gap, land travel between Central and South America is impossible and the only way to pass is to fly or to go by sea. As the route from Colombia to Panama takes …
“I’m not going to Parque Tayrona because I’ve been to the San Blas islands and I’ve heard that the beaches are not as beautiful” said the tanned Australian girl to her friend as they stood chatting on the …
After nearly five months of chasing the end of winter around South America I was beginning to dream of spending some time lazing on the warm sand of a tropical beach, so it was with great excitement that I …
It’s a rainy Tuesday afternoon: thunder is raging overhead and I am sitting in the lounge of a 64 year old man. He sits opposite me, looking older than his years. He is dressed casually and wears a US Polo …
Let’s get the grisly facts out of the way. Medellin is Colombia’s second largest city and—thanks to the thriving cocaine trade in Colombia—was once famously known as the ‘murder capital of the world’. During the 80s and 90s, Medellin was …
