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Notes from the road 2: Los Angeles and Hawaii

Packing for a trip that covers areas with wildly different climates is never easy, and after the first week in New York we were casting off our coldest winter layers, not expecting to use them again...

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Notes from the road 3: Micronesia

After 18 days we’ll be leaving Micronesia tomorrow. It’s been a fascinating time and an exposure to a part of the world I previously knew nothing about. We have encountered perfect beaches and dirty...

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Marshall Islands: a broken paradise

Taking in the surroundings of Eneko Island it’s easy to conclude you’ve walked into a photograph on a postcard. Part of the Majuro atoll in the Marshall Islands, the private island ticks all the boxes...

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Brunei and the art of throwing fish

  Earlier this month I spent four days in Brunei to research a nature-focussed article I’d been commissioned to write. Despite (or because of) my very short exposure to Brunei, its social structures...

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Knocking on doors in search of a good story

I’m sure many writers will identify with this. Your story gets published and while you might be pleased with the finished article there’s something that the readers will never know: that what you’ve...

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Micronesia and the murky world of chequebook diplomacy

A little present from Taiwan – National Capitol Building, Melekeok, Palau Drive up the eastern side of Palau’s main island and at a certain point you’ll see something that looks completely absurd....

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From Palau to Rotherhithe: the story of Prince Lee Boo

  Less than two months after discovering this picture in the blissful air-conditioned cool of the Etpison Museum in Palau’s main town of Koror, I stood by a south London graveside, teeth chattering in...

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On the trail of the Tatars in Poland

Drive through many of the villages in the north east of Poland and the eerie silence might lead you to believe there is no-one left to tend the miles of flat farmland, stretching beyond the horizon in...

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Lübeck, York and the Baedeker Raids

What links the German city of Lübeck, a well-known guidebook and the several of England’s more attractive cities? Wandering around Lübeck recently I was struck by the way the city has been so...

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Nan Madol: the lost city of the Pacific

Approaching Nan Madol by boat there is little sense of the scale of the ruins that are about to surround us. The choppy waves of the Pacific subside as we make our way through narrowing mangrove...

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Catalina on Vatersay: a plane wreck with more than one story

If you take a walk around the island of Vatersay in the Outer Hebrides, you’re likely to stumble upon a very interesting discovery, behind which lies a tragic tale. Just off the road (there’s really...

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The true British tourism champions (no fancy campaigns required)

It was a story that led me to Aldeburgh in the first place. I recently read Scapegallows by Carol Birch, a book that follows the life of Margaret Catchpole, a feisty young lady who was twice sentenced...

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Imber – Britain’s abandoned village

You don’t expect to find a church completely surrounded by a double ring of barbed wire in the heart of the English countryside. But then St Giles is no ordinary church, with very few services and...

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Erm, erm, erm… Mr President

It’s not every day you address the person sitting across the table from you as Mr President. Neither is it every day that you interview a man for whose freedom you marched as a teenager. Whether or...

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An unremarkable bus journey through northern Kosovo

As border crossing go, it was one of the quickest I’ve ever encountered. A burly policeman boarded the bus, shook hands with the driver, exchanged a few jokes with the passengers at the front and...

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Skopje – dazzling capital or monumental folly?

Take a walk for the first time through central Skopje and you’re bound to scratch your head in bewilderment. Mammoth statues of warriors adorn the main public spaces, while neo-classical palaces...

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Lake Bled and a memory of never-ending rain

Lake Bled is a place where it never stops raining. At least that’s the way it will appear in my mind whenever I hear or read about it. It was pouring with rain when we boarded the bus in Ljubljana...

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A guide to free toilets in London

Having visited London quite literally hundreds of times in recent years and being cursed with a well-documented weak bladder, I’ve often been caught short on my trips around the city. Central London...

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Why the City of London is an open history book

I’ve mentioned this before on this site, but the history you can uncover with even a minimal effort on a walk through London never ceases to surprise me. Take last week for example… We popped into the...

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The changing views from Westminster Bridge

Whenever I see the view of the London Eye from Westminster Bridge I’m reminded of the conmen who often sit along its busy eastern pavement. A line of men and women perform the ages-old scam of...

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