What is it about train travel that is so alluring? Is it just a harking back to simpler days? Is it just another manifestation of the retro thing?

Whatever.

I hadn’t been on a train in donkey’s years, but having done the Ghan last year I now found myself sitting in one of the 1^st class cabins on the Bangkok-Chiang Mai overnight train.

Ok, it sounds a bit poncey to be in 1^st class.  I sure as hell can’t afford it on an aeroplane, but at my great age I really can’t see me doing the all-in-together-in-one-big-happy-party of a second class carriage.

Besides, the trip cost me 2430 Thai baht to have a compartment all to myself. That’s about $US75.  Why would you not, especially given that it avoids a night‘s accommodation?

So it is that I’m sitting in a well-appointed little room as we rattle and sway … Read more

Even as life begins to acquire a patina of normality, as we are let loose from the limitations of lock-down, it will be a long time yet before we can start travelling as freely as we once did, but we can still dream about it and more importantly prepare for it.

One of the items higher up on my bucket list is to visit the great art museums of the world.   In Amsterdam The Van Gogh Museum and The Rijksmuseum (The Milkmaid, pictured, is one of the many great works there), the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.  The Musee d’Orsay in Paris.  Been there once but could easily spend at least a whole day there again. Same with the National Gallery in London. Been there, done that  . . . would do it again anytime. And at least a dozen more spread across America and Europe.

There’s just one … Read more

The Lake District is one of the most popular regions for visitors . . . and no wonder.  It is just so blindingly beautiful.

It has inspired poets and writers for centuries.  In fact it gave its name to a group of 19th century writers, the Lake Poets, most prominently William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. But others such as Beatrix Potter and John Ruskin have drawn inspiration from this wonderful visual cocktail of lakes, woodlands and fells.

I remember as a kid at school I had a box of “Lakeland” coloured pencils, made in Keswick, and the photograph on the box fascinated me: The blues, browns and purples of the towering glacier-gouged mountains cradling gentle lake-studded valleys instilled a desire to see it for myself.  It took a while – 35 years – but eventually I got there and it was even more majestic, more inspiring, more … Read more

Don’t let anybody tell you that Adelaide is a boring city.

That was the impression I was given from various sources before I arrived there.

To start with, it’s a very pretty city. The surveyor who laid out the central city area created a huge open parkland around the perimeter of the fledgling town. The result: It’s like someone planted a city in the middle of a park. Which, is, of course, exactly what happened.

The main streets are broad, tree-lined boulevards. The built environment has very largely not been upgraded with a bulldozer over the last century. Thus many, if not most, of the beautiful heritage buildings remain, giving the city a distinctive historic character.

My first encounter with that special character came before I even left the airport.

I came face to face with a World War 1 Vickers Vimy bomber.

Two Adelaide brothers, Ross and Keith … Read more

The guys at the travel blog Hand Luggage Only, Yaya and Lloyd, have put together a collection of 12 of the best day trips in England, like Durdle Door in Dorset on the “Jurassic Coast” (pictured).

I couldn’t have selected them or written it better myself, he said . . . . modestly, of course. (Blush!).

Once the world returns to some semblance of normality and as the summer (or perhaps autumn?) weather arrives any of these destinations would be a great day or two out, or form part of a longer itinerary.

Nearly all of them are included as tours in my upcoming eBook Great British Road Trips. It’s about three weeks from going live.  Keep an eye out for it. It will give you a veritable buffet of things to see and do on any visit to the UK.

In the meantime do a bit of road … Read more