501 Places

We counted over 100 restaurants within 10 minutes walk of our appartment, serving over 20 ethnic types of food. New places would spring up regularly, and it was clear that those who were damned by criticism didn’t survive long. So which were my favourites? We spent a year on the Upper East Side in 2003/04, [...]

In any other place these impressive medieval structures would attract many visitors. In Hama, around 200 km north of Damascus, they go largely unnoticed, apart from the occasional tour group passing on its way between the Syrian capital and Aleppo. Yet these giant wheels, mainly dating from the 15th century, dot the city and the [...]

As someone who has not surfed or snow boarded, the chance to do just that in the middle of the desert was too good to pass by. At a rest stop at an oasis on the four day drive south from Lima, we saw the enormous dunes of the Nazca desert, and were tempted by [...]

For this week’s guest post I’m pleased to welcome travel writer and author Andy Hayes. Andy has chosen to  share his love of Amsterdam and give us an insight into the city and its people, taking us beneath its better-known surface. I wasn’t born in Amsterdam, nor is Dutch my native language. But Amsterdam is [...]

Following the recent post in the Europe A La Carte blog on the subject of visiting Auschwitz, I stopped to think about my experiences of visiting places where disasters had occurred or horrendous acts had been commited. I have previously seen another Nazi concentration camp in Austria, visited a number of famous prisons (as described [...]

Last week we were having dinner in a cosy restaurant in Tallinn. Sitting near us were an English speaking man and woman. The tables were arranged quite randomly, but I was facing the two of them while Sam had her back to them. It’s human nature (feel free to disagree) to find other peoples’ conversation [...]

It might not be a surprise to you if I said that these pictures were taken in England. After all, like most places we have our fair quota of safari parks and animal related attractions. What might be unexpected is that you don’t have to pay a penny to get this close to elephants, giraffes [...]

We all benefit from the sensible advice of those who have gone before. Whether it’s around security while travelling, or whether it’s around keeping ourselves healthy, there are many well-versed tips that it would be hard to argue with. What is important to remember however, is that following much of this advice will involve actions [...]

It’s funny how people with the most amazing stories to tell are often the least vocal in sharing their experiences. This was certainly the case with the driver we hired for our short stay in Belarus. Yevgeni had met us early one morning at a rainy railway station in western Belarus. We were a group [...]

I got this idea for a post from a great question at a breakfast meeting today (thank you Carl). If money were no object and you could move around the world throughout the year, where would go and when? This is going to be entirely hypothetical, as the ability to hop from one corner of [...]