501 Places

Magazine articles, blogs, TV shows, even apps: all make regular claims to help inspire us to choose our next holiday destination. Some of these must work for there to be enough advertising money floating around to keep so many people in business. But so much of what is out there doesn’t inspire me at all. [...]

Information is power, or so we are repeatedly told. We may be living in a consumerist society, but a closer look around us and we see that what we are increasingly consuming is not tangible goods but information and data. We can flick through the latest news stories while we work; we receive instant alerts [...]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If I could be a teenager again, ready to embark on a lifetime of travel, I’d probably do a few things differently second time around. One piece of wisdom I’d offer those about to start their travels would be to experience the joy of creating a collection of stuff. If I [...]

Let’s face it: for most of us a five star hotel is an elusive treat. With travel budgets becoming increasingly tight most people would pay less for a week’s worth of accommodation than some of the most exclusive places charge for a night. But just because staying a night in a top hotel may be [...]

The streets and public squares of Budapest were once dominated by a series of giant imposing statues that celebrated the power of communist philosophy. When the Soviet influence was overthrown the newly elected government had to work out what to do with these over-sized symbols of repression. They decided to set up a dedicated park [...]

Travelling to faraway places will always provide us with exhilarating moments. These are the ones that we use to make our friends and family green with envy on our return home. But a trip of any reasonable length will rarely pass without those times when our happy disposition has a day off (or at the very [...]

Policemen getting younger, footballers 10 years our junior being described as ageing veterans, our early years forever framed in grainy black and white: all reminders that our lives move on at a relentless pace. In our travels too the passage of time provides clear evidence that the world we explore today is quite different from [...]

There was a time around 30 years ago when talking into a large brick was the hallmark of a sophisticated businessman. The mobile phones of the 1980s were barely worthy of the ‘mobile’ tag and must have been an ordeal to hold up to your ears for more than a few moments. Thankfully the cost [...]

Today I completed an email interview for another site. One of the questions required me to give a piece of advice to new inexperienced travellers. Instinctively I wrote that we shouldn’t be shy in talking to strangers; the encounters that result will almost always provide us with our most cherished travel memories. I absolutely believe [...]

Ask a friend or work colleague about their holiday and the chances are that the description will fall somewhere between amazing, awesome and brilliant. In most cases we don’t need to ask; the bronzed storyteller will proudly share every highlight of their holiday with anyone who can’t get away in time. And yet, go to [...]