How to trace 72-year-old ghosts in Thailand: part one
One memento survived my grandad's years as a prisoner of war: a Thai business card dated August 1945. Seventy-two years on, I went to Lopburi to find the place.
How to trace 72-year-old ghosts in Thailand: part two
Day two of the hunt for the restaurant that fed my grandad in 1945. A motorcycle taxi, a printing shop, and a driver who pointed across the road and said a name.
How to visit the legendary valleys of Pakistan
Ancient empires, colourful cultures, spectacular nature and very few tourists to spoil the view. Northern Pakistan, before it changes forever.
Into the heart of Zululand
Three nights above the Buffalo River, with Isandlwana on one side of the veranda and Rorke's Drift on the other. The best of two weeks in South Africa.
Egypt in the time of Covid
For a few months the pyramids were empty, Abu Simbel was mine alone and the grand Nile hotels went for a song. A record of a window that closed.
Paris's best tourist site you've probably never seen
Nearly every king of France is buried in a basilica twenty minutes from the centre of Paris. There is no queue, even at weekends, and almost nobody goes.
Five surprises in Colombia
Two weeks in Bogota and Cartagena, and five things I did not see coming. Some good, some not. The coffee was the biggest shock, and not in the way you would think.
The traveller myths of Tokyo
Two weeks in Japan left me disagreeing with most of what I had been told about Tokyo. The bullet train, the high-tech city, the spotless streets. Five myths busted.
Haute Kotor: Montenegro's gem on the Adriatic
A bay that looks like a Norwegian fjord, a medieval town the cruise ships love, and a village almost nobody bothers with. All a short hop south of Croatia.
Seville, a joyous place for a post-Christmas break
I thought Spain held no surprises left. Then I spent a week wandering the orange-tree streets of Santa Cruz in November sunshine and had to revise the whole opinion.
Fort Worth, the intriguing cowboy cousin of Dallas
Dallas gets the airport name and the TV show. Fort Worth has a working stockyard, a cattle drive twice a day and a honky-tonk the size of an aircraft hangar.
Minsk, city of surprises and Soviet chic
A green, spacious, unexpectedly cheerful capital that almost nobody from the West had visited. A record of a trip made before the door closed.