Going Local Travel

I’m a big fan of social-networking site MeetUp. Not that I use it very much, but I simply feel comforted to know it exists, so that if I ever have spare time on my hands I can always find interesting new things to do and people to meet. Especially if I go back to London

If you stay in a hostel, your contact is predominantly with other travellers; if you’re in hotel, the receptionist may do a sterling job professing interest in your daily sightseeing, but this rarely goes beyond ten minutes. So how do you break the cycle?

What do murder rates tell us about a country? So asked the Guardian yesterday in a blog listing global homicide figures. I’d like to turn that round and ask: what does a murder rate tell us about tourist safety?

Thinking about going to Peru? How’s this for advice? The water? Is poisonous. The food? Gives you diarrhea. The country? Is ugly. The pollution in Lima makes you choke. And everyone, and I mean everyone — taxi drivers, hotel owners,tour operators, souvenir vendors — tries to rob you. It makes you paranoid. I went to [...]

The UK is ready for a coffee house revolution. Actually, scrap that and let’s call it the café revolution. It was our striving to recreate the All-American ‘coffee house’ that lead to the problem. Now we’re tired of the Costas, the Neros, the Starbucks.

Photo by Sh@wn~c0mbs on Flickr Here’s a dilemma for all you travel writers out there… What do you do when a hotel specifically tells you they do not want to be included within your article/book/website? This situation arose recently for a colleague of mine. (Those on Twitter may remember I mentioned it briefly.) I won’t [...]