Going Local Travel

A weird things happens sometimes when you are out for a walk in Buenos Aires. All of a sudden, rain drops start to land on you from nowhere. Is it the start of a passing shower, or one of the city’s full-on, drench-your-bones storms? You look up to check out the clouds. Nada. Not a [...]

It’s been a year since Argentina walked away – to many people’s surprise – with the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for El Secreto de Sus Ojos, staring the country’s biggest sex symbol (in my opinion), Ricardo Darin. 2011 was not a winning one for Latin America in Hollywood, but here are some Oscar-related features [...]

The New York Times has published its hottest travel destinations for 2011 and I must admit the number one surprised me: Santiago de Chile. It shouldn’t really since I gave it a big tip a few months ago too, and it looks like we agree on a lot of attractions. But even though I was [...]

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

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 [...]