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As the world starts to open up to travel again after a year of COVID-19 enforced lockdowns and movement limitations, I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact of travel on the mind. We often think about the physical aspects of travel – the places we go to, the environments we find ourselves in and the impact on the body of arduous treks or...
Read MoreWe are both haggard from WHAT we'VE left behind temporarily for this trip. Our monotonous lives riddled with the confinements of work and the banality of our own private affairs of Western civilisation. Hers in Berlin and mine in Melbourne. But we met in the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh city, where our internal voices are drawn out of us as...
Read MoreI have read that only when a traveller returns from India, will they know for certain if they wish to go back. As if an Indian experience needs to be processed over time, like film used to be. And an Indian experience assaults all of the senses. Travellers depart with a collection of rich and often confronting experiences that go one of two ways:...
Read More“Hallelujah!” I hear Tom scream. “Come quick, Mike, it’s a miracle!” I detect the faint sound of running water from the top floor of our rustic guesthouse. Nine days deep in the Himalaya - long enough to forget the existence of creature comforts. Leaping off my bed with newfound agility, I scoop up my travel towel in the swift motion I’d...
Read MoreIt’s 2:37am. I’m in the eighth row of a community college lecture hall listening to Moroccan teens singing Bruno Mars and Beyonce in endearing broken English. It’s the middle of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month and as I struggle to stay awake for the open mic-style entertainment, the vitality of those around me erupts. Bounds between artist and...
Read MoreI grew up in 90’s Poland, where even if you were upper middle class you struggled for money a little bit, and ‘never pick up a hitch hiker’ hadn’t yet become one of the most basic things to teach your children. This is why it was obvious to me that the best way to see the world on a low budget was to stick out my thumb and
Read MoreFinding the word ‘Timbuktu’ in my atlas was a revelation. I’d thought it was a mythical city. On my discovery, aged 12, I determined that one day I would go there. Never mind that it seemed utterly inaccessible, nestled in the southern Sahara Desert. Somehow, I would find
Read MoreCompleting your own adventure, whether it is a planned expedition or a small one, will make you understand the importance of nature and its beauty. It offers you the freedom to escape the stress and pressure of urban life. Traveling alone through vast wilderness keeps me motivated and
Read MoreAfter spending a day overheated and discombobulated and walking around the Taj Mahal with a French couple I met at my hostel, I headed out on an overnight bus to Varanasi. I arrived at my next hostel sticky, pretty smelly and hoping to catch up on lost sleep but was quickly caught up by an enthusiastic American wanting to show me around his...
Read MoreAlright so, there is not really much chance to go out of Korea, so I’m kind of like a rare case. They don’t even think about wanting to go out because there hasn’t been any talks about it being a good thing to go out, a good thing to have an experience in another country. They think we should live in, like, hell — no not hell. It’s just hard,...
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