San Diego has a reputation as an expensive California city, and the headline attractions do their best to earn it. SeaWorld, the zoo and Legoland will take a couple of hundred dollars off a family before lunch. But the actual character of the place is beaches, canyons, tacos and 70 miles of coastline, and almost
San Diego on a Budget: How to Do It Without Overspending Read More »
Florence is small. Genuinely small, about a mile across, and after three days most people have seen the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Accademia and the Ponte Vecchio and are wondering what’s next. What’s next is that Florence sits at the centre of the best regional rail network in Italy. You can be in a completely
The Best Day Trips from Florence You Can Actually Do by Train Read More »
Vegas is very good at separating people from money in exchange for a slightly worse version of something they could get cheaper elsewhere. That’s not a criticism, it’s the business model. But there’s a real city here, and a desert around it that’s genuinely spectacular, and most visitors never see either. So: the things that
The Most Overrated Things to Do in Las Vegas (And What to Do Instead) Read More »
I’ve done a fair amount of travelling alone and I’ve been bad at it in most of the ways it’s possible to be bad at it. None of these mistakes ruined a trip. They just made things harder, more expensive or less enjoyable than they needed to be, which is worse in a way, because
Solo Travel Mistakes I Made So You Don’t Have To Read More »
Most people book Italy for June, July or August, stand in a queue at 35 degrees, and come home saying it was beautiful but exhausting. October is the month I’d pick, and it’s not close. Fewer people, better prices, and food that only exists at this time of year. There are real trade-offs though, and
Italy in October: What It’s Actually Like (and Why It May Beat Summer) Read More »
Palm Springs is two hours east of Los Angeles in the middle of a desert, and for about forty years it was where Hollywood went to disappear for the weekend. Then it got old and unfashionable, and then in the 2000s everyone rediscovered the architecture and it got extremely fashionable again. What’s left is a
8 Things to Do in Palm Springs That’ll Make You Want to Move There Read More »
Naples has an image problem and it’s mostly unfair. Rubbish, crime, chaos, the Camorra. People book one night on the way to the Amalfi Coast and spend it slightly on edge. What’s actually there: the best archaeological museum in Italy, a Baroque city centre that’s a UNESCO site, catacombs, the food capital of the country,
The Best Things to Do in Naples (and Why It Deserves More Than a Night) Read More »
The Pacific Coast Highway is the drive everyone means when they say California road trip. Roughly 650 miles from San Francisco to San Diego, most of it with the ocean out of the passenger window. The mistake people make is treating it as a transit route and doing it in two days. You can. You’ll
The Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip: Best Stops Worth the Detour Read More »
These two get lumped together constantly and they are not the same country, obviously, but also not the same proposition for someone moving. I live in Spain, so treat everything below with that in mind. I’ve also spent enough time in Portugal to know where Spain loses. Here’s the honest version, category by category. Cost
Spain vs Portugal for Expats: An Honest Comparison Read More »
Here’s a fact that makes the Oregon coast different from California’s: every inch of the beach is public. All 363 miles of it, by law, since 1967. No private beaches, no gated resorts, no paying to see the sea. That single decision shaped the whole coastline and it’s why this drive feels less developed than
The Oregon Coast Road Trip: Best Stops Between Astoria and Brookings Read More »
