Field Notes
The slow art of missing your train in Lisbon
The 28 tram was pulling away as I reached the stop. For once, I let it go — and the afternoon got better for it.
The Archive
All stories
Every piece in the digest — a place, a person, or a country, and the one thing worth knowing before you go.
People
The last lighthouse keeper on the Breton coast
Yann has watched the same stretch of Atlantic for thirty years. The light went automatic long ago. He stayed anyway.
Countries
Why Iceland runs on hot water
A country of 390,000 people heats nearly every home from the ground beneath it. Here's what that feels like — and what it quietly teaches the rest of us.
Guides
48 hours in Kyoto, minus the crowds
A thousand shrines, ten million visitors, and a simple trick for seeing the best of the old capital without queuing for any of it: be early, or be elsewhere.
Field Notes
Karl the fog, and a city that dresses for four seasons at once
Locals have a name for the fog that pours over the hills most afternoons — Karl — and planning around him is the first thing you learn here.
Guides
Why New Yorkers quietly pity you for taking a cab
The fastest, cheapest and most honest way to understand New York is the one most visitors avoid: go underground.
Field Notes
The unwritten rules of a London escalator
Every city has unwritten rules. London's are mostly about queuing, apologising, and — above all — which side of the escalator you stand on.
Field Notes
The one word that changes how Paris treats you
Travelers love to call Parisians rude. Usually they just skipped a word the whole city runs on.
Countries
Rome’s 2,500 fountains, and the empire that still waters them
All over Rome, cast-iron fountains pour cold, drinkable water day and night — fed, in part, by aqueducts the emperors built.
Field Notes
A ferry between continents, twice a day
In Istanbul the morning commute can take you from Europe to Asia and back — by ferry, under circling gulls, for the price of a bus ticket.
Guides
How to get lost in Marrakech without getting fleeced
The medina is a maze by design. Getting lost in it is part of the fun — right up until a stranger offers to help you find your way.
People
The pyramids have a bus stop
The pyramids are not out in some distant desert. They sit at the edge of a living city of twenty million, with traffic and a pizza sign in view.
Field Notes
In Cape Town, the mountain decides your plans
You can plan a day in Cape Town however you like, but Table Mountain and the wind that wraps it get the final say.
Countries
Everything in Dubai is the tallest, newest or biggest — on purpose
Half a century ago this was a trading town on the edge of the desert. The skyline you see now was built, quite deliberately, to astonish.
People
Mumbai runs on a system no app has managed to beat
Every weekday, thousands of home-cooked lunches cross Mumbai and reach the right desk, almost never going astray — carried by hand.
Guides
What to wear to a Bangkok temple, and why it matters
Bangkok's temples are free, dazzling, and strict about one thing: what you wear through the gate.
Field Notes
Bali offers itself to everyone, and somehow stays itself
Bali has spent decades offering itself to the world — surfers, honeymooners, yogis, laptop nomads — and remains stubbornly, deeply itself.
Field Notes
In Sydney, the sun is a local hazard
Sydney lives outdoors — harbour, beaches, endless sun. The catch is that the sun here is genuinely dangerous.
Guides
Why you should arrive in Cusco a day early
Cusco sits at 3,400 metres, and the altitude is not a detail to power through. Plan for it and the old Inca capital opens up.
Field Notes
Rio belongs to the street, so pack like it
Rio happens outdoors — on the sand, in the water, along the promenade. Which is exactly why you should leave most of your valuables behind.
Countries
Why travelers to Buenos Aires carry crisp dollars
In Buenos Aires, the smartest thing in your luggage might be a stack of clean US dollars — thanks to an exchange rate with two very different faces.