When capturing a neighborhood is better than describing a city

In travel writing, I’ve often found that it’s better to capture the soul a neighborhood of a city than try to describe an entire metropolis. A city, after all, is just a collection of neighborhoods, and the best ones are distinctive.

An example: A few scenes of my novel-in-progress take place on Lisbon. Rather than try to … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (1)  | June 29, 2012
Category: Europe, Images from the road, On The Road, Travel Writing, Vagabonding Advice

Organize your visas well to travel stress free

Let’s face it: travelling is much less stressful when you do not need to get yourself a visa. And if you never had such a thought before, believe me, you are either lucky – because you are the holder of a “valuable” nationality passport -, or you have never tried to get to many “off the beaten path” places. As citizens of Western countries, we are extremely advantaged in our travel options: you … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Organize your visas well to travel stress free  | June 28, 2012
Category: General, Notes from the collective travel mind, On The Road, Vagabonding Life

Review: the travel halo

“The travel pillow for people who hate travel pillows!”~ thetravelhalo.com

Booking overnight transportation can reduce the number of nights one stays in hostels or hotels; but adequate rest in the upright position is challenging. And honestly, most travel pillows out there aren’t worth the space and effort to bring along. I’ve field tested a number of different kinds…

1) Complementary ones on the planes 2) Rectangular ones filled with foam beads 3) The … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (1)  | June 28, 2012
Category: General, Travel Gear

The Points Guy is your travel credit card guru

I stayed away from frequent flyer credit cards for a long time, because I wanted to avoid debt. The other reason was that since I lived in Asia, flights were relatively cheap anyway. Looking back, there were a lot of missed opportunities to earn air miles. Now that I’m back in the States, my situation has changed. Getting outside of North America can easily cost over $1,000. As a result, I researched into travel rewards … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on The Points Guy is your travel credit card guru  | June 25, 2012
Category: Air Travel, Money Management

The best travel books show the conflict between writer and place

“What is a travel book? For me it is the story of what happened to one person in a particular place, and nothing more than that; it does not contain hotel and highway information, lists of useful phrases, statistics, or hints as to what kind of clothing is to be needed by the intending visitor. It may be that such books form a category which is doomed to extinction. I hope not, because there is … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on The best travel books show the conflict between writer and place  | June 25, 2012
Category: Travel Quote of the Day

Vagabonding Field Report: Making my way from Cape Town to Nairobi (South Africa & Mozambique edition)

Cost/day: $35/day

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen lately?

In South Africa, seeing a lion eat an impala, a family of elephants cross the road, two giraffes fight, rhinos hanging out, a leopard chase its prey and a handful of other breathtaking scenes at Kruger National Park was definitely “strange.” It honestly didn’t feel like it could possibly be real.

In Mozambique, the chapas – a shared mini-bus taxi that is typically the only mode … Read more »

Posted by | Comments Off on Vagabonding Field Report: Making my way from Cape Town to Nairobi (South Africa & Mozambique edition)  | June 23, 2012
Category: Africa, Vagabonding Field Reports

Introducing the Summer Version of the Around the World Airfare Report

Back in the spring, we at BootsnAll published our first version of the Around the World Airfare Report.  The purpose of this research project was to outline the various flight options available to round the world travelers and price out several real itineraries for comparison purposes.  We not only recorded the difference in prices, but also customer service, search options, route flexibility, and date flexibility.

As we were putting the finishing touches on the … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (1)  | June 23, 2012
Category: Notes from the collective travel mind

“Outsourced” (2006) — a travel film that gets it right

When it comes to films about travel, there are more bad movies than good ones. Case in point: “The Way” (2010), which stars Martin Sheen as a doctor who treks the Camino de Santiago (in Spain and France) following the death of his son.  There wasn’t a bead of sweat on the characters during the entire film, and I’ve never seen so many trekkers wearing jeans. Every few minutes the characters talk about how no … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (2)  | June 22, 2012
Category: General

The joy of research, post #I: Breathing life into the archives

When writing a novel involving places that actually exist, you need to get the details exactly right or the boat won’t float. And the details aren’t just in the names and locations. It’s the sensory data that pulls the reader in.

I’m currently in the process of writing such a novel. The story takes the main character … Read more »

Posted by | Comments (3)  | June 22, 2012
Category: Adventure Travel, Europe, Travel Writing