Places we keep going back to
Long walks, short budgets and real notes: solo routes walked, ridden or booked before they are written about here.
Night trains first
Market mornings
Two weeks, one bag
Ferries over flights
Where the budget goes
Slow mornings in Oia
Cities after dark
Notes from the road
Fresh off the press
- Eight Checks for a Building That Leaks HeatHow to read your own walls with a thermal camera or a careful eye: thermal bridges, air leaks, damp spots and the small repairs that stop the loss.
- Seven Things I Checked in Cappadocia Rock RoomsWhat I looked at inside the carved stone rooms of Cappadocia: tuff, ventilation shafts, daylight openings and why the walls stay cool without aircon.
- Six Things I Do in the First HourThe hour between stepping off the bus and dropping the bag: water, a photographed timetable, one loop on foot and the bread price that prices the week.
- Hostel Kitchen Rules I Learned the Hard WaySeven rules from a month in Porto and six weeks in Tbilisi: the 19:00 rush, why I date everything I open, and what I do with food before checkout day.
- Which Room Faces the Sun: What I Check FirstAfter ten month-long rentals: how I read a flat for afternoon heat, the three questions that get real answers, and why I took the cheaper north-facing room.
Santorini Slow Days: Oia Without the RushThree quiet days in Oia: how the whitewashed houses catch the sun, why the lanes sit where they do, and the hours when the island feels almost private.- The Last Train to the City: Three Options PricedA 22:40 landing and three ways into the centre, each priced in minutes and euros: last train, night bus, taxi, and the night I walked 6.4 kilometres instead.
- Atomium in Brussels: Nine Spheres and One Big IdeaWalking the Atomium in Brussels: what an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times looks like from inside the nine spheres, the twenty tubes and the stairs.
- Bamboo Scaffolds and the Patience of Southeast AsiaHong Kong scaffolds, a bamboo restaurant in Sri Lanka and the woven everyday objects that made me rethink what sustainable building actually means.
- Ertan Dam: What a Retired Engineer Told MeA slow trip to the Ertan dam in China, and the drawing-office stories I heard there about tracing paper, hand-cut corrections and AutoCAD arriving.
- Hong Kong at Night: Six Things Worth Looking AtA night walk through Hong Kong after thirty years away: Nathan Road LEDs, harbour reflections and the street details I now photograph instead of neon.
- Hong Kong Vertical City: Nine Things I PhotographA photo checklist for Hong Kong's vertical streets: footbridge decks, tower setbacks, tram wires and the small details that show how the city stacks up.
- Night Bus Maths: What the Sleeper SavesI priced four overnight buses against a day coach plus a hostel bed, wrote down the arrival hours, and found the three conditions where the saving survives.
- Why I Book the Second-Cheapest BedThe lowest price in a city is usually priced for people who did not look. Six checks I run on any bed before I pay, with the numbers I will not go under.
- Tbilisi Sulphur Walk: Pipes, Steps and BathsA 45 minute loop through the sulphur quarter: where the walk climbs, what the old bathhouses charged me, and the two hours of the day when the valley is quiet.