Travel stories, quotes and fun facts

Nyepi silence

For twenty-four hours the airport closes, the lights go off and nobody leaves the house. At night the sky over Bali is the darkest it gets all year, and everybody looks up.

Chad's lake keeps shrinking

Lake Chad has lost most of its surface area since the 1960s due to drought and irrigation, affecting millions.

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

Libya has an underground river project

The Great Man-Made River pumps fossil groundwater from beneath the Sahara through thousands of kilometres of pipe.

The volcano hike we regretted

Two in the morning, a gas mask, and miners carrying ninety kilos of sulphur up the same path in flip-flops. Nobody in our group complained again about anything.

Tunisia hosted a film set that still stands

Underground Berber homes in Matmata were used as film locations and are still lived in and rented to travellers.

Carthage rivalled Rome

Carthage was one of the Mediterranean's great powers until Rome destroyed it in 146 BC, then rebuilt it as a Roman city.

Extraordinary travel writing

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity.

Komodo standoff

The ranger carried a forked stick, which seemed insufficient. The dragon was entirely uninterested and we walked around it feeling both relieved and slightly insulted.

Algeria is Africa's largest country

Algeria covers 2.38 million square kilometres, most of it Sahara, and became the continent's biggest country after Sudan split.

The Sahara holds prehistoric art

Rock paintings in Tassili show swimmers, cattle and hippos, proof the desert was green within the last 10,000 years.

Jakarta traffic economy

There is an entire economy in a traffic jam: water, snacks, phone chargers, umbrellas. We bought lunch through a car window without stopping.

Ever tried, ever failed

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Morocco has blue and white cities

Chefchaouen's lanes are painted in dozens of blue shades, a tradition variously credited to Jewish refugees and to repelling insects.

Borneo river night

The guide switched off the engine and we drifted. The forest was louder than the boat had been. Something large moved in the water and nobody asked what it was.

Fes has a car-free medina

Fes el Bali is one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world, where goods still move by donkey.

Morocco built a giant solar plant

The Noor complex uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight and can store heat in molten salt to generate power after sunset.

The best journeys answer questions

The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning you didn't even think to ask.

Hawker centre etiquette

A packet of tissues on a table means the table is taken. This is not a rule anyone writes down, and breaking it once is enough to learn it.

Goats climb argan trees

In southwest Morocco goats climb argan trees for the fruit, a sight that has become a roadside attraction.

Mauritania runs an iron ore train

One of the longest trains in the world hauls iron ore over 700 kilometres across the Sahara, and travellers ride it free on the ore cars.

Rain at four

It rained at four in the afternoon for five days in a row, for exactly twenty-five minutes each time. By day three we planned our coffee around it.

Travel isn't always pretty

Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. But that's okay. The journey changes you.

Cape Verde is entirely volcanic

All ten Cape Verdean islands are volcanic, and Fogo's cone still has villages farming on its crater floor.