Travel magazine
Six running series and hundreds of articles, written by the people who plan the trips.
When to go
Seasons, month by month, region by region
What it costs
Real budgets in dollars, with tables
Routes that work
Tested itineraries and combinations
Eating across Asia
What to order and where
On foot
Treks and long walks, described honestly
Before you book
Visas, permits, timing, practicalities

Hiking Seoraksan, and how Koreans actually hike
South Korea is roughly seventy percent mountain and it is one of the great walking countries of Asia, which almost nobody says…

Ryokan etiquette, without the anxiety
Almost every client who books a ryokan asks us some version of the same question: what if I get it wrong?

The road to Xinaliq, and the walking above it
Xinaliq is a village of stone houses stacked along a ridge in the far north of Azerbaijan, at roughly 7,500 feet (2,300…

Australia month by month, starting with the red centre
Australia does not have a season. It has at least three climates running on different calendars, and the reason we keep recommending…

Rajasthan in twelve days, and what to leave out
Most Rajasthan briefs that reach our desk contain eight places. Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, a tiger park, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur and something in…

Punakha and the central valleys: the best part of Bhutan
If we could change one thing about the standard Bhutan itinerary, it would be this: more nights east of the Dochula pass…

The Philippines with children: what works, what does not, and what we change
The Philippines is a genuinely good country to travel in with children, and it is not the easiest one in Asia. Those…

The Philippines month by month, and which islands work when
The best time to visit the Philippines is February to April, and if that is all you need, you can stop reading.…

The internal flight problem nobody warns you about in the Philippines
The Philippines is more than seven thousand islands. That number is in every article ever written about the country, and it is…

The Philippines for the first time: what surprises people
Nobody has a bad first trip to the Philippines. What they have, quite often, is a trip in which three or four…

How much does two weeks in the Philippines really cost?
The Philippines is cheaper than people expect to be in and more expensive than they expect to sleep in, and almost every…

Palawan, Siargao or Bohol in 2026: which island suits you
Palawan for landscape, Bohol for easy days and children, Siargao for surf. Days each needs, how to get there, when to go,…

Where to eat in Osaka without queueing for two hours
Osaka has a phrase for itself, kuidaore, which means roughly to eat yourself into ruin. It is the food city of Japan,…

Old Dubai in two days
The best part of Dubai is a saltwater inlet with wooden boats on it, and most visitors give it ninety minutes on…

Walking the Nuratau mountains, and sleeping at Aydarkul
Two thirds of the way through an Uzbekistan trip, something happens to most travellers. They have seen four or five extraordinary tiled…

Northern Vietnam: motorbike, or a car with a driver?
The northern Vietnam motorbike or car question comes up in almost every Ha Giang enquiry we receive, usually phrased as though there…

New Zealand with children
New Zealand is one of the easiest countries in the world to travel with children, and one of the easiest to get…

New Zealand month by month
Two calendars decide a New Zealand trip and only one of them is the weather.

Which of New Zealand’s Great Walks should you do?
There are eleven Great Walks, the Department of Conservation's network of multi-day tracks with maintained huts, and choosing between them is usually…

New Zealand for the first time
Most first New Zealand trips are planned the same way, and they go wrong in the same three places. People choose the…

New Zealand for the first time: the drives take longer than the map says
Almost every New Zealand itinerary that arrives on our desk from a first-time planner has the same fault, and it is not…

How much do two weeks in New Zealand really cost?
New Zealand costs more than most visitors expect, and the reason is not the hotels. It is that the country's signature days…

Nepal with children
Nepal is a better family destination than its reputation suggests, with one firm condition attached: below altitude it works extremely well, and…

What to eat in Nepal, and where
Nepali food has a reputation problem, and the reason is that most visitors only ever eat two versions of it: the standardised…
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