July, 2011

Freelance writer Troy Wilkinson writes: The requirements were simple: A bloke weekend with a close mate, somewhere in Europe we’d both never been, easily accessible for both of us, preferably warm and exotic. Quite how we came up with Yorkshire is a bit of a mystery. But perhaps I’m being a bit harsh on England’s north. [...]

Part 1: Preparation is overrated Part two: natural disasters are inevitable; those of the fashion variety are not Part 3: Look who’s made the news again, this time with its jet-setting ash cloud Freelance journalist Laura Burgoine writes: In the first and second installments of this blog I self-indulgently ranted about traveling dilemmas I encountered while in [...]

To really experience Texas, you have to drive across it without air-conditioning in the middle of July. No, not really. But Tammi Jonas did.

The Sicilian city of Palermo is an astonishing 2,700 years old, originally settled by ancient Phoenicians. In its long history Palermo has been ruled by the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and Normans before Italian unification in 1860, and the jumble of influences repeatedly appear throughout Sicilian culture, especially in the island’s wonderful food.

On my first jobless Monday morning, I felt like I was free-falling. I suddenly had nowhere to go, no structure, no chats about the weekend with colleagues in a grubby office kitchen area while making the first cup of tea of the day. I had become institutionalised and really missed a schedule.

Iona Salter writes: Working overseas. Making a difference. Taking your skills and knowledge to the world. Appealing, is it not? It was certainly the sales pitch that sold me on the idea of volunteering on a newspaper in India last year. And it was great. I got to meet interesting people, work in the world’s fastest [...]

Living your very own Indiana Jones adventure isn’t the only attraction luring visitors to Ghana’s Kakum National Park

Underneath the ashes of the exploding volcano, Chilean students are on strike, writes Paul Kearney.

“Is the Ark buried in Poland?” asks Phill, who’s visiting us in Warsaw from the ‘Bra (Canberra, for those not from our nation’s capital). I’ve just been running him through the main options for weekend trips away. “The Masurian Lakes would be nice — if the weather holds, which it probably won’t,” I say. “And [...]

Although we crossed our first bayous before we left Mississippi, as soon as we hit Louisiana we started scouring them for our first glimpse of alligators.