Why this is not a travel guide
What you will find here, what you will not, and why the best travel stories almost always start when something goes wrong.
The internet already has all the travel guides it needs.
If you want to know how many days to give a city, which neighbourhood is convenient to stay in and which museum opens on Mondays, there are ten thousand better-ranked pages that will tell you in more detail and more up to date.
What is in short supply is someone telling you what actually happened to them.
What you will find here
Accounts. Short ones. First person.
What surprised me about a place, what I did not expect, what went wrong, what I would do again tomorrow and what I would not do again if you paid me.
Food, above all. I think you understand more about a culture in a market at seven in the morning than on any guided tour.
And a fair amount about travelling alone, which is a category of its own and completely changes what you see.
What you will not find
Stock photos. Everything here I took myself, even if it was with my phone and even if it is not perfect.
Empty superlatives. No place is going to be "magical" or "incredible". If I have to use those words it is because I did not make the effort to describe what I actually saw.
And no optimised itineraries. The best days I have had travelling were not in anyone's plan.
A practical note
When I recommend something I genuinely used, whether a place to stay, a platform or a book, the link may be an affiliate one. It is always stated at the foot of the article.
The rule is simple and I am not going to break it: I only recommend what I used. A link that is there because it pays well rather than because it works destroys the one thing that makes this worth reading.
That is it. The stories start with the next one.
Some articles may include affiliate links. I only recommend what I actually used, and it is always stated at the foot of the article.