One of the downsides of running a blog is dealing with the spam comments – the ones promoting online casinos, car insurance, dodgy meds and women with no clothes on. A plug-in called Akismet gets most of them (94,176 spam comments since I installed it) but some slip through and I have to delete them [...]

Just thought I’d alert you to an interview with Paul Theroux in the Guardian today. He was one of my biggest influences when I was starting out – particularly his book The Great Railway Bazaar. In the piece he talks about the genesis of that book and his views in general on the travel writing [...]

I’ve just been reading Blood River by Tim Butcher. It’s an account of the author’s journey through the Congo following in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley. Tim is a foreign correspondent for the Daily Telegraph (UK) so it is extremely well-researched and full of interesting stuff on the history of this troubled corner of [...]

It’s funny, of all my trips, it’s the one I did from London to Sydney that seems to capture people’s imagination most. I’m always getting email from people about to set off to do it themselves. And cornered after talks by travellers who have attempted all or most of it. I’ve even had a beer [...]

First of all thanks to everyone who came along to the TNT Travel Show on Saturday. It was a load of fun. It was a bit of a bugger that the two talks were scheduled at either end of the day. But it meant I got the chance to tuck into a roast pork roll [...]

I’m giving two talks at the TNT Travel Show in London tomorrow. It’s on at the New Connaught Rooms, 61-65 Great Queen St, London WC2. I’ve embedded a Google Map below. The first one is called Getting Off The Gringo Trail and is about travelling through difficult and challenging destinations. It’s on at 11 am. [...]

The Guardian are running a story written by one of their journos about the Moscow Metro today. And they’re using pictures I took on my trip to Moscow last year in a picture gallery. You’ll find Paul Torpey’s story here. And my photos here.

After spending close to three months in Italy buying a lot of Kinder Surprises in my search for an elusive green toy Vespa, I became something of an expert on all things Kinder. For example, I developed the uncanny ability to tell if there was a crappy jigsaw inside just by holding an unopened egg! [...]