On the late evening of October 16th 2009, after a Green Day concert in Rotterdam, I returned to the hostel in Amsterdam where I happened to be staying. The concert had been great, and I came back to the hostel with a box of stirfry noodles I’d bought at the little shop near Rembrandt Square. This hostel was located in an 18th century building on one of the oldest canals in Amsterdam, held nearly 180 tenants at full capacity, and was popular for its proximity to the Red Light District. Continue reading “In Amsterdam: The Haunted Hostel” →

You won’t be bored in Banff. This quaint little town and its stunning environment revolve completely around tourism and there’s a plethora of activities to keep the visitor occupied. It can be hard to make the right pick. To get you started, here are fifteen fantastic activities – hiking, nightlife, tours, museum, and tourist attractions – to consider. Continue reading “In Banff: The Top 15 Things To Do” →

Britain began at Brussels South Station. Its government insisted on a hard border in the middle of the idealistic European capital – on paper, anyway. In reality, neither the Belgian nor the British customs agent seemed to care much. Continue reading “The full first chapter of “In Britain: The Long Path to Cape Wrath”” →

When we think of the travel book, we generally think of the solo traveller who took a trip, went home and wrote his or her story – the loner who bounces back larger than life. This is the classic travel memoir. There are people who say that the travel genre is one of the lowest forms of literature. There are also people who say that it’s a rather obsolete genre because all the information we need on virtually every destination in the world is readily available on travel blogs these days. Continue reading “The art of travel writing” →

Just this week I finished my two-week journey around the Netherlands. It wasn’t a holiday, as some people tend to think, but a trip I undertook deliberately to write about. After spending the last six months of 2017 visiting and interviewing museum directors, some celebrities,  professionals and other experts throughout the country, I revisited all these destinations again to make the reports and interviews part of a travel story. The result is a stunning and interesting story about this small kingdom, told from many angles, but unfortunately, the book is in Dutch. On the bright side: I took hundreds of photos, and what follows below is a selection of the twenty best pictures taken during the trip. Continue reading “My Trip Through The Netherlands In Twenty Pictures” →