David on August 30th, 2010

The freebie debate The debate about whether journalists and bloggers should accept freebies is so old and hoary that I’m reluctant to bring it up again. But my recent experience in Germany shed a bit of new light on it for me, so tough, back to the well-chewed territory… For those not in the know, [...]

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Continue reading about Travel writing and freebies: The bias that matters

David on August 28th, 2010

The negative impact of cruising In the past, I have been somewhat critical of cruising. As a form of tourism, I believe it is extremely damaging, not only to the environment, but to the culture of the places the gigantic floating resorts visit and the experience of the unfortunate souls who happen to be in [...]

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Continue reading about The most obnoxious form of tourism?

A unique August? In my Twitter feed yesterday, I kept encountering a rather interesting stat. @JJ_Lin (me neither…) had this to say: “INTERESTING FACT ABOUT AUGUST 2010. This August has 5 Sundays, 5 Mondays, 5 Tuesdays, all in one month. It happens once in 823 years.” I don’t follow this chap, but I picked up [...]

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Continue reading about Twitter and the law: The perils of the All You Can Retweet buffet

David on July 8th, 2010

A bottle of water, please Yesterday, I had one of those moments of total shame that well-meaning British people regularly encounter whilst abroad. Attempting to buy a bottle of water in Lisbon, Portugal, I came out with: “Un botella d’agua per favour.” The reply In response to my comically bad combination of French, Spanish and [...]

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Continue reading about Bad language: The shame of the Brit abroad

You’re currently reading the third draft of this post. It was initially designed as a name-and-shame hatchet job. I rewrote it once because I felt it may be a tad unfair, and I rewrote it a second time because I felt it may be a little hypocritical. In the process, I’ve become horribly confused about [...]

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Continue reading about Sponsored posts: Where is the line between journalism and marketing?

David on February 10th, 2010

Millionaire’s giveaway A fascinating story has been doing the rounds today about an Austrian millionaire who plans to give away his entire £3m fortune and live like a pauper. Karl Radeber seems to have decided that money makes him unhappy, and whilst I’ll not be agreeing with that any time soon, one quote attributed to [...]

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Continue reading about The Eternal Awkwardness of Luxury Travel

Future of tourism at Uluru Sydney Morning Herald blogger Clive Dorman has sparked a big debate on the future of tourism at Uluru (the monolith formerly known as Ayers Rock). His reaction seems to be that if you can’t climb the rock, then there’s no point in visiting.   Background to climbing debate That, frankly, [...]

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Continue reading about Why climbing Uluru shouldn’t be banned – and why you shouldn’t climb it

David on November 23rd, 2009

Auto-recliners My recent return journey to the Seychelles was a four leg affair (London – Doha – Mahe and back again), and each time I had the misfortune to sit behind the type of airline passenger I most despise: the auto-recliner.   Seat selfishness We’ve all come across these people. They’re the ones that put [...]

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Continue reading about The battle of the reclining seat: What are the rules?

First trip into the unknown When I went to Bali for the first time in 2000, it was my first real venture outside the relatively sanitised world of Western Europe and Central. Before then, I’d done the usual inter-rail circuit around the big hitters, and – barring the odd encounter with Polish tram inspectors and [...]

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Continue reading about Why not liking a “cultural difference” doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a racist

“You’ll love New York” The other day, I was collared by a friend of a friend, and the subject got on to travel. Within roughly 30 seconds, I got a familiar harangue. “You’ve got to go to New York. You’ll love New York.”   Destination recommendations This happens to me a lot. People meet me [...]

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Continue reading about Why I don’t heart New York: A plea to would-be travel agents