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When is it reasonable to expect someone to speak English?
“Food, you have food?” I asked, breaking into a knife and fork shovel mime. “Sticky rice?” came the reply. “Fried noodle?” I tried. “Sticky rice. Soup” “OK, sticky rice, soup.” There was no real
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Why local does not equal good
The other day, I ended up in a Twitter discussion about halo halo. For those yet to encounter this colourful take on dessert, it’s a Filipino concoction in which just about everything – jelly,
Read More »The perfect press trip
In recent times, I’ve encountered a few press trip frustrations that, from my point of view, just didn’t need to happen. It got me thinking – what would my ideal press trip consist of?
Read More »Why private tours don’t work (for me)
One-on-one tour On the e-mail, the words I secretly dread appeared. “We can offer you a guide for three hours,” it said. My heart sank. In many ways, having a personal, one-on-one guided tour
Read More »Eight year old guidelines for travel writers
Going through a few old folders on my computer earlier, I came across something I must have written eight or nine years ago. This was back in another life when I was editing a
Read More »An open letter to hotel receptionists
Dear hotel receptionists, Imagine someone comes into your hotel. They say they’re a journalist, and would like to see a room as they’re writing a city guide and need to recommend places to say.
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