Lara DunstonOne of the reasons I began Cool Travel Guide was to write about the things I couldn’t write about in the highly prescriptive guidebooks I made my living writing. My first post ‘Aleppo: no practicalities’ explained my motivation and my desire to have a space where I could write whatever I wanted to write. I’m … Read more about What is Cool Travel Guide?
There’s a reason I haven’t been blogging much these last few months – or rather, lots of reasons. Terence and I have been busy travelling, mainly through the Middle East – to Syria, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon – on commissions for a number of magazines, and squeezing in some assignments at ‘home’ in the … Read more about In print and online
Only two of the nine countries we visited in the last six months were new to us, places we hadn’t been before and were experiencing for the first time. Obviously, as travel writers, it’s inevitable that we end up returning to places time and time again, particularly as we develop expertise in certain places, as my … Read more about The affection that comes with familiarity versus the energy of an unfamiliar destination
Are you a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ traveller? That is, every country you visit you consider it to be a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience and treat it as such? Do you go to a place thinking you may never get back there again so everything you do is a special adventure? Do you go with the idea that you won’t even … Read more about Are you a once-in-a-lifetime traveller or a creature of habit?
I’ve been silent for some time, I know. We’ve been on the road again in the Middle East on commissions for a few in-flight and travel magazines, and our pace has been hectic to say the least – from hiking and camping at Wadi Rum to floating and spa-ing at the Dead Sea, we’ve done … Read more about An update from the road