Want a great glimpse into today’s China? Check out The Globe and Mail‘s current China Diaries series. The Globe’s China correspondent, Mark MacKinnon, and staff photojournalist John Lehmann are travelling the route of the Long March, mainly by train. (The photo above is not Lehmann’s due to copyright restrictions.) Today’s installment looks at an enterprising [...]

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For all you Bond fans who have already seen Skyfall 10 times and dream of having Q refit your house, there’s an exhibition in Toronto you won’t want to miss…and it closes this weekend. I had a chance to see Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style at the TIFF Lightbox shortly after it opened. TIFF–short [...]

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A book that combines two of my favourite things: travel and recipes! How could I resist? I’ve been eager to read Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World since it came out in 2010. But, with one thing and another, I just got around to it now. And I’m [...]

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Way back in July, I blush to admit, fellow blogger Edie Jarolim very kindly invited me to participate in a blogosphere event called My 7 Links. Edie writes the wonderful pet-lovers’ blog Will My Dog Hate Me?, which is by turns hilarious, informative and heartbreaking, depending on the day. And My 7 Links is sponsored [...]

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That question occurred to me while reading a Financial Times article by veteran travel writer Paul Theroux about his new book, The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives of the Road. Theroux subscribes quite enthusiastically to the belief that only journeys fraught with danger, disease, fear, loathing, despair and monumental challenge are worth reading about. [...]

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“This is the story of my midlife crisis,” writes journalist Lisa Napoli in the preface to her charming memoir, Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. (If midlife crises aren’t your thing, don’t stop reading–this is a book that focuses much more on the people Napoli meets than on herself.) [...]

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Very tardily, I’m getting around to reviewing two cool iPhone apps that have crossed my desk in recent months. Sutro Media’s Falling for Niagara by Barbara Orr ($1.99) was just updated. It’s a comprehensive guide to this iconic destination, with a heavier focus on the busier Canadian side than the relatively quiet American side. It includes [...]

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Antigua and Barbuda is the first country on the Year of Geography list I’ve actually visited. Granted, I was about 15 on my only trip of more than 24 hours; the other visits were quick stops on the way to and from Montserrat. But I did get to spend a very long night on one [...]

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Unfortunately, Algeria is going through a bit of a rough patch this week, as riots have broken out to protest the soaring prices of food staples such as sugar. However, as I plan to do in the Year of Geography, I’m going to focus less on news and more on history and culture. And when [...]

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As British writer David Aaronovitch points out in the introduction to his 2000 travel book/memoir, Paddling to Jerusalem, in the last few years writers have walked around England under the guise of just about every gimmick imaginable. From south to north, around the coast, up the middle, round the sides, in wheelchairs, on one leg, [...]

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