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Category / Don’t Be A Tourist

A Spiritual Revisiting of the Lost Beatles Ashram

‘Roll up! Roll up! for the mystery tour’… a mystery indeed, given the chaos that subsequently engulfed The Beatles on their return from India to the West in 1968. Following the ground breaking success of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Fab Four plus an entourage of no less than 60 people (including wives,…

Vacationing with Wes Anderson: The American Motel Edition

Wes Anderson did it again with another eye-feast of aesthetics in “Asteroid City”, set in futuristic quasi-mid-century Southwestern United States, a barren desert setting reminiscent of New Mexico or Arizona. He’s made us want to pack some hard-sided suitcases, load up the station wagon, and get our kicks back on Route 66. After watching Asteroid…

I Went to Rome’s Last Surviving Adult Theatre So You Don’t Have To

The Romans are famous for a lot of things – building and conquering empires, trade, art, food – and don’t forget sex! Pompeii was excavated at the end of the 19th century and the archeologists who uncovered the city found themselves surrounded by erotic images at every turn. For more than a hundred years, there…

The Bittersweet Story of the World’s First Motel

It’s as American as Apple Pie in all its neon-lit glory, evoking our collective cultural memory of 1950s road-tripping, film noir fugitive hideouts and the golden age of kitsch. The motel is as much a part of the American open road as the gas station and the roadside diner, an indispensable amenity to the roving motorist; the…

Your Ticket Aboard the World’s First Cruise Ship

Let’s take a cruise through history (see what I did there) aboard the SS Prinzessin Victoria Luise, a German passenger ship of the Hamburg-America Line launched in 1900 and credited with having been the first purpose-built cruise ship. It only spent six years in service before it was accidentally grounded off the coast of Jamaica (oops),…

New York’s Incredible Lost Rooftop Theatres

There are some things we’ve lost that I’ll never understand. Midcentury automobile design comes to mind, as well as piano bars & cocktail lounges on our airplanes, hand-painted typography and artisanal signs lining our high streets, and now, I’ll add rooftop theatres to my list. From previous research on the ladies of the Ziegfeld Follies, I’d come across the…

Travelling Modern Europe with a Victorian Railway Guidebook

Are you looking for a way to travel back in time? Well, we haven’t cracked the laws of physics yet, but we have the next best thing – a guidebook from another time. Move over Lonely Planet, Bradshaw’s was one of the original guides that inspired the British to travel the Continent for leisure.  Bradshaw’s…

A Brief Compendium of Places With Secret Passages

It is a well known fact that an underground tunnel connects 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister’s residence in London, with number 12 (we’re not sure why number 11 was left out) but it is surprising just how many residences, both old and new, are harbouring hidden passages. Secret doors and passageways have been…

Built in the Clouds, they’re the Highest Villages Frozen in Time

When you’re looking to escape the tedium of modern and mainstream tourism, sometimes the only way is up. Today, our armchair travels will take us to some of the most remote (and highest) villages in the world, from Europe to middle America to Egypt. But of course, we’re not just going to drop you on…
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Mum & Dad named me Vanessa, but you can call me Nessy.

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