Story
Why I Only Lasted Five Days in Sri Lanka
“You are a woman. And you are from…” the first man said. “Norway,” I said to correct what I assumed to be his assumption of my origin. I had done…
Greece: A Reluctant Journal of a Forgotten Humanitarian Emergency
“They are here because you were there. There is an umbilical connection.” – Stuart Hall, Black Chronicles. The following is a reluctant journal of my time volunteering on the Search…
Mass Panic in Tokyo
To the last man standing. To the big night out. The party isn’t over if the music’s still playing. Who did I get that cigarette off? Did I steal your…
He’s Not Your Fantasy
Kitsune, Kyoto. A sticky summer’s night. You’ve been drinking by the river in Gion-Shijo with your friends, Strong Zeroe’s from the 7/11 down the road, but they didn’t have the…
A Serial Loser: Roaming Tokyo With No Wallet or Passport
He bumbles aimlessly through the station, his sandy brown hair a beacon, head and shoulders above the tide of mostly black. He has no passport and no wallet. He is…
Backpacking at 30: Thoughts From an Inbetweener
I’m in the hostel common area and they’re all here. There’s the German solo traveller in sensible outdoor clothes; the bubbly Scandinavian girls who embarrass you with their perfect English…
The Magic Man
What a night. Thank fuck it’s nearly over. Olivia’s sat at the empty bar waiting for the rest of us to finish. Livs works across the road, but she’s new…
My Time Backpacking Around the Iberian Peninsula as a Bollywood Star
Opening scene: Australia A beautiful young woman sits at her office cubicle longingly staring at a photo of the La Sagrada Familia on her computer screen. In another window, she…
My Scientology Experiment in Copenhagen
It was on a winter afternoon, during a stroll through the aesthetic architecture that Copenhagen is known for, that an impulse to cultivate myself with knowledge about an alien cult…
Stoned in Tokyo
Clack, Clack, Clack. I press my teeth together as I sit on a stool in the tiny, five-person bar. The edges of my vision blur as I stare vacantly at…
Ladies and Llamas on the Inca Trail
Enormous clouds cling to the peaks of snow-capped mountains. Winking prickly pears and violet wildflowers greet us on either side of a path that looks as if it were opened…
I Used Incontinence as Self Defence in Bali
When I boarded my flight to Bali as a naïve, 19-year-old solo traveller, the last thing my mum said to me was “always wear a helmet and please, just don’t…