I prepare for Tokyo by quitting vapes. One week until departure, and I’ve not bought a single item on my list. I’m a zombie, moving through life in a cloud of smoke. My share house from the last six months is ejecting me. I have nowhere to live. It’s a repeat of last January, when…
The night I lost umbrella number one, I tried stingray for the first time – ordered for me by my enthusiastic dining companions: a group of women who all work full time, are married and have children. Also on the menu was horumon cuts of meat eaten to restore stamina and honour mottainai – avoiding…
I’m on a trip to Melbourne from France. Living abroad comes with constant learning in almost all you say and think. Visiting home is a return to autopilot. In the supermarket, I don’t read the packaging – I reach for products without thinking. But if the checkout assistant wants to chat, I can’t say, “Je…
They say you become a New Yorker when you cry on the subway for the first time. Or when you get flashed on the subway for the first time. By both standards, I’ve been a New Yorker since 2010, and I’ve become a New Yorker many times over since then. Despite the tears and testicles,…
Before you nestle in and dive into the tale below, I would like to paint a picture for you. Consider somewhere out there resides a young traveller, on their first or second time overseas, having trekked to the faraway shores of Peru. Awaiting the dawn of a new adventure from the confines of their hostel,…
The bush trills with insects in the hour before dawn. Weaver birds chitter and call above us, their grass-woven houses bobbing in the morning breeze. Our little group is nervous. We step carefully through the undergrowth, the two rangers leading the way with loaded rifles on their shoulders. We’ve all been thoroughly briefed. There are…
Concrete dust catches in my lungs and burnt air stings my eyes as I try to make out which part of the stairs leading down to the metro is still smouldering. As rubble from once grand buildings shifts under my boots; a small voice within speaks a confusion I’d wanted to ignore. This isn’t what…
I chose the bigger of the two mandarins sitting in the middle of Nick and I. It was difficult to peel and inside it was spoiled. I knew immediately that I had made a mistake. I decided to gift it to the street dogs and threw it out of the car window without tasting it.…
Intercultural relationships are increasingly the norm. To find someone – “the one” – in the small preset of humans culturally, geographically, and in age close to you is nothing short of a miracle. More and more, you have to compromise not only on the everyday nuances that make up any relationship, but also what to…
Somebody once told me that if you want to go to India, you have to give yourself time. Time to see, to taste, time to sink into the spirit of the land – but most of all, time to get sick. Because even if all the other things leave you cold and uninspired, you will…
The allure of solo travel can promise what sounds like an easy escape into uncharted waters. New lands to be discovered by your feet and new sensations to be snorted up by your senses. Because you, my squirmish friend, have been stuck in the trap of the humdrum, day-to-day existence of ordinary life.
You’ve already had…