Features Archives

The Truth About Your Op Shop Donations

Every morning on my way to work, I drive past a Vinnies op shop. Every morning – rain, hail or shine – there’s a pile of donated goods spilling out over the footpath. If it’s a weekday, there’ll be volunteers in hi-vis sorting through the mountainous mass, tossing some items into giant crates destined for…

ByNikki RichardsonJune 20, 2022

Features

The Astray Guide to Not Looking Like a Tourist in Spain

Did you know that Spaniards have their own term of disendearment for us? Well they do, it’s guiri (pronounced giddy), and it basically means sunburnt foreigner who puts chorizo in all their dishes, but is also levelled at us whenever we commit a faux pas while travelling in the kingdom. Your Spanish friends/girlfriend/in-laws will place hand…

ByGravyOctober 23, 2018

Features

The Astray Guide to Wild Camping in Europe

I’m camping in Europe at the moment. Pitching my tent at rest stops, in the mountains and inconspicuously behind bushes on private land. I’m camping because there are some day hikes I can’t bear to leave after only a few hours. I want to wake up in the fog and sleep amongst all the creatures…

ByRuby ClaireOctober 9, 2018

Features

An Ode to Lolita Fashion: It’s Not What You Think

When countries outside of Japan started to realise that Lolita fashion was a thing, I was still a kid, busy tottering around the house in the shoes I called my Ruby Slippers - my mother's red pumps. I wasn't supposed to wear those shoes. And certainly not over the wooden floorboards -- something about leaving…

ByAnonymousSeptember 25, 2018

Features

Fear of Missing Out: The Love Life of a Traveller

I will be bold enough to identify as an expert dater, although I will probably receive a stream of hate messages from exes upon publication. Dating is not simply an arduous task to end the misery of monogamy, but it can be a MasterChef dessert when someone with a refined palate plates it up (that’s…

ByAnonymousSeptember 20, 2018

Features

Caught in the Crosshairs of My Unshaven Armpits

I watch my mum’s mouth drop open in disgust. “Oh my god.” We’re dining at a fancy restaurant and I’m dolled up to the nines, hair and makeup immaculate, black stilettos clicking underneath the table. Waiting for our meals, I raise my arms in a lazy stretch when I catch my mother’s eye. Her look…

ByManeesha ToddSeptember 18, 2018

Features

Yes Burning Man Has Changed — But It Still Fucking Rules

It doesn’t seem like the beautiful chaos that is Burning Man – blooming annually in a desert metropolis entrapped by shifting sandy hills and black rock mountains – could ever diminish into the dust. After becoming Nevada’s third largest city for one week, the city disappears without a single trace, just as immediately as it…

ByEzekiel MacNevinSeptember 11, 2018

Features

The Power of a Pair of Hands

At the crisp hour of seven on a winter’s morning, I arrived in Venice. The city was eerily empty and quiet in its waking hours. As I wandered through wispy fog, I caught a glimpse of its timeless charm: a baker arranging brioche behind a golden window front, a pair of painters repairing flaking pastel…

ByAnnabel BowlesSeptember 5, 2018

Features

Why Do A Writing Workshop In Spain?

¿Porque no? In line with our ethos to foster writers and writing in the most interesting and pleasant places on Earth, the time is ripe to offer our world-famous and highly recommended travel writing workshops in Europe. We’re kicking it off in Spain, the peninsula below the Pyrenees and above Africa, but not including Portugal.…

ByGravySeptember 5, 2018

Features Japan Yarns

What’s the Go With Japan’s Bootleg T-Shirts?

I was in the Tokyo suburb of Shibuya when I first laid eyes on one. Nothing about my bright and hectic surroundings felt familiar to me, until I recognised the spiky-haired cartoon hellraiser printed on a stranger’s T-shirt. But there was something not quite right about the Bart Simpson I was seeing. This Bart was…

ByEllen CookeSeptember 4, 2018

Features

Caught Up In the Dominance of the English Language

Our legs dragged as we approached the traditional Indonesian restaurant, known as a warung, at the end of the street. Smokey grey fumes swirled from an open wok, behind which sat a small woman perched on the edge of a stool. Alerted by the footsteps of prospective customers, she glanced up momentarily from her work.…

ByDana LoueyAugust 28, 2018

Features Japan Yarns

Free Cat Hugs With a Side of Fleas

The trainee clerk at 7/11 gives me a nervous smile as she fumbles my items through the scanner. I wait for her to see the last item on the bench. She pauses. She says something to me in Japanese which I don't understand, but I recognise the word I was expecting to hear – “Neko.”…

ByAngela KasprowiczAugust 24, 2018