A Mini Guide to Summer in New York City

Just in case you’re in the city before your copy of Don’t Be a Tourist in New York reaches your arms – we’ve hand-picked some of our favourite summery spots out of the book to bring you a mini-guide of al fresco restaurants & bars, secret sunbathing spots and summer adventures for those who just…

The Sheer Excess of the Green Vault: Europe’s Overlooked Jewel Box

They call it the Green Vault, said to be the world’s first public museum (disputed by the Vatican), holding a veritable treasure chest of toys and amusements for Saxon royalty since the 18th century. Some 3,000 chef d’ouvres are exhibited in nine spectacular rooms inside Dresden’s Royal Palace, including bedazzled goblets fashioned from gilded ostrich eggs, the…

Summer Camp at Chernobyl

For as far back as Google’s records go, the search word “Chernobyl” has never trended higher. In the past month, the data graph has spiked like a reading on a level 5 earthquake. Of course, it’s all down to HBO’s Chernobyl, which after only one month on air, has become the highest-rated television series of all…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCCLIV)

1. Frederick the Great, hailed as “the most handsome horse in the world” The Friesian stallion has his own Facebook page here. 2. Marcel Duchamp with chess master Larry Evans Also pictured, avant garde painter, Hans Richter. Found on Cocosse Journal 3. Banksy crashed Venice Biennale (to address the city’s cruise ship problem) Banksy’s website is…

And what if they’d built New York like this?

You might have noticed that for the cover of our second book, Don’t be a Tourist in New York, I chose to feature uptown’s Little Red Lighthouse. It’s the only one left on the island of Manhattan, but serves as a reminder that New York was first a port before anything else. “A city of…

The Book NYC has been Missing: Don’t be a Tourist in New York

I remember the moment I knew we had to write this book. I was fumbling around in the dark for a light switch in the attic of a salvage depot in Harlem. I was completely alone up there when those lights flickered on to reveal a room full of cobwebbed forgotten treasures, and in that…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCCLIII)

1. A dandelion wish-making facility in L.A. “The anonymous art collective simply known as the Art Department transformed a decommissioned building into “a secret wish-processing facility.” Find the article on HyperAllergic 2. Object, 1936 This Surrealist object was inspired by a conversation between Oppenheim and artists Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar at a Paris cafe.…

The Lost Romance of the Transylvanian Spa Town

We walked with ghosts through a crumbling spa town in the valley of the Cerna river, where Empresses and Kings of Bohemia once came to “take the waters”. An early morning mist rose from the sulphurs of the riverbed, crawling through the empty streets. Whistling through shattered windows and vast corridors, the wind seemed to…

Vacationing with Wes Anderson

It’s been almost two years since our “Location Scouting with Anderson” post went nuts all over the internet, and with summer fast-approaching and travel on all our minds, I thought it might be time for a new round of Wes Anderson-worthy locations – the vacation edition. So let’s check in for the night with Hollywood’s…

The Vault

The Underdog Dining Club of Paris

They’re not hip, they’re not sexy and they’re certainly not in the Michelin guides – they are the underdogs; the restaurants that call out to us for some reason or another. They might be hiding away in an unpopular neighbourhood, serving cuisine from a conflict country or just unwilling to keep up with the times.…

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