And Now, in Overlooked Urban Adventures: The Pet Cemetery

Stephen King’s 1983 horror novel Pet Sematary was recently resurrected on the big screen for a second time, renewing our curiosity in the often forgotten resting places of our furry companions. There’s something about those miniature tombstones in a humble graveyard where the pure love given by pets is honoured with such unabashed sincerity. Since time immemorial,…

I Dream of a Dacha

I‘ll never forget the first time I watched Dr. Zhivago and the chills it sent down my spine as Yuri and Lara walked into their abandoned ice palace; the winter dacha of the Varykino estate. I haven’t been to Russia yet, but I dream of it; of boarding the Trans-Siberian Railway, travelling deep into mother Russia, blanketed…

All Aboard the Ghost Ship Hotel of Koh Chang

While most sun-seekers are happy sipping cocktails on a beach while relaxing on holiday, you’re more likely find me trekking through the overgrowth in my flip flops looking for an abandoned site, courtesy of an internet tip-off, determination and a bit of explorer’s luck. Now, if I could just get myself a ticket to the island of Koh Chang in Thailand…

You’re invited to an Otherworldly Dinner Party

This seemingly infinite white table emerging from the ocean waves stopped me in my internet-scouring tracks today. I had to know. Is this real? And if so, how do I get invited? The origin of the photo was not cited but it didn’t take me long to track down its source and discover that not only is this otherworldly…

Stepping back in Time to a Jazz Age Lawn Party

Can you imagine anything more delightful than sailing from Manhattan, and heading for an uninhabited island filled with the ghostly remnants of a deserted army base; and once there, to step back in time to an authentic lawn party from the Jazz Age ? To dress in white linens, sip exquisite cocktails, and dance the…

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Don’t be a Tourist in Provence: A Weekend Guide

How easily I could slip back into my sleepy Provence, to a village called Vers, next to the Roman aqueduct I used to swim under, near the medieval town of Uzès where my mother bought our vegetables, in a garden where an imagination could run wild. I’ll find my way back, with silver hair and…

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The Miserable Mansions of Montserrat

We’re following up on a previous adventure today. Do you remember visiting the AIR recording studios the other week; one of the most prolific studios in music history which is now rotting away on a Caribbean island? Urban explorer Shane Thoms took us along on his journey with him to Monserrat in the West Indies, where…

She Lives at The Last Stop to The North Pole

For the adventurous of spirit, and those who yearn to pack a bag and disappear to somewhere as remote as possible, arguably nowhere quite captures the imagination as Svalbard. The far flung Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ice lies just six hundred and fifty miles from the North Pole. It may be a place where…

Down the Rabbit Hole into a Parisian Wonderland

Paris might already have its own Euro Disneyland, but I know a little place, away from the crowds that’s more like the real thing. If Alice had just chosen a bright yellow door at the end of the rabbit hole and if the Mad Hatter had in fact been a legendary clown from Soviet Russia (I’ll…

The Largest Cave in the World, Complete With Its Own River, Jungle, and Climate

People have been crawling around the cavernous mountains of Asia for centuries, but remarkably, the largest cave in the world remained hidden from discovery deep in the forests of Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park in Vietnam until 1991. As the story of the Sơn Đoòng Cave goes, “local farmer Ho Khanh was walking along a stretch of…