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Category / Don’t Be A Tourist

Postcards from the Last Windmill in Paris

In the dappled light coming through the trees, a jovial bohemian crowd have gathered to dance and dally at the Moulin de la Galette, one of the many windmills that originally stood at the northern tip of Paris. By the time Renoir’s famous painting had captured the scene in 1876, the unlikely venue was already…

All Aboard the Giant Hippie Bus from London to Calcutta

Once upon a time, you could buy a ticket from London to Calcutta for less than the cost of a ticket from Paris to Rome. The year was 1957, baby boomers were still teenagers on the loose and flower power was on the rise. The Albert Travel double decker bus (originally called “Indiaman,”), left from…

If the Flintstones Vacationed in France: A Guide to the Cave Villages

If a French chateau is a little out of your vacation budget, why not consider a cave house? Unforgettably unique and even more historic, the “troglodyte” homes of France; those ancient rocks dwellings dotted along quiet country roads of the Loire, or deep in the basin of Dordogne; were built 100 millions years ago by…

Not Old World Europe, this is India’s Ghostly Town of Sidhpur

With their exquisite facades in pastel shades, replete with balconies, pointed gables and elaborate monograms, the Vohrawad mansions are a wonder to behold. One could easily be forgiven for assuming these grand dames stand somewhere in Europe, but today, we’re taking you to Sidhpur, in the Indian state of Gujarat. Almost deserted today, their decadent…

Don’t Miss the Miniature Wine Windows of Florence

Of the 16 million tourists that visit Florence on average per year, I wonder how many of them walk by the old palazzos without ever noticing their most interesting little secret hiding in plain sight. At about 18 centimetres wide and 35 centimetres high, they are just the right height to fit a bottle of…

Digging for Treasure (and Love) in New York City

Their’s is a love of strange and beautiful proportion. The kind measured in porcelain, peanut-sized dolls, and antiqued oysters as big as your face. “It’s hard to imagine a time when we’d stop digging,” says Belle, back-lit by a wall of technicolour glass bottles, “I mean it’s addictive. And when you have someone who gets…

What you can find Mudlarking on the Thames Foreshore in London

A few years ago, a worldly friend who’s always in the know posted something to her Facebook wall that went something like this: Mudlarking on the Thames is the best way to spend a Sunday morning in London. She had me at “mudlarking”—I had no clue what it was. It seemed like something curiously obscure. And…

There’s a 55-Year-Old Whiskey Treasure Hunt That’s Still Going On

Our dream treasure hunt? One that involves an international quest for free whiskey and a $10,000 prize, which was precisely the case in the Summer of 1967. In one of cleverest marketing ploys of advertising’s golden age, Canadian Club Whiskey hid 25 crates of its liquid gold around the globe, and adventurous consumers (of a…

The Chinese Village of Long-Haired Rapunzels

In 2023, the global shampoo market had an estimated value of $32 billion. But deep in the mountains of southern China’s Guangxi province, the women of Huangluo Village won’t be contributing a single dime to the industry – because apparently, it’s not worth it. For the Yao minority of ethnic women, hair is their most prized possession. The…

France, Is That Really You?

Ah, la douce France! Cobblestone streets and cafés lost in time, quaint little ancient villages surrounded by vineyards, heart-achingly beautiful architecture and skylines, just like you’ve seen it in the movies. Right? Well sure, but that’s only half of the story. Sometimes, France can look like the Eastern Bloc. Sometimes, it can look like the…

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