With nights spent in ancient churches and wayfarers’ meals at farms and pubs, this spiritual four-day walk is all about the journey – and rural England at its finest I’m lying on my back. Directly above me is “a vault of heaven” with great wooden beams. I’ve never woken before under such a high ceiling – but then I’ve never gone to sleep in a church before. We have arranged pew cushions on the stone slabs for increased comfort and, while this may sound austere, my fellow pilgrims and I agree we have slept remarkably well – helped by pies and cider from the Bridge Innnearby. Just as in Chaucer ..read more

A fishing village stay on one of the country’s less-visited large islands reveals a quiet Adriatic gem boasting green lakes, holm oak forests, and unspoilt beaches The first thing that struck me about Luka was the silence. My wife, Caroline, and I had driven our rental car from Split north along the Croatian coast to Zadar and taken an hour-and-a-half ferry ride to the island of Dugi Otok. Then we had driven the island’s length southwards, through pine forest and scrub, to arrive at this tiny fishing village, where we would spend the next week. Both of us were slightly wired from driving on fo ..read more

Weekend Runner Australia author Emma Kemp runs us through some of the country’s best long-distance races, taking in city footpaths, tropical islands, red dirt and windswept coastlines Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email Running season is here, and that means running festivals. Whether you’re a beginner hoping to enter your first short-and-sharp fun run or a seasoned racer seeking a longer, stiffer challenge, Australia’s calendar of events has something for everyone. From tropical islands and the red dirt of the outback to the best on offer in the big cities, we have selected some of ..read more

After 20 years working as a resort and hotel porter in Australia, the UK and Canada, Raymond Thew has seen all kinds of bags Luggage. During my time as a porter, I’ve seen all kinds. Big, small. Heavy, light. Wheels, no wheels. Bright, bland. Which is best? The most durable? The most practical? The answers depend on where you’re going, for how long you’ll be travelling, where you’ll be staying and whether you trust others to look after your bag. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads ..read more

Thailand’s capital gave me the adventure I craved. But I couldn’t shake the feeling I was missing out on my friends’ lives back in Sydney In 2016, I scored my dream job at a travel magazine based in Bangkok. I moved there from Sydney with my partner, Leigh, who worked as a photographer and often accompanied me shooting my work assignments. Leigh and I loved to travel and we were craving adventure. Our Sydney life had become routine and we wanted a change of scenery – an escape from office jobs, to eat our way through Asia and tell stories along the way. Through work, my “offices” ranged from m ..read more

Food writer Yasmin Newman shares a typical day of Filipino dining – and her version of halo halo, one of the archipelago’s most-loved desserts For cookbook author Yasmin Newman, food was a gateway to appreciating her culture. Born in Australia to a Filipina mum and an Anglo dad, she grew up eating dishes her mother prepared, such as longsilog (Filipino sausage and fried rice) for breakfast, nilaga (beef soup) for dinner and biko (coconut caramel sticky rice) for snacks in between. “[With] each bite, I’d absorb the Philippines’ distinctive culture,” Newman says. “Delicious and disarming, yet la ..read more

It was fun to climb mountains, visit glaciers and slide down volcanoes, until the thought of a house and kids began to seem more exciting Just before Christmas 2002, we were having drinks on the terrace of the Hilton in Mendoza. Thanks to the Argentinian peso crash, the Hilton bar was our local, even though we were cheapskate backpackers. It was a sunny 30C and an Argentinian skated past in hot pants and a Santa hat. Jane, my then girlfriend, now wife, looked at me and said: “It’s too warm. This is all wrong.” We’d been planning to meet friends anyway, so we brought our flights forward. A few ..read more

I’ve long dreamed of visiting these Italian islands. But who needs sea views and olive groves when you’ve got traffic-filled expressways and the Fairmount Water Works? If someone gave me a large sum of money with the stipulation that I had to use it on a summer holiday, I would probably head to the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago off the coast of Sicily boasting dramatic cliffs, mud baths and picturesque beaches. I went there with an ex about 15 years ago and we argued the whole time; I’ve always wanted to go back and not have the beautiful views ruined by romantic discord. Of course ..read more

Whether you enter the big green pipe to Super Nintendo World, or want to rummage through rare games in Tokyo’s Electric Town, Japan is a video game paradise The experience of travelling in Japan is simultaneously overwhelming and freeing. The world feels bigger out there, gilded by how mainstream video game culture is in comparison with the west. It doesn’t feel like a subculture; it is ordinary. For example, I walked into a FamilyMart for a snack one afternoon, and found a Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom promotional mushroom tart (which was delicious). The little bright-green payphones ..read more

As it sped off, I was euphoric. I had fashioned a complex sentence and hit a nerve with my pointed words. Or had I? Follow the My bad trip series Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email It was 2007 and I was weeks into a solo backpacking trip in South America. By the time I reached Bolivia, my Spanish had improved markedly and so had my resolve not to continue being swindled by local taxi drivers and their ilk who dared exploit my first-worldliness. So when, late one afternoon, I boarded a bus in the town of Samaipata for the 15-hour journey to Sucre, I had done my research and knew the ..read more