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The journal

Stories from the slow way round

Essays and field notes, free to read. The Sunday letter carries one of these a week, a little before it appears here.

Get it first, every Sunday

An empty cobbled street of tall brick houses leading to a white clock tower in early sun

Essay · Dordrecht, Netherlands · 8 September 2026

Old towns before nine

The case for setting an alarm on holiday, and what a cobbled street sounds like when you are the only person on it.
The view from a train seat through a large window onto green fields and low hills

Field note · Northern Italy · 19 August 2026

What a slow train teaches you about a country

Nine hours on a regional line with a window that did not open, and why I would book the same seat again tomorrow.
A folded paper road map opened out like a fan on a pale table

How I travel · At the kitchen table · 28 July 2026

How I plan every trip on paper first

A folded road map, a pencil and one sheet of A4. The planning method behind every guide, and why it beats forty browser tabs.
A traveller with a backpack seen from behind, facing a forested mountain in thick mist

Essay · Somewhere above the tree line · 30 June 2026

A small defence of getting lost

Down a path the map swore did not exist, to a view the map swore was not there. Both were wrong, and that was the best afternoon of the trip.