I’ve been to Cinque Terre more than once, and I can tell you exactly where I’ve stayed: Manarola, at a small five-room guesthouse called Arpaiu, with a rooftop terrace that looks straight across the harbour and out to sea. I’ve walked the villages end to end, including the steep mountain path over the headland from […]
Archives for June 2026
Things to Do in Vicenza: A Palladian Day Trip from Venice
Vicenza is the Veneto city I’d push you towards if you care even slightly about architecture, and it’s the one most visitors skip on the train between Venice and Verona. I’ve been coming back to this part of Italy for thirty years, and Jess and I finally gave Vicenza a full day and a night […]
Prime Day 2026: The 7 Photography Deals Actually Worth Buying
I have been a professional travel photographer since 2010, and I buy a lot of my gear, and a frankly silly number of memory cards, in the Amazon sales. Outside of sale season, my budget-by-budget photographer gift guide has the same kind of picks organised by price instead. So every Prime Day I go through […]
One Day in Padua: How to Plan the Perfect Day
I’ve been coming back to the Veneto since I was fifteen, when my parents first brought me and a thunderstorm chased us across St Mark’s Square. Over the years Jess and I have worked our way out from the lagoon into the mainland cities most visitors skip, and Padua is the one we keep pressing […]
9 Best Day Trips From Venice, By Someone Who Got Married There
I got married in Venice, in St. Mark’s Square, and I’ve been coming back to the city since I was fifteen, when my parents first brought me here and a thunderstorm chased us across that same piazza. I’m also a professional travel photographer, and I’ve spent a good chunk of those return trips shooting the […]
2 Days in Oxford: A Weekend Itinerary and Where to Stay
I grew up just outside Oxford, and I spent most of my school-age weekends in the city, visiting friends, wandering the stores, and working out which colleges would actually let you in and which ones quietly turned you away at the lodge. I’ve been back many times since, and I still have friends who live […]
2 Days in Brighton: The Weekend Itinerary I Actually Use
I’ve visited Brighton many times over the years, often as a quick day out from London but plenty of times for longer, including stays with friends who have lived in the city for ages. Those repeat visits are why I can tell you which of its museums actually repay an hour of your weekend, how […]
Day Trip to Brighton from London: Your Full Day Plan
I’ve been over to Brighton many times, often as a day out from London, and a few of those trips were to see friends who live there. It’s one of the easiest seaside days out you can have from the capital. A direct train takes about an hour, and it drops you a ten-minute walk […]
The Best Day Trips From London: 12 Trips Worth Taking, Picked by a Local
London is one of the best bases in the world for days out, and I say that as someone who spent years using it as exactly that. I lived in London for a few years, spent four years down in Bath, and another long stretch in and around Oxford, so a lot of the trips […]
Day Trip to Bath From London: Our Perfect One-Day Itinerary
We spent four years living in Bath, which means we’ve done the city in a single day more times than we would like to admit. Usually it was with a friend who had taken the morning train down from London and wanted to see everything before the last train home. So we know which parts […]
2 Days in Manchester: A Complete Itinerary for First-Timers
I lived in Manchester for a summer back in my twenties, and a couple of years ago Jess and I came back and based ourselves in the city for two full weeks. We walked the centre end to end more times than I can count, ate our way through Ancoats and the Northern Quarter, and […]
2 Days in Bath: The Perfect Weekend Itinerary
I lived in Bath for four years, in Weston, a couple of miles out from the centre, and in all that time I never quite got over walking into the city on a clear morning and seeing the whole honey-coloured place laid out below me. Most people give Bath a day on the way to […]
Best Memory Card for Photography: A Working Photographer’s 2026 Guide
I’ve worked as a professional travel photographer since 2010, and in that time I’ve shot to almost every type of memory card going, from CompactFlash in my early DSLRs to the CFexpress card sitting in my Canon R5 today. If you’ve just bought a camera and you’re staring at a wall of cards labelled UHS-I, […]
Best Rome Pass: Roma Pass vs Omnia vs Go City (Which Is Worth It?)
We bought the Omnia Vatican & Rome Card on one of our many trips to Rome (it cost us about €130 at the time), and on another visit we bought a Roma Pass on its own. So this is not a desk-research comparison. We’ve held these cards, used them for public transport, and stood in […]
2 Days in Florence Itinerary: What to See, Pre-Book, and Skip
Florence is the city in Italy we keep going back to. We first visited in 2015, staying in a small apartment a few streets from the cathedral, and we’ve returned several times since, most recently stepping off the fast train and walking ten minutes to our hotel with the Duomo already crowding the skyline. I’m […]
Visiting the Unclaimed Baggage Store in Scottsboro, Alabama: Is It Worth It?
We’ve now visited Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, Alabama twice, most recently this June on the long drive home from visiting Jess’s family in Ohio. We live in Alabama and regularly drive the Huntsville to Chattanooga corridor, so this odd and rather brilliant store has quickly become a favourite stop whenever we’re passing through. If you’ve […]
One Day in Chester: Best Things to Do
I’ve been coming to Chester since I was a child, and as a professional photographer I’ve since shot most of its landmarks on countless trips, on my own and with Jess. It started with my parents bringing me here for shopping days out: a lot of standing around while clothes were tried on in one […]