I’ve been carrying cameras up hills for over fifteen years as a professional travel photographer, on moorland in Cornwall, on waterfall hikes in Iceland where it rained more or less continuously, and on day hikes across the US. For most of that time I’ve done it with two very different setups: a dedicated camera backpack […]
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The Best Castles in Scotland to Visit: My 15 Picks
Jess and I lived in Edinburgh for four years, and I’ve stood at and photographed every castle on this list myself. Scotland doesn’t make shortlisting easy. There are castles on sea cliffs, castles on islands in lochs, castles that are still family homes and castles that are three crumbling walls and a view. This guide […]
Best Castle Hotels in Scotland: 9 We’ve Paid to Stay In
For a good few of the years we lived in Scotland, my birthday worked like this: sometime in January, Jess would disappear into a browser for an evening, and in February we’d find ourselves checking into a castle. February in Scotland is nobody’s idea of peak season, which worked well in our favour. The rates […]
How to Spend 2 Days in Mobile, Alabama: A Detailed Itinerary
Mobile is the nearest coastal city to home for us. We live in Montgomery, about two and a half hours up I-65, and when we want salt air, live oaks and a proper plate of oysters without crossing a state line, Mobile is where we point the car. It’s also one of the most historically […]
Visiting Gulf Shores & Orange Beach, Alabama: Our Visitor’s Guide
We live in Montgomery, which puts the Alabama Gulf Coast about three and a half hours down the road from our front door. Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are our closest real beaches, we’ve stayed down there several times, and we were back again this August. In this guide I’m going to cover what those […]
Things to Do in Greenwich, London: Sights, Costs and Tips
I’ve been writing UK travel guides since 2010, and Greenwich is one of the places I most often suggest people add to a London trip. It has royal history, a famous sailing ship, the line where east officially meets west, and what I think is one of the the best free views in London, all […]
The Best Hotel Booking Sites: What We Actually Use and Why
During my old corporate job I lived in a Marriott long enough to be invited to the staff Christmas party. I suspect that says more about my travel schedule back then than about my charm, but the habit stuck. These days Jess and I still book a lot of hotels, enough that I hold Marriott […]
Google Photos Alternatives in 2026: A Photographer’s Guide to Getting Out
If you’re leaving Google Photos and want the closest thing to a straight replacement, it’s Ente. It’s end-to-end encrypted, open source, and it has a step-by-step import path for Google Takeout archives. If what you’re moving is a real photo archive rather than a camera roll, no single app will do the job. You want […]
Best Tablet for Photo Editing in 2026: A Photographer’s Verdict
I’ve been shooting travel photography professionally since 2010, and in that time I’ve bought into the tablet-as-editing-machine idea twice. Both times I ended up back at my desktop. Things have moved on a lot since then, and the tablets in this guide are far better machines than either of mine were, but my position hasn’t […]
The Best Tour Booking Sites: GetYourGuide, Viator, Klook, Tiqets and ToursByLocals Compared
You’ve found the tour you want. The problem is that it’s on GetYourGuide at one price, it’s on Viator at a slightly different price, and the operator’s own website has a third number that may or may not include the same things. You’ve got three tabs open, and you’re wondering whether the cheap one is […]