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. We spend […]
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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 […]
Best Travel eSIM 2026: Which One to Actually Buy (We Paid For Five)
We’ve paid full price for five of the big travel eSIMs and used them on real trips: Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad and aloSIM. Those trips have taken in East Africa, the Caribbean, mainland Europe and the US, and our full Airalo review has been live since 2023. Airalo is also the eSIM I’ve run as […]
3 Days in New Orleans: The Perfect Itinerary for First-Time Visitors (2026)
If you’re planning a long-weekend trip to New Orleans and you have three days to work with, the question is rarely what to do. It’s in what order to do it, what to book before you fly in, and which evenings deserve a sit-down and which deserve a walk. Jess and I first visited New […]
Aperture Priority Mode: The One Camera Setting That Fixes 80% of Bad Travel Photos
I’ve shot travel photography professionally since 2010, and aperture priority is the mode I’m in 90% of the time I press a shutter. It’s one of the ways I handle the everyday challenges of travel photography. I’ve used it at golden hour on a Skye headland, in a Marrakesh souk in low light, and on […]
22 of the Best Things to Do in New Orleans for 2026
New Orleans is a city where the obvious answers (Bourbon Street, beignets, a cemetery tour) are roughly correct. Jess and I have visited New Orleans both during Mardi Gras week and on quieter return trips, and we put this list together as the 22 things we’d steer a first-time visitor towards in 2026. If you’d […]
Best Luggage Trackers for Travel: Our 2026 Picks
Travel can have many unknowns, which is a part of the thrill and excitement. Will you like the food? Will the people be nice? How will you fit all your souvenirs in your luggage to get them back home? However, some unknowns veer away from exciting and sprint toward anxiety-inducing. One of the worst of […]
Best ND Filters for Travel Photography: 2026 Pro Picks
If you’re packing a camera for a trip and trying to work out whether an ND filter is worth the space in the bag, the answer is yes, with one caveat: which ND. Variable, fixed, magnetic, square slot-in. Three stops, six, ten. Different filters do different jobs, and the wrong pick is the one that […]
Two Weeks in the Seychelles: a Seychellois’s 14-day Itinerary, Inner Islands to Bird Island
I grew up partly on Bird Island, a low coral island a thirty-minute flight north of the main Seychelles airport. My parents ran the lodge there for many years, and for a long stretch of my childhood that one small island, all sand, palms and nesting seabirds, was simply home. I am Seychellois, ninth-generation on […]
How To Spend 2 Days In Verona
Two days in Verona is enough. You can comfortably tick off the Arena, the Romeo and Juliet circuit, and the big-hitter piazzas on Day 1, then move on to Castelvecchio, San Zeno, and Giardino Giusti on Day 2. Add an Arena opera if you’re visiting between mid-June and mid-September; even if you’re not an opera […]