My road trip North through Finland and Sweden took me unerringly towards Norway. I had the ‘North Cape’ in mind and anyone sensible looking at the map would have suggested a different route to mine. Nordkapp [as it is called in Norwegian], is the most inhospitable and remotest part of Northern Europe. It’s actually one of the most northern land-locked points in the world. A dull day in August can look like a day from a nuclear winter to a southerner Another day; another decision. Above; The E6, Norway’s longest trunk road where I met it after leaving Finland. Wiki…

Phone camera pictures only – Finland and the North 66°33′45.9″ to be precise. The Arctic circle – a zone defined by having at least one day a year of total sun, and conversely of course at least one day when the sun never rises. The further north you go, the more that extreme becomes. In northern Finland that gets to be about 50 days of either in totality. I was headed there with little idea of what to expect. Sunset over the Gulf of Bothnia, as my plane approached Oulu in Northern Finland. I’d never heard of the Gulf or…

‘Budget’ airline routes criss-cross India, and so our next trip was a simple matter of getting connections from the Northern plain down to Goa and then a week later to the steamy southern state of Kerala. To visiting Westerners, Goa is probably one of India’s best known holiday destinations. Away from the hot and crowded sights of the North, Goa offers a coconut charm that has not been lost on visitors since the beginnings of serious tourism – or should I say hedonism? Our late afternoon arrival at Bambolim, meant that we had to shop on our way to the…

For years travellers have been warned about the dangers of street food. Anywhere, everywhere, not just India. ”Was that plate washed? – Did you see where he put his hands before serving us? – Why is there a dog licking that bowl? – Was that a rat? – Should this be this colour? – That fridge isn’t a fridge –  Is the ice from clean water?  – Why is that man being sick? – Please tell me you are carrying loo roll… ” Above: On the street corner versus expensive hotel Gyp Tum. It was the one thing that could…

Sunrise over the Big River. In Wikispeke : ‘In Hinduism, the river Ganges is considered sacred and is personified as the goddessGaṅgā. She is worshiped by Hindus who believe that bathing in the river causes the remission of sins and facilitates Moksha (liberation from the cycle of life and death), and that the water of the Ganges is considered very pure.’  So there you go… By plane Varanasi is a 50 minute £40 flight from Delhi; but by car this journey is calculated as at ‘least 14 hours’. No time to lose – get the flight! Varanasi lies some 520…

It was 1977 when I first visited India. ’77 was the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee; a British woman won Wimbledon; and the year Aston Villa won the League Cup after 2 replays. 40 plus years ago… Multi-tasking in a Tuk Tuk 4 decades on and the population has grown to double that of ’77, with current estimates putting today’s number at close to 1.4 billion. Similar to that of China… Today India’s economy is arguably one of the world’s fastest growing; and the Middle Classes are coming on strong. Everyone has a phone.It was hard to find a…

Population ‘Not Many’. So, yes, there is a ‘Dull’ in Perthshire – as it happens; ‘Twinned’ with Boring in Oregon and Bland in New South Wales. I wondered what these other places might look like on a glowing autumn afternoon. Would they scrub up as well as dear old Dull in its golden October light? I had wandered off my autoroute North [the A9 to Scotland knowers] to make this detour around the well trodden scenic backwaters of Perthshire. The vistas here allow you to see for miles, and on a good day miles and miles. My day was golden…

40 or so years ago my family and I came to Corfu for our summer holidays. In the 1970s we felt relatively intrepid in that we managed to book flights and find a villa to our liking. No internet, just brochure browsing around Christmas and Dad filling in a booking form and probably paying a £25 deposit. The first time we did it, we really had no idea where we were going and what to expect. Brochures were crammed with badly printed pictures of bougainvillea-clad villas and summer temperature charts, all, in those days, adding to the excitement. In 1972…

The Arrivals Terminal – North Uist So we had crossed another mad-navigable part of the Minch to arrive at the top of North Uist. Beautiful it was, and idyllic. A possible Pomarine Skua, Black Guillemots and other ‘exotics’ [to us southerners] as we glided across smooth waters avoiding seaweed outcrops covered with fat seals. Bird world in a glassy light. Otter Warning on the Berneray Causeway – the ferry still visible. The view from the top of Uist – Berneray Island The salt flats on the Northern Coast of Uist Day’s End… Harris Gin successfully exported in our car boot…