Guides to lesser-known towns — markets, rivers, neighborhoods, food, and where to stay — written for travelers who skip the template itinerary.
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Along the Nonette: Local Paths in Chantilly’s Forest
Along the Nonette: Local Paths in Chantilly’s Forest The train from Paris pulls into Chantilly station with the usual mix of day-trippers and a few quieter travelers. Most head straight for the château shuttle or the main square, but the real draw for me has always been the other way — toward the edge of town where the forest begins and the Nonette river threads through the trees. Chantilly feels different once you leave the grand gates behind. The light changes, the pace slows, and you start noticing the small…
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Thermal steam off the Burtscheider Marktbrunnen in Aachen
Most people treat Aachen, Germany, as a Charlemagne stop and a border footnote: Dom queue, Rathaus photo on the Markt, one Printen bag from the tourist shelf, then the next train toward Köln or Maastricht. That works if a checklist is the whole point. It falls short if you like the city when Burtscheid still holds its own air — mineral steam lifting off the Marktbrunnen before the coach loops invent a perfect frame, Gründerzeit façades on Oppenhoffallee, a Saturday Neumarkt that still feels like neighborhood shopping. I walk Burtscheid…
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Looking across the olive plain from Ostuni’s walls
Ostuni is famous for looking white from a distance. Up close, what holds me is the view the other way — from the Aragonese walls and high terraces, out over a silver-green plain of olive trees running toward the Adriatic. The town sits on a conical hill like a chalky crown, but the work of the place is still in those groves: old trunks twisted like rope, nets in season, farm roads that smell of dust and crushed leaf. I come for that exchange. White stone underfoot. Olive country under…
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Low Tide Causeway to Île Tristan in Douarnenez
Low Tide Causeway to Île Tristan in Douarnenez The first time the tide pulled back far enough to reveal the path, I was standing on the quay at Port-Rhu with a cup of coffee that had gone cold. The water had retreated overnight, leaving a wet ribbon of sand and rock stretching toward the low green hump of Île Tristan. A few locals were already picking their way across, baskets in hand, as if this twice-daily crossing was the most ordinary thing in the world. In Douarnenez it mostly is.…
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Travel News for August 23rd, 2026
Tom Royce Tom Royce writes The Travel Bloggers, guides to lesser-known towns — markets, rivers, neighborhoods, food, and where to stay — for travelers who skip template itineraries. Based in Wilmington, North Carolina, he started traveling young (cross-country trips from New York to California at 15, a solo flight to Australia at 17, and studying in Europe during college) and later built a standby-travel life after marrying a flight attendant. Recent trips include time in Paris and a Rome-based look at Italy, with day trips to Pompeii and the towns…
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Travel News for August 22nd, 2026
Norway’s ATC strike is getting worse. Still 12 controllers out; eight more join Tuesday. SAS cancelled 14 flights today. Sunday is the hard day: Oslo Gardermoen is set to close 6:30–11:30am, with knock-ons nationwide. If there’s no deal by midweek, Avinor is warning of overnight closures into Thursday, including Tromsø. Avinor A Manhattan judge voided the 75-country immigrant-visa freeze. Friday’s ruling says the State Department’s January blanket stop on immigrant visas for nationals of 75 countries was unlawful. This is family/residence visas, not tourist B-1/B-2, and it doesn’t lift the…