There’s no better way to get to the heart of a city than by eating your way through it with a local, and that’s exactly what we did with Taste Porto — the city’s longest-running food tour company, praised over the years by Anthony Bourdain, Rick Steves, Lonely Planet and The Guardian. We took the Downtown Food Tour, and one thing has genuinely...
If you love walking a city the way we do, a free walking tour is one of the best ways to get your bearings and understand a place’s history in a few hours. In Porto, that means Porto Walkers — rated the #1 free walking tour on TripAdvisor, still run by a genuinely passionate crew of local guides. Quick Facts Tour name Classical Free Walking Tour...
Porto came onto our radar because Lonely Planet named it one of the world’s best-value cities to visit, and we’re so glad we listened. We spent four nights here fresh off two weeks in Madeira, and it wasn’t nearly enough — Porto gave us one of those trips where you leave already planning the return visit. Porto (also called Oporto) sits on the Douro...
We visited Kos, Greece in October 2013, midway through a year-long round-the-world trip, arriving off an overnight ferry from Santorini soaked to the skin and running on almost no sleep. It wasn’t glamorous. It also remains one of the more memorable stops of that entire year — a laid-back island with genuine ancient pedigree, close enough to Turkiye to see it...
Not everyone touring Vietnam can give Ho Chi Minh City five days. If you’re combining it with Hanoi, Hoi An or Ha Long Bay, a long weekend here might be all your itinerary allows — and that’s genuinely fine. This guide is built around triage: what to prioritise, what to happily skip, and what to save for a longer return trip, so you leave with the real...
We tried to visit the Tulum ruins twice. The first time, we arrived mid-morning to queues so long we simply turned around and left. The second time, we showed up right as the gates opened at 8 am, walked straight in, and had the ruins — 60 buildings perched on limestone cliffs above the Caribbean — almost entirely to ourselves for the first 40 minutes. That’s...
Guanajuato doesn’t reveal itself all at once. You wander through what looks like an ordinary colonial backstreet, and suddenly you’re inside a tunnel built over a diverted river, cars rushing past on one side, colourful buildings rising above street level on the other. It’s a city built into a ravine, layered with mining wealth, silver-funded...
Guadalajara had a reputation. A few years back, cartel-related issues put the city on a lot of “avoid” lists, and we’ll admit we were a little nervous going in. What we found instead was a confident, culturally rich city putting its past behind it — colonial architecture, mariachi plazas, incredible street food, and a genuinely warm welcome...
Ajijic moves at the speed of a horse and rider clopping down a cobblestone street — which is a normal sight here, not a novelty for tourists. We spent time in Ajijic house-sitting for expats, and it didn’t take long to understand why so many people who come for a weekend end up staying for years. Sitting on the northern shore of Lake Chapala — Mexico’s...
We only booked a week in Zihuatanejo. We stayed five. That’s not an exaggeration for effect — it’s just what happens once you settle into “Zihua’s” rhythm: mornings watching fishermen unload the night’s catch at the fish market, afternoons on the beach with grilled red snapper, guacamole and an ice-cold Sol, and a pace of life that...
The first time we saw Dubrovnik, arriving by road from Split – the ancient city walls rising white and honey-gold from the Adriatic, the red terracotta rooftops densely packed inside them, the sea a shade of blue that seemed slightly implausible — we understood immediately why they call it the Pearl of the Adriatic. The second time we saw it after flying...
The first thing you notice about Izamal isn’t a building or a ruin — it’s the colour. Every wall, archway and colonial facade in the historic centre is painted the same warm ochre-yellow, so the whole town glows gold in the late afternoon light. Locals call it Ciudad Amarilla — the Yellow City — and once you’ve seen it, every other colonial town in...