Ever stumbled upon the perfect café, sequestered deep in the quietest corner of a buzzing city, and just had to share the secret? Ever wanted to be part of that secret? Travelistas Lynn Lau and Abby Bender combine their journalism and travel experiences to bring readers Notes From A Café: Travel stories from the deep end, a refreshing cure to the usual stodgy travel resources. Notes From A Café revolves around the love of travel, with articles covering countries from Belgium to Norway to Malaysia, along with tips and resources to fellow travelers interested in the non-touristy side of exploring the world.
Celebrating the joie de vivre of traipsing the globe, Lynn and Abby feature their stories and secrets under headings such as "Voyage Vignettes" (focusing on the thick and thin of personal travel accounts), "Foreign Foibles" (cultural gaffes and taboos), "Travel Tips" (a grab-bag of information and suggestions for travelers), and "Roaming Reviews" (frank guides on true must-see's and definite stay-away-from's).
A random selection of our articles:
Photo by Seow Yin
The next time you go on a trip, hold off on booking that hotel. Instead, give a bed & breakfast a try. You might find yourself becoming a fan and opting for B&Bs at every opportunity.
Hearing the term “bed & breakfast” brings to mind quaint, old-fashioned images: lush, ivyed houses abounding with leaf awnings and candy-cane wallpaper, owned by a stay-at-home host. And every morning, a group of traveling strangers gather in the dining room to break bread and converse over coffee and orange juice.
Well, that’s certainly a 1950s TV moment. Images change with time and needs, and so has the B&B.
» Read the rest of No Sleeping In: Ins and Outs of A Bed & Breakfast ...
No matter what you do or don’t bring, or how much time you have to pack, there are a number of things that can help keep your head on straight before a trip. In part two of the series, we take a look at another way to organize and ease the way. Slick like butter, baby.
All In The Books
Sometimes you have the good fortune of being able to rely on one great guidebook that covers anything and everything about the city you’re going to visit. Let’s Go: Paris is a terrific example of this—it contains concise profiles on each arrondissement, social tips, restaurant highlights, and even manages to fit a bit of Parisian history within its conveniently-sized pages.
If you’re venturing to a lesser-known area, however, chances are you’ll have to vary and diversify your choices—selecting certain pages from four guidebooks, picking out maps from the shelves, printing out sections from websites, even scribbling down random recommendations from friends. But you don’t want to be carrying that pile over, or be forced to rifle through them during your journey. In such a case, how does one keep all that together?
The key is to keep them together, preferably in an order that you know you’ll refer to them by. If you’ve borrowed the guidebooks from your local library, photocopy the relevant parts to keep. If you’ve already purchased multiple guidebooks, but not any one of those contains all the info you’ll need, then grab a pair of scissors and—brace yourself—begin cutting.
Relax. It’s only paper.
» Read the rest of Travel Checklist #2: It's All In The Books ...
This week, we feature an article by guest writer Emily Ding, who traveled to Stromboli, Italy. Emily notes of Stromboli: “‘Bigger than my body,’ John Mayer sang. Indeed. It was an exhilarating feeling, like standing on top of the world. Originally written on June 12, 2006 and edited for clarity upon return.”
I’m currently lazing around on Stromboli island, which is one of the islands of the Aeolian group above the Sicilian mainland. My two travelmates (Jo + CH) and I, we’ve been trying to kill time the whole day, pretty unsuccessfully. We’ve been in Stromboli since yesterday and we’ve basically seen most of everything we needed to see, but because the cheapest option to Naples is a 10 pm ferry tonight (which will get us there in the morning) we have to spend a whole day here, doing just about nothing. It’s rather painstaking, to be honest. It’s such a small town that we’ve walked the same route at least three times, and seen the same people over and over, even gone to the same café twice.
I bet all of the residents are gossiping about “those three Japanese kids.” Though of course we’re not Japanese, but everyone thinks we are.
» Read the rest of Scaling Stromboli, by Emily Ding ...
I slid up the ramp of the I-35 toll road, pausing briefly to catch the ticket the cheerful, blue-shirted man held out the window of the toll booth. My stomach gurgled, complaining about the Mickey D’s double cheeseburger I’d ingested half an hour prior. The underthigh of my right leg was cramping, and a dull ache knotted at the base of my neck unless I rolled my shoulders every three minutes or so, making me look like someone out of a Richard Simmons workout. Or a reject from a Ricky Martin music video.
Ah, road-tripping. That maddening, perilous, oh-so-traditional pastime of Labor Day weekend. Like a dutiful sister-slash-sister-in-law, I was headed to the heart of Kansas to visit my brother and his wife for the holiday.
The first CD I ever bought was Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs, which I listened faithfully to until I accidentally left it on the TGV to Paris. Track eight was a song called “Wichita Skyline,” and while I had not yet then been to the Great Plains, I was captivated by the wistfulness of the lyrics coupled with her throaty-yet-little-girlish voice.
And then I moved to the Great Plains, and took a road trip to Colorado, and as the flat, flat land unrolled on every side, I crunched myself into the back seat, horrified, expecting tumbleweeds to blow across the road at any second. Yes, what I had been forewarned about was true—driving across Kansas was about as exciting as watching toast being made.
» Read the rest of Wichita Skyline ...
To travel is to expect much of the places you visit; to move to one of these places is to expect much of yourself.
— Mark Jenkins, “Leap Year”, The Best American Travel Writing 2005
My whole life, I’ve always been going. Just going. Sometimes it’s a small distance — growing up in an oil palm plantation, the mere act of grocery shopping required a family-planned excursion to town. Sometimes it spans oceans — at age 19, I hopped off a plane onto US soil and stuck around since.
I’ve been traveling since before I can even remember. Literally — my brothers and I were born in three opposite ends of the country. By the time I was in primary school, my family were making regular weekend trips to Singapore. Every year until I departed for college, we joined other families on three-day ventures to various destinations, chattering on tour buses while some brave soul with a microphone in front attempted to keep order.
People have asked if I ever get homesick for Malaysia. No, not really. I may get a really intense hankering for mutton soup, spicy rendang, mihun goreng, and especially roti canai with some good chicken curry — hey, what can I say? Food is key — but the truth is, I’m so accustomed to traveling that I couldn’t imagine anything else. In fact, “anything else” would equal cabin fever. One of the most agonizing years of my life was when I was not able to travel at all. Now that drove me stark raving mad.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it was any less of an enterprise for this Malaysian girl to get used to brutal Midwestern winters. We’re talking born and bred in the tropics, after all.
But now it’s time to move on again, and this time, it’s even further north. Yes, the irony of that strikes me too. I will be pulling up stakes, packing all my worldly belongings, and moving to Vancouver, Canada.
The last time I made such a major life move was ten years ago. I’ve accumulated quite a whole lot since then, both in terms of physical belongings and actual experiences. As time goes by, I’ll be sharing my adventures, tips on the process, and learned lessons on such a move. Watch for ‘em.
Because traveling isn’t always something short-term and limited; sometimes it’s a way of life.