Blog > Articles
Greece Makes Me Feel Wonderful
Right now, I’m in the Athens airport, rushing to write this article before embarking on the flight back home, to Bucharest. Over the past 10 days, since I’ve arrived here, I’ve been gathering comments from people about the financial crisis which, to be honest, stirs...
How I Got Work Abroad
Before I went travelling I had no idea about how to get a job abroad. I was beset by other fears: language, accommodation, money and the difficulty of beating my own complacency. If I had thought about it too much and if I had listened to my inner demons ("Who the...
The Republic of Moldova — First Impressions
There is something rather alien about arriving in a new country like Moldova, where you don't know your way round, you don't have any of the local currency and you don't know anyone. I am sitting in a cafe in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, a tiny little European...
Working in Berlin
Berlin has played an important part in my life: it was the first place I visited on my trip to Tibet and I spent a month there in 1986, before the wall came down, and I was lucky enough to get a good look at a city that had been carved up by the great powers. The...
Kayaking in Sweden
When I was a kid we lived in a white house by the Firth of Forth, an estuary just north of Edinburgh. The house was so close to the sea that waves would splash into the garden when it was rough. Inside one of the garden sheds was an old kayak made of thin fibre glass...
The Paradox of Sweden
I'm staying in an old military base on one of the thirty thousand islands that lie outside Stockholm. From where I am sitting I can see massive cruise ships pass by, en route to the capital city, making their way through the forested islands. "A submarine was spotted...
Why Live Abroad?
By Silvana Some time ago Rupert asked me to explain why I live abroad and what are the advantages of travelling. After a while I thought maybe I'm complicating my life too much. Maybe I should stop living in a foreign country (Germany at the moment, France before...
What I Learned from Camping
My first thought about camping is that I don’t want to do it: it’s cold and wet outside and even thinking about what I would need to pack sends a shiver down my spine. So much easier to sit in my warm room, go to work and meet a friend for a pizza this evening. Then I...
5 Reasons for Travelling Alone
Travelling alone was the only option when I went to Asia for two years. It was what I aspired to, what I planned for and what I built up to. The first page of my book, 9 Months in Tibet, is about overcoming my fear of travelling alone. Although I had a loving...
How to Adapt to Foreign Cultures
Learning to Adapt to foreign cultures is easier than you might assume. It’s all about attitude rather than about studying the country you’re planning to visit. Of course some people intensively study the culture, language and history of the place they’re visiting and...
- The Psychology of Travel - March 14, 2018