• Banner with photo of a man in Arab dress
    Friendly Friday,  Oman,  People,  Travel in general

    Friendly Friday: meet some amazing guides

    A local guide can make or break the travel experience. A good one will not only smooth the path and tell you about the sights you are seeing, they will also share something of themselves. Spending time together you will get to know each other and learn more about the country than you ever would from reading guidebooks, from the perspective of someone who lives there. They will be able to introduce you to some insider secrets: a little-known site; a café or bar frequented only by locals; a short cut. They will help you navigate local customs so you…

  • Banner with photo of two women in yellow dresses
    Cambodia,  Culture & tradition,  Friendly Friday

    Friendly Friday: meet some wedding guests in Cambodia

    As we got out of the car we could hear loud music coming from a house just down the road, and equally loud talking on a microphone. It drew us, inevitably, to investigate, and we were very glad that we did so. In the second of my Friendly Friday ‘Meet …’ challenges I would like to take you to a wedding in a small village near Siem Reap, Cambodia.

  • Old bus and motor garage
    Culture & tradition,  England,  History

    Stepping back in time: living history at Beamish

    How does it feel to step back in time and immerse ourselves in the world our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents knew? There are places where we can do just that, living museums that collate and preserve not just objects but the buildings that housed them and the environments in which those buildings sat. One such place is Beamish, in north east England.

  • Shadow of lady with crutches
    Lens-Artists,  Morocco,  Street photography

    Keep walking … even on crutches!

    We were just twenty-four hours into our first visit to Marrakesh. We had arrived in the city with high expectations. It had been on our wish-list for some years; and as this was the first holiday of any length that we had been able to take together for over a year, we were determined to enjoy it. But on the evening of our first day I stumbled on the edge of a tiled basin in a fancy restaurant and broke a bone in my foot. I spent the rest of the week on crutches ...

  • Old sign advertising a clog shop entrance
    Culture & tradition,  Lens-Artists,  Themed galleries

    Gallery: shoes, slippers, trainers, boots and clogs

    Visiting other countries, meeting people from different cultures and beliefs to our own, helps to narrow the gaps between us. We start to appreciate all the things we have in common, and to understand why some may see things differently from ourselves. We learn that having a different belief from our own doesn’t make a person less of a person; likewise wearing different clothes (or indeed different shoes!), living in a different type of home, or having a different way of life. As someone once said, ‘There is more that unites us than divides us’. Oh, and most of us…

  • Black and white photo of man with rickshaw
    CBWC,  India,  People,  Travel galleries

    Gallery: people at work in Kerala and Rajasthan

    If you enjoy candid photography there is no better country to visit, perhaps, than India. I have never been anywhere else where people are so comfortable to be photographed and that is its one downside, as they can be too eager to pose as soon as they see your camera. However, a posed photo can be as effective as a candid shot if you are photographing people within the setting of their workplace.

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    Friendly Friday,  People,  Senegal

    Friendly Friday: meet Cheikh, a guide in Senegal

    Welcome to a new departure for the Friendly Friday Challenge. Every six weeks when it's my turn to host, I will be introducing you to a person or people I have met on my travels. People whom I have been inspired by, fascinated by or perhaps intrigued by. And I will be inviting you to do the same. As much as the sights we see, it is the people we meet who make travel so rewarding and so memorable. Whether close to home or on the other side of the world, an interesting encounter can really bring a place to…