Five Foot Traveller Blog

Go your own way

  I’ve been getting a lot of emails recently from readers asking me how to do stuff, how I get to do the things I do (ehhh?) and how I get to travel as...

A short walk in Kaikoura

I love walking. I can walk for miles without realising I’ve been doing so and it’s only when I stop, either when I’m back at my room or during a chocolate break that my...

Solitude

  I was alone, and yet I wasn’t. Two of my friends had just walked past, their heads stuck in a map, oblivious to their surroundings, and I liked it. I liked it that...

AWE 2013- Empowering Asian women

    Asian women have come a long way from how they used to live, study and work in times past. Over the decades, we’ve become more independent- we drive our own cars, live...

This week’s photo: String instruments, Istanbul

    Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar has been around for centuries. It opened in 1461 and by the 1800s had more than 3,000 stores selling an incredible variety of items, thanks to merchants coming in...

Leaving Yangshuo

  The minibus from Yangshuo was not a minibus; it was a rickety, shuddering box on wheels which creaked every few minutes. I had to settle for a hard wooden seat which creaked just...

Mandalay, Burma’s last royal capital

Unlike many old cities, Mandalay was not born at the crossroads of converging trade routes, or because it was the site of an ancient settlement. Instead, it grew out of a prophecy. When King...

This week’s photo: Man on the Great Wall

I bumped into this man while walking on the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. We had just turned a corner and climbed up a few steps when he appeared out of nowhere. He...

On slowing down

For the past nine days, I was in Turkey, travelling with my parents. If you’ve never travelled anywhere with your own mother and father, give it a try. I’ve always been used to only...