Into The Elsewhere

  • Cultural Calm and Coastal Chaos in Montenegro

    Cultural Calm and Coastal Chaos in Montenegro

    With the advent of budget airlines, followed by an ever-increasing number of flights across Europe to lesser-known and lesser-explored countries, the face of European tourism has changed completely. In the not-too-distant past, Italy would have been the peak of exotic. No longer. Now, with a…

  • Crossing the Canyon: Life in Jordan’s Jerash

    Crossing the Canyon: Life in Jordan’s Jerash

    Tourism changes places. Whether you’re talking about the recent backlash against the endless hordes which descend on the Spanish coastline each year or the steady evolution of Vietnam from war-torn to backpacker hotspot, it is clear that there are both positives and negatives to the…

  • Scree, Sky, and Second Thoughts: Tian Shan Mountains Part 2

    Scree, Sky, and Second Thoughts: Tian Shan Mountains Part 2

    I have always hated waking up early. However, up in the Tian Shan Mountains, after a restless night in a claustrophobically small yurt shared with two other hikers, it was a necessary and unfortunate evil. Though the first day of my hike had been reasonably…

  • Growing Pains: Hiking in Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan Mountains

    Growing Pains: Hiking in Kyrgyzstan’s Tian Shan Mountains

    I took one look up at the sky out of the window and breathed a huge sigh of relief. The clouds had darkened, blocking out all sunlight and replacing it with a brooding, ominous gloom. It was going to rain. Hard. From the safety of…

  • Exploring Wadi Rum: Desert Adventures and Night Skies

    Exploring Wadi Rum: Desert Adventures and Night Skies

    The stars were the reason why I travelled to the Wadi Rum Desert in Jordan. The pristine skies, devoid of light pollution, aside from the occasional plane flying across the Middle Eastern sky, lent themselves perfectly to an opportunity to stare endlessly up at the…

  • Stillness Below The Storm: Diving in Jordan’s Red Sea

    Stillness Below The Storm: Diving in Jordan’s Red Sea

    I have often been told that we know more about the surface of the Moon than the depths of Earth’s oceans. For me, this is a great, unexplored frontier completely separate from the world above the surface even when a few metres below it.

  • Tallinn: Contrasts in Concrete and Colour

    Tallinn: Contrasts in Concrete and Colour

    There aren’t many cities (outside of the USA at least) that would openly advertise the opportunity to fire an AK-47 to those attending a hostel bar. Thinking about it, and without the benefit of hindsight, my list would extend to Russia, maybe the odd Stan…

  • Surviving the Steppe: 24 Hours to Almaty

    Surviving the Steppe: 24 Hours to Almaty

    I knew the bus journey would be tough. Scheduled at 20 hours between Uzbekistan’s capital, Tashkent, and Kazakhstan’s biggest city, Almaty, it was going to be long, probably bumpy, include a border crossing and likely provide literally nothing but identikit steppe to see out the…

  • Petra: The World’s Empty Wonder

    Petra: The World’s Empty Wonder

    I’m not here to lecture you on Petra. I wouldn’t insult the intelligence of readers of this blog to the extent that I would make the assumption that they were unaware of one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Even less would it be…

  • An Evening in Downtown Amman

    An Evening in Downtown Amman

    All around me the pulsating streets of downtown Amman were thronged with people going about their lives. The evening had brought a slew of neon, pushy street sellers and some of the most unruly and noisy traffic I had ever witnessed. I was there for…