We’re just about at the end of Ramadan – the Islamic month of prayer, fasting and reflection – with Eid forecast for later this week, and my story about best countries to experience Ramadan as a traveller.
In Tasmania’s Central Highlands, in Australia’s deepest lake, that’s where we’re all going this week, for walking, wine and wombats at Pumphouse Point.
Stuck at the desk? You can still come along to Tasmania via our latest episode of The World Awaits travel podcast. Jump on the pod to hear this week’s chat, (which I recorded while sitting on the floor of the business centre at Niyama Private Islands in the Maldives, while my co-host Kirstie Bedford was packing for Athens. If you’re going to be in a business centre anywhere, I thoroughly recommend this one, because you can look at at a turquoise lagoon in the Dhaalu Atoll while you’re working)
Listen via Apple Podcasts
Spotify
or via our website https://theworldawaits.au
Set in the glacial Lake St Clair, the lake lodge has recently opened its new Retreats, beautiful cocoons amidst the remote wilderness. The central highlands also a hub for walkers, wine and wombats; https://lnkd.in/gpia2S9N
Also, leading wine reviewer the Halliday Wine Companion reveals Australia’s top cellar door to put on your travel list https://lnkd.in/gVXNehpf and we’re sharing some great tips to save when travelling around Switzerland on its Swiss Rail Pass, https://lnkd.in/gAwp-_9p
And a spot of trivia; what do you think is the most expensive thing left in Brisbane Airport’s Lost & Found? Lloyds Auctions recently put all the items under the hammer, including one pretty surprising, pretty pricey item that would be hard to forget…
I’m very, very pleased to announce that I’ve been shortlisted again for Travel Writer of the Year in the Australian Society of Travel Writers 2025 awards!
I titled my collection of three features The Underrated and the Understated, reporting on a train journey in southern Spain, AlUla in Saudi Arabia and Oman (that’s me, stopping to smell the roses, after being trapped in flooded Dubai on the way to that mountain of fragrance).
Thanks to ASTW and to the companies who continue to support travel journalism, including InnTravel, Saudi Tourism, Emirates, Shangri-La Muscat in Oman and Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar, and their PR representatives
And thanks also to the editors at the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers and Luxury Escapes’ Dream magazine, who commission features from these adventures, which sometimes (Ok, often) slip away from the conventional path.
The competition is daunting – my friends Justin Meneguzzi and Kate Henessey complete the trio shortlisted for the TWOTY (best acronym, right?) Luckily, they are both great humans as well as extremely talented writers.
@hh_510 thank you so much, once again, for this photo from Al Jebel Al Akhdar It’s one of my favourite travel photos.
Apr
21
The blue eye dangles from my key ring as I drive south from Athens. The mati, as the amulet is known in Greece, wards off envy and jealousy.
Almost four hours later, I’ve driven across the much overlooked, history-making Peloponnese peninsula and, pulling my little rental car in to the Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino’s porte cochere, the view is initially underwhelming. But stepping out of the blinding sun, I realise we’re on a hilltop, and walking into the open-air lobby reveals a perch worthy of a goddess.
I recently had the chance to review the Mandarin Oriental’s first foray into Greece and guess what, it’s not on an island.
To read my story in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspaper’s Traveller section, click here:
Dream assignment: train travel through Greece and Bulgaria with the sole purpose to eat, think and travel deeply and slowly.
This journey started in Athens and ended in Ploviv, Bulgaria, with European rail pass company Eurail. With chef Ella Mittas and photographer Sarah Pannell, no mouthful went uninspected or undocumented. Also with us on the trip was videographer Paulo Magalhães , who has just released the trailer for his upcoming documentary about the furthest corner of eastern Europe. We visited restaurants, farms, vineyards, villages and the primary and secondary towns of the neighbouring countries.
The short for Paulo’s upcoming documentary is now out, and I love it! To keep the story going, Ella cooked a menu inspired by the journey for a group of media here in Melbourne at Julie restaurant in Abbotsford Convent last week, using trahana, a fermented grain and yogurt and a fabulous moussaka, which as its own, fascinating backstory.
You can also get a taste of our travels from my recent story for adventure.com https://adventure.com/off-the-eaten-path-slow-food-bulgaria/
For streets paved with gold, what to eat and 7000 years of history, I give you my list of the best things to do in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Crossing the border from Greece, I exchange my euros for a fistful of Bulgarian lev, which I’ll spend gleefully on banitsa, a flaky breakfast pastry that in its simplest form is filo stuffed with eggs, feta and yoghurt. You might have tried bougatsa, the custard-filled Greek pastry born in Thessaloniki – it’s just one of many demonstrations that these two countries share an ancient past, evolving to add their own twist. Isn’t it funny that when we think of Greece, we think of western Europe and all its familiarity, but just cross the border and eastern Europe is a whole different approach for travellers. Is it safe? Is it poor? Is it interesting?
Take a look at my latest feature for the Traveller section of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers to see if I’ve answered all these questions. I can recommend a great little art hotel in the embassy district to make your base, thoroughly recommend Bulgaria’s potent distilled fruit spirit, rakia, centuries-old churches and mosques, hundred-year-old markets and maybe you’ll also fall in love with the jaunty yellow trams that cross Sofia. The last time I visited Bulgaria, it was still shadowed by its Soviet past, so it’s fascinating to see how it tells its Communist story, from 1944 to 1989, to a new generation of travellers – see redflatsofia.com
And for disclosure, I travelled to Bulgaria by train from Greece as a guest of Eurail. From Athens, I travelled north to Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki, and then across the border to Sofia and onward to Plovdiv, using the European rail pass, Eurail. See eurail.com
And for a deep dive into Bulgaria’s food scene, you can read my piece written for Adventure.com , see https://adventure.com/off-the-eaten-path-slow-food-bulgaria/
And if you’re heading to Thessaloniki, I’ve written a ‘best of’ for that awesome city, as well – see https://globalsalsa.com/best-things-to-do-in-thessaloniki-greece/
Nisanyan was a stone house in rural Turkey, forgotten or ignored for generations and demoted to a lowly stable before its reincarnation into a small, family hotel.
Now, the hotel is its own village outside Selçuk; a series of hand made, whitewash-and-stone cottages, inns and villas along the tree-lined laneway, which I visited on a women’s-only expedition with @intrepidtravel
I wrote about the hotel recently for a cover story in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, where we were asked to describe our own idea of heaven.
The nights here are cool and silent, save the toll of a goat’s bell and the final call to prayer from a mosque down in the valley. In my cottage, deep red rugs are thrown over stone floors, handstitched coverlets and cushions adorn well-worn armchairs and my daybed, where I languish, the’ bells and the muezzin’s voice carried to me on the jasmine-scented night air.
Why heaven? Turkish breakfasts are the best on earth – here, the tables are laden with locally pressed olive oil, deep red tomatoes, fresh eggs, honey, handmade cheeses.
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I also have an affinity with oases – their sense of remoteness and salvation for the traveller.
It may be remote – on the edge of the Great Sand Sea and just 50km from the Egypt-Libya border – but Siwa’s log book of visitors cannot fail to impress; top of the list is Alexander the Great, who came to consult the Oracle of Amun in 332AD as part of his campaign to rule this rich land.
A mudbrick Bedouin town, it sits on the edge of the Great Sand Sea. It is filled with palm gardens, and surrounded by perfectly clear salt lakes, while freshwater springs bubble up from the hot sands. The local Bedouin culture is very different from the rest of Egypt, with the warmth and hospitality that befits an oasis town.
It is my slice of heaven on earth.
On the flip side, my idea of HELL ON EARTH is The Wall in Bethlehem, Palestine. Hot, dusty, fume-filled streets are dominated by the paint-spattered topped by watchtowers, which epitomises everything that is broken in the current conflict.
Also, anywhere you witness injustice to people, animals or the environment. The street dogs of Cairo break my heart. As does the dumping of chemical waste on the Israel-Palestinian border. And the plein-air butchers’ markets of Kashmir, where the fly-to-customer ratio is inordinately high.