radio | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Feb

The top travel destinations for 2026: ABC Radio, 3AW Radio clips

To misquote Taylor Swift, January slipped away like a bottle of wine – I spent a lot of time on radio and podcasts, chatting about the travel trends of 2026.

My big takeaways;

Egypt: A radio announcer said while he was introducing me that no-one is going to the Middle East right now. Hello, Egypt? With the Grand Egyptian Museum finally, fully opening in late 2025, all that pent-up demand for Egypt has broken, like the Nile in flood. New Nile cruisers of all persuasions, from petite luxury to giants jostling for space at the docks – it’s all happening this high season.

Every tour company scared off by the disaster happening next door as Israel continues to bomb a population of old men, women and children into oblivion has, of course severely (and deliberately) damaged the tourism industry in the region over the past two years, but with ‘ceasefires’ and the like broken, Egypt is working on a new normal.

Central Asia: Uzbekistan is the ultimate dinner party brag destination right now, and this trend is only going to grow, with all the five ‘stans, including deeply weird Turkmenistan, getting more tourists, more trains and infrastructure as we come for the plov and the turquoise mosques , madrassas and public squares.

Japan: More than a million Australians a year are heading to Japan, it’s not stopping any time soon. Cherry season, ski season, summer, winter – it’s an all-rounder.

Australia still loves Bali as hard as ever, Paris still the top city for visitors, Italy hot as ever while we chase our euro-summer… Canada and Mexico will benefit from the 2026 FIFA matches – it remains to be seen what happens with the third host country, the US, given a high proportion of attendees will not be US citizens. That’s just me slipping the boot in here.

I could go on, or you could simply tap into some of the radio interviews I’ve done recently for ABC Adelaide, ABC nationwide summer, 3GB…

I also had a fun chat with Rory McLaren on ABC Adelaide about travel experiences you can’t have these days – think climbing Uluru (thankfully, because this sacred rock and icon of Australia doesn’t need any more poo on it), inflight cockpit visits (mourning this one) and smoking on trains/flights/most places. Any you’d like to add? I’d love to hear in the comments below.v

Take a listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-367644299/abc-adelaide-radio-lost-travel

ABC Adelaide Radio - lost travel experiences Rory McLaren

In the meantime, travel well!

Sep

Travel in Asia: the hotspots and the sleeper hits

Hanoi’s hot, Phuket’s hotter and Tokyo is sizzling like a summer’s day in Hades. This week, I chatted to ABC Mornings Adelaide about the hottest places to travel in Asia, and where you can step off the beaten path to some alternate destinations in these countries.

It comes on the back of the news that a million – a million – Australians visited Japan in the past 12 months. We can’t get enough of it, and nor can the rest of the world. Which is fair enough; they’ve got fabulous culture, food, landscapes and history. What’s not to love.

I chatted with Rory McClaren about alternative destinations in Japan, away from the Lost in Translation moments in Tokyo, and why chasing geishas through Kyoto is a really, really bad look for travellers.

Also, my sleeper hit of Hue, in Vietnam, and why the Philippines is so often overlooked – and unjustifiably so.

Take a listen to the conversation – here’s a link on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHIjMRbAAfo

Dec

Travels in mainland Greece with ABC Radio

Whenever anyone talks of holidaying in Greece, the islands tend to get all the glory. But what about the mainland?

Athens has everything to offer as a global city and holiday destination, but to my mind, the real story is Greece’s second city, Thessaloniki. The home of souvlaki, bougatsa and the frappe, Thessaloniki has done the impossible and makes instant coffee taste good! It’s the birthplace of Kamal Ataturk, and has been corralled into empires from the Hellenic to Ottoman, so expect great history, fantastic food and a waterfront location designed for post-prandial perambulation.

I joined Philip Clark on ABC Radio‘s national evening program, Nightlife, to tell of the wonders of mainland Greece. You can listen to our chat here, and tune in to ABC Radio every Monday night for his Monday Night Travel segment, which goes out to the world from 10pm.

To listen to the interview, visit this link: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/nightlife-travel—greece/104675428

On this trip, I drove from Athens airport south to the Peloponnese peninsula, to stay at the new Mandarin Oriental Costa Navarino – I’ll post a review here shortly. Then I drove back up to Athens (Athens traffic – ayeeeee!) and from there, joined Eurail, the European rail pass company, using their tickets to travel from Athens north to Thessaloniki, then crossed the border into Bulgaria, on to the capital, Sofia and then to its second city, Plovdiv. I have stories coming up in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, which I’ll post here as they’re published. To learn more about Eurail, visit eurail.com

Jul

Whale swim in NSW south coast: with 3AW radio Melbourne

Can you imagine the sound of a pod of racing humpbacks? We’re in the thick of whale season, and Australia’s south and east coasts are pinging with cetaceous shenanigans. Last week, I even took a whale swim with ethical sealife tour operator Wobegone in Jervis Bay, on the NSW south coast.

Note that there are currently no whale swims in our state – still a relatively new experience in Australia – which is why I crossed the border, and donned the wetsuit in Jervis Bay.

I had a chat with Melbourne radio station 3AW today about swimming with whales, and the best place to see whales here in Victoria.

However, Victoria has currently spectacular whale watching – I did a ringaround before the interview, and my head is filled with stories of people looking out their windows at whales, seeing them on their morning walk, spotting them on the ferry… the big ones are definitely in town!

You can spot them right across Victoria’s south coast – from Portland to Warrnambool, on the ferry from the Bellarine to the Mornington Peninsula, on The Prom and then they turn north, to head up Australia’s east coast. It really is magical!

The whales’ annual migration from Antarctica to its breeding and calving grounds off the Australia coastline is now on, and we’ll see our biggest visitors around for the next six months.

My whale swim trip was hosted by boutique hotel Bannisters by the Sea in Mollymook, which is owned by British chef Rick Stein and features an exceptional, sustainable seafood restaurant. And to get there, keeping the sustainability focus, I drove to Mollymook in a Polestar electronic car.

LINKS

Woebegone Freedive https://www.woebegone.com.au/

Bannisters by the Sea https://www.bannisters.com.au/mollymook/

Polestar https://www.polestar.com/au/

May

Travel in Australia: busting myths on 3AW

What travel myths do we tell international visitors about travel in Australia? That Perth is the world’s most isolated capital. That Brisbane is just a big country town? That Melbourne has the best coffee?

This week, I jumped onto 3AW Melbourne radio to chat with afternoons host Tony Moclair about these myths, which fellow travel writer Ben Groundwater exposed in his article for the Sydney Morning Herald/The Age newspapers, titled Seven big myths we tell tourists about Australia, busted.

Click below to listen, and tell me what you think!

What other great myths are there about Australia? That everything – from sharks to emus – wants to kill you. That we’re all blonde, blue-eyed and beach loving. That every meal is a shrimp on the barbie… What’s your favourite?

To read Ben’s article, click here.

https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/reviews-and-advice/seven-big-myths-we-tell-tourists-about-australia-busted-20240528-p5jh7u.html

May

Travelling in Oman: chat with 2GB Sydney radio

I’m recently back from travelling in Oman, the quietest little country in the Middle East. So quiet, you may never have thought of it, or thought to visit.

You’re missing out.

Today, I chatted with radio 2GB Sydney host Michael McLaren about Oman. About walking through the narrow streets of a mudbrick town, where you’ll pass men in the classic Omani dishdasha, a long, white robe topped with a kumar, an embroidered cap worn nowhere else but Oman. It is unmistakably different. It is unmistakably Omani.

Travelling in Oman is easy, safe and the people are welcoming – and this is the most fragrant country, the land of frankincense, myrrh, of cardamon-scented coffee and pure rosewater, which I watched distilled in the hill towns of Al Jabal Al Akhdar.

To listen to my chat with Michael McLaren, click here.

Otherwise, you can tune into my podcast, The World Awaits, where I caught up with co-host Kirstie Bedford on my return, to talk about travelling from Muscat to Nizwa to the mountains and the fjords of the Musandam peninsula as well as the deserts – the lovely, lonely, great sand deserts of Arabia.

2GB interview https://omny.fm/shows/2gb-afternoons/travel-oman

The World Awaits podcast https://open.spotify.com/episode/4yGJB2Gu4axrPJJhWgDlhw

Aug

Free things to do in airports: ABC Radio interview

Waiting in airports is one of the downsides of travel. But is it? I reckon airports are magical places, and there are so many free things to do in airports.

This week, I chatted with ABC Radio Melbourne’s Sunday program about the best things to do in airports over the world – and many of them free or just the price of a cup of coffee.

Sure, you can scroll on your phone or put on your headphones and tune into a movie. Or… you could wander through a museum dedicated to Hellenic history (Athens), admire the great Dutch Masters (Amsterdam), have a cup of tea at Harrods (Doha) or dress up in traditional Korean hanbok and try a few handicrafts (Seoul). What could a be better way to spend your time?

Even our Australian airports are worth discovery – I love that in Melbourne, you can drink coffee from some of our most famous cafes – I’m thinking of St Ali here, and snack on food by our top chefs, such as Movida and Cafe Vue by Shannon Bennett.

Click here to listen to my interview with Lisa Leong on ABC Melbourne.

May

Teaser alert: the newest travel podcast in town has dropped!

I’m super excited to announce that I’ve teamed up with fellow travel journalist Kirstie Bedford to create a new podcast for the Travel Writers Radio show.

Kirstie Bedford and Belle Jackson have launched their new travel podcast.

Travel Writers Radio is a two-hour, drive-time slot running on Melbourne’s J-Air 88FM each Wednesday, and repeated on Saturdays 1-3pm, which you can also listen back on https://soundcloud.com/travelwritersradio and the podcast takes the show further out into the world.

Rome! Tasmania! Champagne! They’re just a sample of the places we’ll take you on the first episode Travel Writers Radio podcast, which drops on Spotify, Amazon, Apple and wherever you find good podcasts, this coming Thursday 1 June.

You can also visit us at https://travelwritersradio.com to check it all out.

Click here for a little teaser full of promises. See you on the pod!

See https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/travel-writers-podcast/

Mar

ABC Radio Monday Night Travel: Langkawi & Penang, Malaysia

Occasionally, I chat with ABC Radio’s Nightlife presenter Phil Clark about travel for his Monday Night Travel segment, and recently we chatted about Malaysia – specifically two of its most loved destinations, Langkawi and Penang.

Langkawi is all about getting away from it all: island-hopping in the Andaman Sea, visiting picturesque paddy fields and jungle-clad hills, finding tranquil waterfalls.

Penang is a different animal: with a stronger Chinese influence compared with Langkawi’s greater Malay population, there’s a hustle about Penang that is undeniably contagious. Feel it in the early morning wet markets where you’re grabbing a bowl of breakfast noodles. Feel it again as you wander the streets of Little India or snap some of Penang’s well-documented street art, or when the sun goes down and the shophouses are lit up and transformed into little bars that spill out onto the footpaths and merge into the streets lined with food carts.

Click here to listen to my radio interview with Phil Clark.

Got an new appetite for travel in Malaysia? My recent cover story asks the cheeky question: is travel in Malaysia better than Bali? Ooooh – that’s a big one to ask Bali-loving Aussies. Let me set the argument for a Malaysian holiday! https://globalsalsa.com/better-than-bali-why-malaysia-should-be-on-your-travel-radar-in-2023/

See https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/travel-to-malaysia-belinda/101465284

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