The guy didn’t use the headline I suggested (‘Beckham Look-a-Like Brings Travel Writing World to its Knees’), but nevertheless I appear in New York Times in a story about guidebook writers.  Unfortunately, you have to register with the nytimes site to view anything past the first two lines.  Copyright prevents…

Things seem to be getting worse in Transdniestr.  Trans-Dniester blast kills eight:  At least eight people have been killed in an explosion on a city minibus in Moldova’s breakaway Trans-Dniester region, officials say. No word on whether the maxitaxi was the target or whether the bomb was intended for another…

You may be surprised to hear that travel writing has a seedy underside. Quite often, almost routinely in fact (when you’re not working for Lonely Planet), travel writers are given a free room, meal or service, with an accompanying wink, on the condition that they compose glowing praise for whatever…

When I first stepped into my current apartment last August with the rental agent, two things struck me immediately; first, it was by far the least decrepit place she’d shown me and second the odor of cat piss was so overwhelming that I had to steady myself against a wall. …

The good people at BootsnAll, this blog’s host, took pity on the dull and generic appearance of ‘Every Notable Patch of Grass in Romania’ and offered to spruce it up for me on the condition that I dismantle my shrine to Chris and stop pestering his mother about his shoe…

I knew this day was coming.  My little Dell Latitude 200 that has been with me through three years of untold rain, snow, oppressive heat, flights, buses, boats, trains and meandering hikes through large, confusing cities in 38 countries is showing its age.  After 25 or so Windows updates, an…

The summer cook off calibre heat has finally reached Iasi.  Who wants some well-done travel writer?  White meat?  I’m Norwegian, that’s all I got.  The breasts are OK, but if you want a real treat go for the rump. We’ve had a full week of this heat now.  My old…

I’ve been meaning to start a list like this for a while now.  Each country has it’s own little oddities that aren’t necessarily going to thrill anthropologists, but are still intriguing. Here’s the start of a ongoing collection of my favourites from Romania: Mobile (cell phone) ‘beeps’ – Even if…

‘Not my problem’.  Over the past year, I’ve slowly come to realize that this is the Romanian mantra, seemingly uttered with a frequency that most people reserve for ‘how are you?’ and in some cases ‘dude, I’m so wasted’.  This is particularly true with the over-40 Romanian age group, who…

Hey, this is just a friendly public service announcement for you travelers to stay cognizant of some of the older scams that are still alive and well all over Europe. A friend of mine was just burned by the old menu switcheroo scam in Budapest last week, an art honed…