Tales of travel, food, books, art and science…
I have left the links page alone for so long that I thought I had not updated it to include those marvellous sites I discovered in 19 Best Travel Blogs & Websites. Fortunately I have done a better job than I think, but an update is in order. I’d like this page to be a connoisseurs guide to good parts of the web. The good web seems to be masked by the plethora of the bad, inadequate and mediocre. Will the web mature? How can we find and access gems amongst the dross?
Sadly, I have left my web links alone again for far too long. I don’t know, maybe links recommendations off to the side aren’t that important. It is hard to know. I rarely come across site these days where I think I must tell someone about that. However, to be straight as soon as I feel a need to publish more links and to speak about them I’ll do it. However, the statistics don’t justify any confidence. In terms of ancillary pages: Links aren’t quite double Navigation Support (and who needs that) and much less than Galleries and About.
I wonder sometimes about my own site. My longish articles for the web, only appeal to some and only a few of those find it. I’ve looked at various market and audience attracting strategies but none of them will work because the nature of my site is diverse rather than targeted, idiosyncratic rather than focused and much too broad and self-indulgent for any particular audience.
Time will tell whether the blog will garner a larger discrete audience over time, or languish as one undistinguished personal blog amidst millions. The point is I don’t care too much because my writing is sufficient enjoyment in itself and so it should be.
So far I’ve only a few categories of links: Art, Classic SciFi, Food and Travel. Only Travel has been well-researched to date because of my mid-2017 article 19 Best Travel Blogs & Websites. However, I am conscious of this and will try to improve.
Links that inspire me
Art
Japan Kaleidoskop Japanese art and literature
Classic Sci Fi
Classics of Science Fiction
Classics of Science Fiction James Wallace Harris and Mike Jorgensen’s formal analysis of the best science fiction classics from a wide selection of databases. Good articles and essays. I am a guest reviewer on this site.
Auxiliary Memory
Auxiliary Memory The Science Fiction part James Wallace Harris’s personal blog, also with good articles and essays.
Best SciFi
Best SciFi Books An excellent database of the best in SciFi.
Other Books
Neglected Books is a favourite of mine. It is all about old books overlooked or neglected and reintroducing you to them. Unfortunately, they don’t cover Sci Fi or non-fiction but that isn’t a criticism.
Food
What’s Cooking on Page 32 my friend Peggy’s cooking blog is really interesting. The idea is simple but innovative and quirky at the same time. Peggy selects recipe books mostly at random and cooks the recipe on page 32 (or multiple thereof when the page is not relevant for one reason or another). Peggy also did not choose the number herself but ran a competition to decide and 32 was the winner.
Rachel Cooks Thai is a good cooking site for Thai food. If you like Thai food, which I do then this is a good place to go if you want to cook Thai food. I found Rachel’s site when writing about Khao Soy and was searching for sites to teach you to cook Khao Soy, if you wanted to try it and weren’t likely to go to Thailand. I mean why would you bother to cook Khao Soy at home if you can go to Thailand instead. Rachel’s site doesn’t seem to be current (last posts in 2016) but the recipes are good.
Travel
Never Ending Voyage because life is short and the world is large. A nice site by two young techno-nomads Simon and Erin who sold everything they owned and left the UK in 2010. I find the stories Erin writes charming and the photographs well-chosen. This is a straight travel site full-of handy hints.
On the Luce part-time travel, full-time travel obsession. Professional short articles about travel locations visited.
I am fond of Lucy’s travel blog because she’s found a niche that is unusual and writes really nice short articles about travel, with a strict formula and good photographs. She backpacked full-time in her 20s but is now a part-time traveller from a base in Cheltenham in the UK.
Travelfish is an independent travel guide for South East Asia. It is the brainchild of Samantha Brown and Stuart McDonald and is Australian based. Although it is quasi-commercial most of the content is free and you can join up free for the forums.
They offer a different take on travel in South East Asia from the commercial guide books and they know what they are talking about. The Itineraries they offer, the free information and the travel forums are really excellent.
Live Less Ordinary is another good mainly Asian Travel site is by Allan and Fanfan Wilson. They are trying to be slightly more commercial than Travelfish, but are also avoiding the worst because of negative experiences with sponsorship and the like. I discovered their site when writing my article on Khao Soy in Chiang Mai (link), which is probably my most visited post.
Where to Next? is a travel blog about the travels of Peggy and John Bright. Unlike some of the younger travel and techno-nomads featured, Peggy and John are older travellers, but no less bold in where they go.
Off Assignment’s About explains everything. This is a weird and wonderful site with good stories by professional writers about their experiences. A different slant on travel.
Carnets de Traverse Simple stories, beautiful photos. Many, but not only, road trip stories, focussing on the less obvious.
Everything about Scandinavia events, culture, design and cool. The calendar is excellent for spontaneous travelers. Nice to see a country or group of countries so well showcased: a lesson to all tourist destinations. More countries need this cool and thoughtful approach to presenting their best.
Lost with Purpose Twenty-something travel nomads documenting out of the way places with the right attitude. Particularly Central Asia and Asia in general. Really nice articles and photographs.
Roam Magazine Great Photo Essays and stories by writer and photographer sisters.
Jungles in Paris Mini documentaries that are like art pieces, telling inspiring stories of craftsmanship, character, tradition, and extreme natural environments.
Tiny Atlas Quarterly is a photography-led lifestyle travel brand and social community that brings personal travel to life: in our magazine, through events and products and on immersive adventures.
Our Wild Abandon: On the road since 2013. Beautiful photos and short personal stories, make us yearn to get away. Kyla and Jill are something else. These two are out there. They do things that the rest of us only dream of and photograph and write about it brilliantly. They are unique.
Cheri Lucas Rowlands, previously called writing through the fog, is a writer whose blog also contains travel articles, mostly photography. The snapshot photography is fresh and interesting.
Uncornered Market: travel wide, live deep. Another travel nomad couple; contains good stories and photographs of out of the way places.
Nerd’s Eye View: a camera, a passport, a ukelele, and a weird little dog. Pam Mandel is a professional writer who wants to earn money but she is upfront about this. Her travel stories and photography, including black and white, are excellent, different and quirky.
Legal Nomads: Telling stories through food. I’m a former lawyer who now eats soup for a living. Jodi Ettenberg writes quite entertaining guides to places and food with some photography.
Phil in the Blank is an unusual travel blog by someone whose profession he claims is teaching people to draw camels. Phil’s blog is about travel and living in West Africa from a somewhat strange perspective.
Stories of Conflict and Love was begun by Roxanne when she was working as a humanitarian worker in conflict zones. She has continued with the title to remind her of its relevance. Most stories are personal and she showcases her travel with photographs. An unusual travel blog, but definitely worth a look.
Fathom Away gives great ideas about travel and has great stories and articles but I found the site itself irritating to navigate and much better when one goes straight to an article from a search.
Other (not yet organised)
Writing
Narratively Human Stories Boldly Told is a digital publication and storytelling studio that publishes long narratives (4-6000 words and more). Longer than mine! I first heard about Narratively when I heard Noah Rosenberg talking about it on ABC National Radio on a visit to Australia. I visit it from time to time to admire this antithesis of all good wisdom about the Net and the limited attention span of its audience.
