Oct 25th, 2010 at 9:30AM:
Several nights into our journey, as we were speeding along dark roads en route to our guest house on the island of Lifou in New Caledonia, I felt a bolt of irrepressible excitement of the sort familiar, no doubt, to most travel enthusiasts. We'd just spent several nights in big, bold Sydney, a bona fide world city, well-organized and self-evident. Sydney was exciting, but, truth be told, not ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
capricornroute posts
Reflections on a round-the-world journey
Oct 25th, 2010 at 9:30AM:
Several nights into our journey, as we were speeding along dark roads en route to our guest house on the island of Lifou in New Caledonia, I felt a bolt of irrepressible excitement of the sort familiar, no doubt, to most travel enthusiasts. We'd just spent several nights in big, bold Sydney, a bona fide world city, well-organized and self-evident. Sydney was exciting, but, truth be told, not ...Round-the-world: Capricorn Route trip top ten
Oct 18th, 2010 at 11:30AM:
Later this week I'll reflect on the ups and downs of our round-the-world trip. I'll look at what we might have done differently as well as those elements that turned out to be particularly well conceived. In the meantime, here's a playful top ten list of some of the best things we encountered along the way: best beach; best ice cream; best tourist trap; best breakfast; best market stall; best ...Round-the-world: Victoria Park Village, London's most perfect retail cluster
Oct 16th, 2010 at 11:00AM:
London is the final stop on our round-the-world trip. This stop is different than the seven that preceded it; from the moment the plane lands, we are no longer in vacation mode. The point of our visit is to do research in preparation for a move to London in December.
First and foremost, our objective is to figure out what sort of living situation we can afford; after that, our goal is to ...Round-the-world: Mauritius top five
Oct 13th, 2010 at 10:30AM:
Mauritius has all sorts of charm by the bucketload. It's got beaches, beautiful resorts, rough-and-tumble districts, colonial architecture, and a tropically lush physical environment. Following are five stand-out places and pastimes that showcase the island's distinctive beauty.
1. Local grub. In addition to the fresh seafood on offer, there are hunting reserves on Mauritius that generate ...Round-the-world: Chantemer, a Mauritius guest house
Oct 12th, 2010 at 10:30AM:
"This is not a hotel. This is a private home." With these words, Indra Tinkler, widely referred to simply as "Madame" by taxi drivers and other tourism providers across the south of Mauritius, introduces us to Chantemer, her small guest house. There is a flourish of the hand in the delivery. I assume--it turns out correctly--that we are in for an entertaining stay.
Located at Pointe d'Esny ...Round-the-world: Port Louis Central Market, Mauritius
Oct 11th, 2010 at 3:30PM:
Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, buzzes with energy and dilapidated charm. Imposing office buildings, government ministries, and well-maintained colonial architecture bequeath some parts of the central city a prosperous, modern feel. Yet even with its hurried industry, its traffic and businesspeople, there is a sedateness. This is especially the case around palm-lined Place Sookdeo ...Round-the-world: Mauritius & a trip status report
Oct 8th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Originally, we'd scheduled five nights in Mauritius and four nights in Réunion. Mauritius would be devoted to the beach and the ramshackle capital of Port Louis, while our time on Réunion would prioritize hiking and the quaint villages of the interior. This, at any rate, was the plan.
Réunion was the one pesky piece of the itinerary that stubbornly resisted advance ...Round-the-world: Long layover in Johannesburg
Oct 6th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
A journey from Melbourne to Mauritius on Qantas and its oneworld partners is no straight shot. It requires a very early morning flight to Sydney, a long 14-hour jaunt to Johannesburg, and then a flight on to Mauritius. It's over 11,000 kilometers (almost 7000 miles) from Sydney to Johannesburg, 14 long hours by plane. During the very long haul flight, cloud cover limits views of the polar ...Round-the-world: Why Melbourne is the best city in the world, part two
Oct 4th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
There are lots of other arguments for Melbourne as the world's best city: museums, parks, open spaces; good bookstores. Add all these things to the list I began on Sunday, and soon these posts on Melbourne will begin to look like explicit promotional material. As much as I dig the city, this is certainly not my intention. So let me acknowledge that there are downsides to Melbourne. There is a ...Round-the-world: Why Melbourne is the best city in the world, part one
Oct 3rd, 2010 at 10:00AM:
If it is difficult to write about a hometown, it is also difficult to write about a city you wish were your hometown, a city to which you've fantasized about relocating. I've fantasized about moving to a number of places (Lisbon, Auckland, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Valencia, Chicago) though none of these more than Melbourne.
I first visited Melbourne in 2004. The climate, the ...Round-the-world: Two half-days in Noumea
Sep 29th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
Coming and going between Australia and Lifou afforded us long layovers in Nouméa in both directions.
The driving force behind my interest in Nouméa is the Centre Culturel Tjibaou. The cultural center was named after Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a leader of the Kanak independence movement, assassinated in 1989. (Kanaks are Melanesian New Caledonians, and they form a plurality of the ...Round-the-world: Dodging sea snakes on Lifou
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 10:00AM:
From Sydney we took a two-and-a-half hour morning flight to the French territory of New Caledonia and then jumped into a taxi headed to Nouméa, the capital. We then spent the better part of an afternoon exploring the capital. (Don't worry. I'll circle back to Nouméa in a future post.) Ahead of us: six nights on Lifou, one of New Caledonia's four Loyalty Islands.
Our Air ...Round-the-world: Sydney's sustainable design shops
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 10:30AM:
Increasingly, small independent shops are creating new aesthetics to pair up appropriately with eco-friendly and otherwise sustainable product and wares. Sydney boasts several boutiques that are in one or another way ahead of the global curve. Following are three shops, all opened within the past year or so, that merge sustainability, upcycling, and even a sense of community with retail ...Round-the-world: Four days in Sydney
Sep 20th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
The first four days of our round-the-world trip race by in a whirl of receipts, flat whites, great meals, urban hikes, and friendly Sydneysiders.
You'll see that receipts head my list. Australia has become one expensive lucky country, make no bones about it. A late night dash to a convenience store for bottled water, a muesli bar, and biscuits sets us back AUD17 ($16). A copy of Monocle ...How to take a round-the-world trip
Sep 10th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
An open-ended round-the-world trip can be led by whimsy and happenstance and benefit accordingly from extremely loose planning. A more structured, time-limited round-the-world trip necessitates figuring out transportation in advance. With five weeks to play with, we fell into the latter camp.
I emailed AirTreks in the spring and dutifully submitted an itinerary through their global map ...A round-the-world trip: Where?
Sep 8th, 2010 at 10:30AM:
Once I'd dispensed with my unrestricted fantasies of scurrying from seldom-visited corner to seldom-visited corner (see Monday's post) we got down to the essentials of figuring out where we wanted to go.
The Micronesian islands of Palau and Yap were our first priorities. Both destinations had been on our radar for years. Palau with its faintly stinging marine lake jellyfish and the ...A round-the-world trip: Why?
Sep 6th, 2010 at 10:00AM:
When I am asked why I love to travel, it's hard sometimes to come up with a fully satisfying answer, beyond simply stating that I love all the things that travel sets into motion. Travel enables cultural exposure, prompts the recurring and exciting recognition that there are different ways to go about everyday business, and allows strange and interesting things to happen in unfamiliar places. In ...
