Beyond a Travel Blog

We live in a more connected and yet more divided world, than ever before. With affordable global air travel, the internet and telecommunications, we are more connected than ever in the history of the world. (Well, we were until Covid hit).

Yet it seems that we are also far more divided and inward looking, globally, than ever before. Seeing, meeting, learning about other people and places is surely a force for good?

Perhaps by diverting away from those global sights for some of the time and visiting ‘secondary’ places we will connect more with that destination, it’s people, real culture and history.

The simple purpose of this Blog is to explore further beyond the ‘honeypot’ sights, so that viewers of your selfie will wonder ‘where is that interesting background’.

Follow Along!

Plan your travels

Posts and Photo’s

Middle East Posts

Train Rides Posts

The View from the Train

OK, I am bias. I admit it. The best way to travel, if possible is by train. You see the place you are visiting, warts, beauty and all. Stations are often meeting places, architectural gems, places of history and reflections of the places they serve. Plus, when you travel by train, you get to relax and perhaps even meet people whilst you travel.

So, many of my views, posts and photo’s are from a train, places visited by train or of specific journeys by rail.

Former Station Scranton PA....sadly no regular trains currently

Gallery: View From The Train

Flinders St Melbourne

Drought broke the day I arrived!

Aswan

Peaceful Aswan

Tokyo Subway

Trundling along

The Canadian

The DART

Near Blackrock

Jasper

JR5

Japan

Industrial Muscle

Steam Town Scranton

In My Opinion

Insights into topics affecting destinations, travel and people.

Our Changing Climate

Seeing and smelling it too.

There is little serious doubt that our climate is changing. Nationalism and isolationism is in in many places. Well, here are my observations of 4 days travels, which brought these together:-

Roar of the engines, nose up, clunk of wheels retracting. We’d nearly landed in Warsaw, read on..

Smoggy day in Warsaw>

Over Tourism

Yogi Berra said “that place is so crowded, folk don’t go there anymore”. Shortly after World War 2 in 1950, there were about 25 million ‘tourist arrivals’ (Source WTO). 68 years later that figure was 1.4 billion, that is a 56 fold increase! Back in 1950, 2/3rds of tourists arrived in Europe with practically none going to or within Asia. Now Europe is still important at about 50% but other continents, especially the Americas and Asia are now significant and growing.

Cruising Consequences

In the last 2 decades cruising has grown tremendously and is no longer just for the well to do. All styles and budgets are catered for and the ships just get bigger, becoming theme parks on water and holiday camps for 5000 at a time. It seems fine when they are at sea. It’s when they dock that the problems begin.

Helsinki Market – now a Cruise Port!