Outside Context travel writing has been featured on some of the world’s top websites. Articles have been purchased by Airlines, featured in iPhone Apps, published as questions in degree level English examinations and comments have been posted by everyone from Lonely Planet writers to US Special Forces Lieutenant Colonels!
Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir 2018 – wine review
I wanted today to take you on a journey to the Marlborough region of New Zealand and elicit a taste of the feelings I have for this area. My love for New Zealand started [...]
The Purpose of Travel – Now Published!
We often take arriving at the destination to be the purpose of travel. Taken in this way the journey itself is not the point, rather it is the serious business of transporting our bodies from [...]
Losing Control, Releasing Nature – The Directors Cut!
In the last of my series of films re-examining my output over the last 10 years, I present the definitive edition of my film celebrating my wife’s silver gilt award at the RHS show. The [...]
Chan Buddhism, Daoism and Zen – Journey through the East
Writing an article about Zen is almost a contradiction in terms. That is unless I simply leave the rest of it blank... Just a finger, pointing to the moon… But, I don't want to do that! [...]
50 Shades of Uluru
Come see the ever changing colours of Uluru in all its unbelievably rich and mesmerising splendor at sunset. Followed by the next morning as the sun rises and the colours grow as the sun bathes the rock faces in light.
The Magnificent Temples of Angkor (Special Edition)
The magic of the temples of Angkor are almost beyond imagination. I met many people on my travels who have claimed to be “templed out” – tired of seeing one similar looking temple after another. [...]
Wudang Mountain – Climbing the Dao in China
A journey to Wudang Mountain; the small mountain range in the northwestern part of Hubei, China, just south of Shiyan. This film details the 20,000 steps up this magical mountain and the strange Daoist religious [...]
New Zealand – Country of Contrasts (Special Edition)
After watching LOTR for the first time I started a long journey of the heart. The first steps were the reading of the book itself, now and forever with the New Zealand landscape in my [...]
Endings and Beginnings – Basho and Cesca return home from their adventures
Endings are actually beginnings too. This is what I told myself as I sat in the tiny, oh so tiny, room in Osaka. It's one of those glass half empty or half full sort of [...]
Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, green tea and finding inner peace
I have written before about travellers wanting a point to it all, to travelling. In part this is perhaps seen as them wanting to justify the vast cost of travel; to have a point for [...]
The Zen Gardens, Our First Days in Kyoto
The bullet train pulled smoothly and serenely into the station, totally belying the speed it had demonstrated when blistering through the Japanese countryside. As I stepped down into the shiny and neat Kyoto station the [...]
Mount Fuji, Tokyo and the 200 mph Bullet Train
I wallowed comfortably in the exceedingly warm waters, the balmy mountain air was cool and smelled of the rich wood my surroundings were constructed from. I was butt-naked and in my first real Japanese onsen, [...]
Tsukiji Fish Market, Adventures in Sushi and the Edo-Tokyo Museum
4am in Tokyo, Japan trickled around and we were ready to go. We skipped breakfast and headed down to the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. It opened at 5:30am and back then you could wander in [...]
Tokyo: Akihabara, Asakusa and Shibuya
Tokyo, like Beijing and especially like Delhi, is a city that one could spend a lifetime in and never feel a sense of completion. The Japanese way of doing things enhances this feeling with wards [...]
Arriving in Japan
I have always looked at maps of the world and wondered if they skew perspective. America appears massive while Australia and India are diminished and Japan… well, miniscule. Even when I was young, I knew [...]
Beijing and the Great Wall – Our final days in China
"So," said Cesca loudly and clearly, just as I was drinking from a water bottle, "What's all this about China and Tiananmen Square?" I almost did a spit take. "Quiet!" I said and I looked [...]
China’s National Treasures – Pandas and the Terracotta Warriors
Everyone loves Pandas and at the Panda Conservation Centre near Chengdu, China is probably the best place to see them in the world. Watching them reminded me of the Douglas Adams quote: "...On the [...]
Mount Wudang and the Meaning of Life
In China, Daoist temples atop mountains are so numerous that there must be something about these high places that answers a longing for cliff edges and being above the clouds. A simplistic analysis of this, one [...]
Tiger Leaping Gorge & Lijiang
Flanked by several enormous mountains, Tiger Leaping Gorge is top contender for the deepest gorge in the world. The upper road of the gorge makes for some breath-taking hiking and winds slowly up the edge [...]
Yaks for tea and Tibetan Temples. Living the high life in Shangri-la
"You have to imagine," said the man in broken English, "that this..." he gestured his hands at the view in front of us, "big lake... flood wide and deep... great water!" He broke into a wide toothy smile.
China: Li River to Shangri-La
At one point in our journey I actually advocated to Cesca that we skip China. That she didn’t listen, and talked me round, proves clearly that I don’t know everything and Cesca has some great [...]
Hong Kong : The Most Photogenic City in the world
Certain cities in the world are instantly recognisable from hundreds of classic movies that have been set there. No one could mistake Paris, New York or London on film, but for me the most [...]
The day I met the Buddha, and killed him
Delhi. Many people say they have “done” Delhi, but in all honesty they haven’t. They have perhaps done the tourist parts of New Delhi, or maybe spent some time in an Ashram there – [...]
Shimla mountains and a happy meeting
When you travel through a country, especially if you are using a published travel guide, you are walking a well trodden path. Indeed maybe a thousand people are doing it with you simultaneously. This has a very strong effect over time, as more and more guest houses start catering only to the backpacker and spring up all along the route, which had myriad knock-on effects. Such as: taxi services who know the guide books better than you do and hordes of travellers at ever corner all "experiencing" the local atmosphere; all the time failing to realise that they are in a "bubble" like a Disney theme park ride.
