When connections change worlds: Malawi’s windmill inventor

VivekW Lonely Planet author

Have you heard of William Kamkwamba? I hadn’t until this morning.
In a world full of ‘amazing’ stories, his is truly extraordinary. As a boy in Malawi, he was too poor to afford school. Undeterred, he went to the local library to learn. Captivated by a book on windmills, he went home and cobbled together an…

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Matador waves his pink cape in the face of tradition

samw Lonely Planet author

Who remembers the nude bullfighting scene in the old Bigas Luna film, Jamón Jamón? As a parody of Spain’s notoriously macho matador culture, it doesn’t get much funnier than a naked Javier Bardem going, ahem, horn to horn with an angry bull in the moonlight.
For reasons that many non-Spaniards find hard to swallow, matadors are…

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Best of the week: 25 September

VivekW Lonely Planet author

Does travel change you?

One simple question. A flurry of conversation. The debate raged this week after Venessa posed the query on our Community blog. It extended into the Twitterverse and heated up the conversation on our Facebook page. What do you reckon?
Not to be outdone, Andy came in with another poser: where can you find…

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Polygamy USA

Robert Reid Lonely Planet author

Everyone’s talking about national parks these days (particularly with Ken Burns’ new documentary on America’s greatest invention on PBS out later this month). If you’re pondering a trip to one of the best areas for national park–hopping in the southwest, know that you’ll be skirting the heart of real-live Polygamy Country – particularly the community…

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Best of the week: 18 September

VivekW Lonely Planet author

Got bite? The week’s best started out with a worst – beaches where you’re likely to cosy up to a shark. The moral of the story: stick to the hotel swimming pool. (No, not really.)
Things got more family-friendly in a hurry. Our US Travel Editor Robert Reid chatted with on of our favourite bloggers, Travel…

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What’s the best travel themed music video?

Tom Hall Lonely Planet author

If you have a look at my avatar pic you’ll realise that I’m not much of a goth. No black make-up, no frown and definitely none of those enormous block-a-boots that the kids who hang out at Camden Lock seem to love so much.
But there’s no denying that this video by goth illuminati the Sisters…

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New Travel Rule: No Table Butting!

Robert Reid Lonely Planet author

You’re in a self-service cafe or restaurant. It’s busy. There’s only a free table or two, and five or six groups in line before you. You do the damning math. Even if half are taking their bagels to go, you’re out of luck if you want a seat unless another table leaves. Do you have…

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The open road vs book-learnin’ – what’s best for kids?

rosem Lonely Planet author

There are all kinds of education, and travelling young can be amongst the best. But is it fair to disrupt your children’s school life to take them on the road?
In the hippie(ish) 70s it was relatively common for parents to pull kids from school, often for months at a time, to give them experience of…

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22 Reasons to Hug Vladivostok

Robert Reid Lonely Planet author

Many Trans-Siberian Railway travelers cross Russia from Moscow, passing Lake Baikal, then cut south through Mongolia to Beijing. The fools. Not continuing on, to its very Russian end at Vladivostok (about 100 miles from North Korea) is like reading War & Peace’s 1400 pages and skipping Tolstoy’s didactic, unbearable 40-page essay on war at the…

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Best of the week: 11 September

VivekW Lonely Planet author

The lonelyplanet.com team was in a birthday frame of mind this week.

Hot on the heels of Andy’s community blog post commemorating Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary came Robert’s thoughts on birthday travel. Is it worth it? The answer: it depends.
‘How to’ dominated the Thorn Tree forum this week. We noticed some great discussions around how to…

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