I am interested in:
Friday, 12th October, 2018
In a long-ranging roundup – in this month’s Conde Nast Traveller – of some of Namibia’s finest new properties, Stanley Stewart’s Catch-a-fire makes much space for the art of the tracker and what it brings out in the traveller. Anyone, he says, ‘can sip sundowners and peer at zebra through binoculars. Put in a couple…
Tuesday, 9th October, 2018
Among this year’s winners of the Nobel Peace Prize (announced last week) are two anti-rape activists. The first is the Iraqi Nadia Marudi, who was raped by ISIS combatants and later became the face of the campaign to free the Yazidi people. The other is Denis Mukwege, a DR Congolese gynaecologist who set up a…
Friday, 5th October, 2018
This week it’s my turn to introduce to you the second of Journeys by Design’s own 7 Wonders of Africa, chosen by myself. Of course, I barely had to think before I had my answer: the rock-hewn Abuna Yemata church in Tigray, northern Ethiopia. The Abuna Yemata is one of over 100 churches in Tigray….
Tuesday, 2nd October, 2018
Every month we post a blog inspired by Journeys by Design’s brochure Experience. This month it is the Ju/hoan of Namibia. Will Jones highlights the lengths to which the Ju/hoan went in creating the Nyae Nyae Conservancy. In their book The Ju/huon San of Nyae Nyae and Namibian Independence, anthropologists Mega Biesele and Robert K…
Friday, 28th September, 2018
My first African surfing experience was a few years ago in Cape Town, an afternoon spent wiping out at Muizenberg. I was terrified of the white waves, and of the sign warning of great white sharks. And yet, despite the fear, the regular nasal cleansing, and the washing machine effect of repeated tumbles in the…
Tuesday, 25th September, 2018
Over the course of the last year, I have become the building’s environmental officer. But who am I kidding. I’m not the green police, waiting for someone to put a recyclable cup in the wrong bin before jumping out on them. The conundrum of greener living is just as much mine as anyone else’s. What…
Friday, 21st September, 2018
From the salt-flats of Ethiopia to the ever-changeable waterways of the Okavango Delta, across to the jungles of the DRC and up to Sudan’s Sahara, there is no end to Africa’s natural wonders, many of which support the most bio-diverse ecosystems on the planet. The Seven Natural Wonders of Africa were voted on in a…
Wednesday, 19th September, 2018
I’ve just got back from a trip to the Republic of Congo – also known as Congo Brazzaville – with journalist Sophy Roberts, Roland Purcell and photographer Robbie Lawrence. Roberts you will know from her writing for the likes of the Financial Times and Conde Nast Traveller. Purcell is a pioneering conservationist whose exploits I’ve…
Friday, 14th September, 2018
Happy New Year! Fun fact: around the world, there are a whole heap of cultures celebrating new year on different dates to the commonly known Gregorian celebration. Aside from the obvious 1st January celebrations, there’s also Chinese New Year (8th February), Iranian New Year (20th March), Indian Telegu (8th April), Sri Lankan Tamil (14th April),…
Tuesday, 11th September, 2018
The writer Isabella Tree’s article for last weekend’s Financial Times is entitled Highway to Heaven. At the risk of spoiling your read, it ends: ‘But this encounter with Sebo seems a pivotal moment. That stirring of human cognition. It feels as though we’ve driven through the red dust of dawns and dusks to the solar…