Tourism

• The Guardian‘I haven’t felt this present for months’: sail back in time on a Thames barge in Essex

  You don’t have to be a sailor to cruise the estuaries of Essex on this historic craft. The skipper will show you the ropes – or just sit back and enjoy the rideIn a darkened room in Maldon, Essex, a ship’s lantern illuminates the laundry drying on a web of ropes suspended from the ceiling. Between piles of sailing memorabilia, 86-year-old Barry Pearce is flipping through a yellowing logbook, watched by his mongrel, Winkle. It feels more like a ship’s cabin than a terrace house. Pearce is one of a handful of surviving skippers who delivered freight on the Thames by sailing barge, the flat-bottomed trading boats famous for their striking red sails that were endemic to the river’s estuary until the 1960s. He remembers the names of every vessel he worked on – Remercie, Edith May, Colonia.In the 19th century, the ochre sails of thousands of Thames sailing barges pierced the skyline as the craft carried cargo from the Thames estuary and beyond in and out of London. Their shallow draft allowed them to snake far upriver in as little as a metre of water (bargemen would boast that they could sail anywhere there had been a heavy dew). Their ingenious rig, with sails that could be set and stowed with the help of winches, meant around 150 tonnes of cargo could be shifted by just a skipper and mate – often accompanied by a guard dog. This efficiency allowed them to outlive all other commercial sailing vessels, surviving until the 1960s, when Pearce himself took the helm. Continue reading...

  08/08/2026
• The GuardianSummer on the Baltic: a laidback coastal adventure in Lithuania

  With great beaches, culture and nature, the resort town of Palanga and the wild Curonian Spit offer an affordable – and cooler – alternative to the MedThe water off Palanga’s sandy white beach is tinged pale green – the colour of the feathery clouds of Furcellaria lumbricalis that occasionally brush against my calves. Underfoot, the Baltic seabed is ridged, the sea so clear and shallow that every ripple is visible. The water deepens very gradually – making it ideal for families. I’m quite far from the coast, but still only thigh deep, the sea still cool as I duck beneath the surface.Elsewhere in Europe, another heatwave has prompted health warnings and school closures. But here in Lithuania, children scamper on the sand and splash in the shallows as temperatures remain, if not cool, bearable. I’ve come to explore some of the Baltic beaches – here and on the Curonian Spit – which are fast gaining popularity as the Med heats up and prices in southern Europe remain stubbornly high. Continue reading...

  08/06/2026
• The GuardianCatch of the day: a seafood safari on France’s culinary coast

  From Calais to Le Touquet, the Côte d’Opale is home to thriving fishing ports, grand old seaside resorts and restaurants serving the freshest seafoodStellio Lestienne, chef at La Matelote in Boulogne’s harbour, shows me his shopping list as we browse the city’s daily morning fish market. He wants to pick up some crab and sole, which are in season, but his usual lobster fisher is still out on his boat, so he’ll have to wait a bit for that. Although I’ve been a regular visitor to both Boulogne and the surrounding Hauts-de-France region for about 30 years, this is my first time in the fish market. Now I’m kicking myself for all that lost time.It’s not very big, nor is it remotely picturesque, stretching along a nondescript car park in the port. But it does have a fantastic selection of fish and seafood, both from fishers (pêcheurs artisans in light-blue stalls) and retailers (commerçants in dark blue). And it’s considerably cheaper than other fish markets I’ve seen. “People come here from the UK with cool bags to do their shopping,” Stellio says, pointing to a man doing that very thing. I spot filleted roussettes (dogfish) going for €2 each. At another stall, a man deftly slices through a grotesque-looking monkfish, cutting out the prized cheeks. Continue reading...

  08/05/2026
• The Guardian10 of Britain’s best piers for dining, nightlife and good old seaside fun

  From Blackpool to Bournemouth, these quintessentially British institutions celebrate a lot more than fish and chips and amusement arcadesPerched in our glass-fronted eyrie, 300 metres out to sea, we watch a murmuration of starlings rise and fall and swoop around us. When the show is over, we turn our attention to the food. I have a bespoke vegan menu based on the best early summer ingredients: jersey royals, asparagus, strawberries. My boyfriend orders off the weekly changing à la carte: slow-cooked beef dumplings followed by butter-poached halibut.We are at Ebb, a restaurant at the end of the pier in Worthing, West Sussex, which opened in May. Its art-deco design and fine-dining dishes are a far cry from the fish-and-chip shops and ice-cream parlours more commonly found on seaside piers. But traditionalists need not despair: downstairs at Perch on the Pier, fish and chips – as well as tofish (tofu) and chips – are always on the menu, with a knickerbocker glory to round things off in fine retro style. Continue reading...

  08/03/2026
• The GuardianKindness of strangers: When we were lost in the Thai rainforest, a fellow backpacker picked me up and carried me home

  For hours we hobbled back, until we were close enough for him to place me down and run for helpRead more in the kindness of strangers seriesWe had heard there was an incredible waterfall somewhere deep in the Thai rainforest. Seeking it out almost killed me.In 2003 I was travelling solo through south-east Asia when I met Paul, an American with an easy-going, natural warmth. We were the only two people bunking at a youth hostel somewhere in southern Thailand and got chatting one morning. When the staff told us about a beautiful waterfall not far from where we were staying, we made plans to hike there together. Continue reading...

  08/02/2026
• The Guardian‘Poirot’s hotel was the place to stay in Istanbul’: the book that inspired my travels

  Falling in love with a novel motivated these five travel writers to immerse themselves in locations from the Yukon and Kyrgyzstan to the Côte d’AzurInspired by Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express Continue reading...

  08/02/2026
• The GuardianExploring Rabat, Morocco – this year’s Unesco World Book Capital

  Rabat is a gorgeous seaside city with great food and culture, but for book lovers there’s an added incentive to go this yearThe first book I read willingly was Bridget Jones’s Diary. I was 19. Up to that point, I hadn’t been much of a reader. I’d been more into football, or Baywatch, or Robin Budd in the year above – anything really. Given the choice between reading a book and staring at a wall, I would have plumped for the latter.After finishing my A-levels, I worked in a barbecue restaurant in Portsmouth – which is where I found Bridget Jones. The book was lying around in the staffroom. I picked it up and read a few pages, and then a few more, and then a few more. It felt exciting. Like I’d met someone. Like I was suddenly in a relationship. Over the next few days, I remember cancelling nights out so I could go to bed and read. My mum thought I was depressed. Continue reading...

  08/01/2026
• The GuardianMy slow Swedish summer on the tranquil islands of Östergötland

  Small boats and kayaks connect the sparse communities and flourishing wildlife living on the thousands of islets on the Baltic coastAt 5am on Arkösund bay, it is so light it could be midday. I slip out of the pretty clapboard Arkösunds hotell, opened in 1895, as a small boat putters into the Baltic Sea, the sun sparkling on its calm waters. A wooden boardwalk invites me on to a string of tiny islets as geese arrow overhead and a mother swan coaxes her fluffy cygnets into a nook under a bridge.I’m on Sweden’s east coast to explore the Östergötland archipelago, a sprawl of about 9,000 islands scattered across the Baltic Sea a few hours south of Stockholm. Quieter and less crowded than the better-known isles off Stockholm or Gothenburg, it covers several pockets of coastline and smaller archipelagos: Arkösund, Sankt Anna, Gryt and Tjust. The larger islands are flecked with traditional red timber summer houses, and are home to seals, sea birds, and dense, verdant forests of alder, cedar, oak and pine. Continue reading...

  07/30/2026
• The Guardian‘Full of zesty colour and flavour’: readers’ favourite food festivals in Europe

  From the Tiramisù World Cup in Italy to street food ‘battles’ in Newcastle, your culinary highlights range from the sublime to the delicious• Tell us about a book that inspired you to travel – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays breakThe town of Menton on the French Riviera is beautiful at any time of the year but becomes even more of a treat during the annual Lemon festival (Fête du Citron, 10-28 February 2027). Its microclimate, courtesy of the Alps to the north blocking colder winds, gives Menton lemons a distinct fragrance, flavour and quality that set them apart. For me, the event transformed a damp cold UK winter into a fortnight of colour, taste and light. There were food tastings, salads made with lemons, tarts, cakes and pies all full of zesty colour and flavour at stalls and markets in the town. There are sculptures made from citrus fruit, parades and exhibitions in the Golden Garden of Light (Jardins Biovès). More than a food festival, it’s a celebration of what nature can give to the world.April Continue reading...

  07/24/2026
• The GuardianWhy Scotland’s cinematic Moray coast made it a perfect location to shoot The Odyssey

  ‘Legends cling like barnacles to these shores,’ says our local writer, who reveals how the lore of these craggy cliffs and beaches resonates with the Homeric classicThe incoming tide has made a labyrinth of the beach. As silvery rivulets spread across Culbin Sands to meet the mudflats, my walk becomes increasingly circuitous: weaving inland towards the pine forest, backtracking closer to the waves, skirting tidal pools and scaling dunes constantly resculpted by the North Sea breeze.In this shapeshifting stretch of north-east Scotland’s Moray coast, there’s not another soul in sight, nothing to anchor me to the modern day. It’s easy, then, to imagine a longship bringing weary warriors ashore, or a band of man-eating giants marauding from the woodland. Which is exactly what happens here – on screen – in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey. Continue reading...

  07/23/2026
• The GuardianMushroom trip: a mycologist’s tour of the Tarkine

  On a three-day fungi workshop in Australia’s largest cool temperate rainforest, Alexis Buxton-Collins unearths an unexpected appreciation for the third kingdom of lifeRevered as one of Australia’s last true wilderness areas, Takayna/Tarkine is a place of legends. Freshwater crayfish that can reach almost a metre in length lurk in the shade of 2,000-year-old Huon pines, and every few years a rumour emerges that thylacines still prowl the dense Gondwanan rainforest of north-west Tasmania.For 65m years, this landscape has sheltered all manner of astonishing creatures. But some of the most fascinating life forms found here are even older. Before animals walked the Earth or trees began converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, fungi helped to create the conditions necessary for complex life on our planet. “People often say that fungi grow in the forest,” Dr Alison Pouliot, a mycologist, tells me as we inhale cool air perfumed with the gentle spice of sassafras. “But there wouldn’t be a forest without fungi. Fungi are the ecosystem engineers that created the foundation for the forest.” Continue reading...

  07/12/2026
• The GuardianWhale watching and skinny dipping: three leisurely days on the Tomaree coastal walk

  The 27km trail on the NSW mid-north coast reveals wildlife of the land and sea, plus the option to go clothes-freeThe waves are tracking higher than the average Australian house when the opportunity arises to bare all. We’ve arrived on foot at Samurai beach, a remote nudist spot midway along the 27km Tomaree coastal walk on the New South Wales mid-north coast in the Port Stephens area. The one-in-50-year swell battering the state’s shoreline has clearly scared off the usual cohort of weekend naturists who come to this vast stretch of sand for its south-facing surf, salt-sprayed seclusion and pristine sand dunes.Clothing removal is optional here, but my bushwalking buddy and I agree it would be rude not to experience the beach as it was intended. The only witnesses to our gleeful antics are a handful of nonchalant magpies foraging on the sand between bits of plastic, and a Gould’s petrel (the endangered seabird that nests on the nearby islands off Port Stephens) hovering high above the breakers like a grey and white drone with a 75cm wingspan. Continue reading...

  06/17/2026

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