Every guide on the atlas in one place. City guides live on their city pages, with per-city planning pages for things to do, hotels, food, and day trips. Routes, themes, and day trips have their own pages here, and shorter field notes sit at the end. All of it started as places I saved in Google Maps and went back to.
City planning pages
The per-city pages for the big planning questions.
Routes and transit
Scenic trains, coastal trams, and station-by-station references.
Riding the Bernina Express through the Alps
My notes on riding the Bernina Express through the Alps. The regional connection from Milan to Tirano, the panoramic train, the booking traps, and Chur at the end.
Riding the Kusttram down the whole Belgian coast
My personal guide to the Belgian coast by Kusttram. Where to stop, where to eat in Oostende, the Mercator ship, and the Oostduinkerke shrimp fishermen.
Themes
Cross-cutting lists that span more than one place.
A wander through the green markets of the Balkans
My working list of green markets across the Balkans, saved on long city stays for apartment cooking, honey and figs, and a morning wander.
Where to soak after a long-haul flight
A working list of spa towns to fly into when a long coach flight has left your body sore. Therme Erding near Munich, Pamukkale, Budapest, and Thermae Bath.
Day trips
Half-day and full-day trips out of a base city.
Bath makes more sense when you follow the water
My Bath guide to the Roman Baths, Thermae Bath Spa, Pulteney Bridge, the canal walk, Bathwick Boatman, and the food stops I used.
Salisbury is more than the bus stop for Stonehenge
My guide to Salisbury Cathedral, the Magna Carta, the official Stonehenge visit, the free Larkhill byway view, and where I ate.
Trogir, a UNESCO old town beside Split
My Trogir travel guide. Split bus 37, Kamerlengo Castle, the green market, the resident cats, and lunch in the old town.
City and region guides
- Alicante
- Alicante tram stops I use
- Amsterdam, my guide to the canal city and the day trips out
- Annecy, canals and a clean Alpine lake
- Antoni Gaudí
- Antwerp is the Belgian city with the grandest train station in Europe
- Athens beyond the Acropolis
- Augsburg, a Roman city an hour from Munich
- Ávila
- Bali, and which base is actually right for your trip
- Bangkok gets easier the moment you stop fighting it
- Bar, the quieter Montenegrin coast town
- Barcelona
- Belgrade is rougher than you expect, and that's the appeal
- Belluno and Caviola, slow days in the Dolomite foothills
- Benidorm
- Berlin, the European capital that plays by its own rules
- Bogotá at high altitude
- Boston, the walkable end of the Freedom Trail
- Brighton runs downhill from the station to the sea
- Bristol is a harbor city with a steep walk to Clifton
- Brittany, the corsair coast of northwest France
- Bruges works if you beat the day-trippers
- Bucharest is a slow burn that rewards a second look
- Budapest, the two cities the Danube splits
- Budva is an old town wrapped in a beach resort
- Buenos Aires
- Cabo Verde, the Atlantic islands most people never consider
- Cadaqués, the white village past the Cap de Creus headland
- Cairo asks more of you than most cities. Go anyway.
- Cambridge is a walking city built around the colleges
- Cape Town, after a few weeks on the ground
- Cardiff puts a castle, a stadium, and old shopping arcades in the middle of town
- Cartagena, the walled city on the Colombian Caribbean
- Chiang Mai, the slower half of a Thailand trip
- Chur, the Swiss base for the Bernina Express
- Cologne is a giant cathedral with a city attached
- Como, the lake town at the foot of the Alps
- Córdoba is an old university city that lives outside its monuments
- Delft, Vermeer's quiet town between the big two
- Djerba, the Tunisian island most North Americans have never heard of
- Dublin, the city that runs on its pubs
- Dubrovnik travel guide
- Durres is the beach end of an Albania trip
- Düsseldorf is an old town that doubles as the longest bar in the world
- Eastbourne is a Victorian seafront at the foot of the South Downs
- Eger, the Hungarian wine town two hours by train from Budapest
- Frankfurt is more than its airport
- Granada
- Gunung Mulu, a rainforest national park with a Marriott in it
- Have an afternoon to spend after a business trip to Houston?
- Heidelberg is a castle town that lives up to the pictures
- Hilton Head, the Lowcountry island of beaches and golf
- Ho Chi Minh City: District 1, Line 1, and beer after dark
- Hoi An, the lantern town on the central Vietnam coast
- How to plan Krakow without turning it into a checklist
- How to walk around London like you used to live there
- I went to York for the Mallard and found a city made for walking
- Ipoh is the Malaysian food town between KL and Penang
- Istanbul across two continents
- Izmir on the Aegean
- Jamaica, from the Blue Mountains to the west-coast beach
- Khao Yai, the nature break from Bangkok
- Koh Phi Phi, and what to know before the ferry
- Koh Samui, the quieter Thai island base
- Kota Kinabalu, Borneo on the easy setting
- Kotor, the bay, the walls, and the climb
- Krabi, the limestone coast and where to base
- Krka National Park is best before the tour boats arrive
- Kuala Lumpur travel guide
- Larnaca, the low-key way into Cyprus
- Lima is one of the world's great food cities
- Lisbon, my guide to the city of seven hills
- Liverpool starts at the Mersey and works back into the city
- Luang Prabang is built for slowing down
- Lyon, France's quiet food capital
- Madrid
- Málaga
- Malta, a whole country you can cross in an hour
- Manchester is a group of distinct neighborhoods joined by the tram
- Marrakech is overwhelming, and that is the trip
- Medellín, the city of eternal spring
- Mexico City is the food trip people keep putting off
- Miami is South Beach, but the city is the rest of it
- Milan rewards you once you stop expecting Rome
- Montevideo, the laid-back Rio de la Plata capital
- Mostar travel guide
- Munich, the Bavarian capital and the gateway to the Alps
- Muscat, Mutrah, and the mountain day beyond the capital
- Nashville, the music city in middle Tennessee
- New York City is too big to finish. Don't try.
- Nuremberg, the better German Christmas-market trip
- Palma
- Pamukkale, the white terraces of southwest Türkiye
- Panama City, where the skyline meets the old town
- Pattaya, taken on its own terms
- Penedès, the cava country an hour from Barcelona
- Phuket travel guide
- Playa del Carmen, the Riviera Maya base
- Prague, the old town everyone walks, done well
- Rennes is the easygoing capital of Brittany
- Rio, and how to plan a first trip you won't regret
- Rome really is as good as advertised
- Rotterdam, the architectural opposite of Amsterdam
- Saint-Malo and Mont Saint-Michel, a walled port and a tidal abbey
- Santiago de Compostela, the end of the Camino
- Santiago, a practical capital with wine country beside it
- São Paulo, the megacity travelers skip and should not
- Sarajevo carries its history in plain sight
- Sarandë and Ksamil
- Seoul, a ten-million city that somehow feels easy
- Singapore, the soft landing into Asia
- Sitges
- Sofia, the overlooked Balkan capital
- Split travel guide
- Taipei, noodles and a cat-village day trip
- Tbilisi might be my favorite city you haven't been to
- Tenerife
- The Hague, the easy alternative to Amsterdam
- Tirana, the Balkan capital changing the fastest
- Tokyo, the world's largest city, three wards at a time
- Ulm has the tallest church spire in the world
- Utrecht, the Dutch city most visitors skip
- Valencia
- Venice pays off when you plan it right
- Venlo is a small Dutch town on the German doorstep
- Verona is a Roman arena, an opera season, and the Romeo and Juliet myth
- Vienna still reads like an imperial capital
- Zagreb is an easy, unshowy capital
- Zakopane is a mountain base, not a checklist
- Zermatt, the car-free village under the Matterhorn
Field notes and essays
Shorter pieces: practical references, trip notes, and essays.
Grimaldi Lines Barcelona to Civitavecchia ferry review
I like long ferry crossings, but this one was cramped, boring, and bad enough that I would avoid it unless the car or luggage logistics make it necessary.
A short history of San Diego through 3 craft breweries
Three adaptive-reuse breweries, three of the eras that built San Diego.
Mike's Ultimate Airline Stopover Guide
Free and discounted hotels, transit tours, and when a stopover is worth adding to a long-haul trip.
How to visit the Rio Botanical Garden
Location, timing, tickets, weather, and what to see inside.
Cool Spanish castles from my "to-see" list
Six places to understand before adding them to a Spain itinerary.
Mike's notes on planning a first trip to Thailand
A practical route through Bangkok, one inland break, and one beach stop.