Around the Region There is a particular kind of trip I keep thinking about this week: the one you take somewhere precisely because it is quiet, not despite it. Siem Reap is having a hard year for reasons that have nothing to do with Angkor Wat itself, and everything to do with jet fuel prices
Southeast Asia spent fifty years destroying its most useful coastline. It’s finally growing back, and Vietnam has the receipts. Nobody puts a mangrove forest on a postcard. Ask someone to picture Southeast Asia and you get white sand, a longtail boat, maybe a temple roof catching the light. Nobody pictures a tangle of grey roots
Three new UNESCO biosphere reserves landed in June, including a first for Timor-Leste. What the designation is actually betting on, and what it asks of anyone who visits. Three places joined a very short list this June: UNESCO biosphere reserves, one of them a first for its country entirely. A biosphere reserve isn’t just a
Around the Region There’s a particular kind of travel news that never quite makes it past the trade press, and this week’s edition is a good example of that. UNESCO quietly added three new biosphere reserves to the map last month, one of them is a first for a country most readers have never had
Around the Region I’m not going to lie, the durian museum that just opened in Kuala Lumpur isn’t tempting me onto a flight this week. I don’t find the notoriously pongy fruit as intrusive as some, but I did once convince myself that there was a gas leak in the apartment (which isn’t connected to
Around the Region Hello from Europe, where I’m currently trading Bangkok’s humidity and incessant rain for a rather more restrained kind of summer, though I won’t pretend I don’t miss the smell of a night market and being able to grab a bite to eat from a street stall at 9pm. Westerners do have stricter
Around the Region Low season is upon us, and the region is feeling a reduction in visitor numbers at community level. Each nation has its own way of attempting to plug the gap – and in Thailand’s case, that means taxing your arrival and your departure. If you’re flying out of Thailand this weekend, your
Around the Region For those of us in Bangkok who found ourselves knee-deep in flood water this week, this is merely a sign of things to come. Briefly, messily, typically a storm can see the water table in Thailand’s capital rise quickly. And this is why you’ll find many older Bangkok residents seeking retirement in
A major new report finds two in three captive elephants in Thailand live in poor conditions – despite the industry’s ethical re-brand. Here’s what the report actually says, and what you need to know before you go. The sanctuary had no riding. No shows. It had a logo with a lotus flower and a tagline
Around the Region Not everything that calls itself ethical always is. Operators and outlets across the region claim green credentials that don’t survive much scrutiny – and those of us seeking genuinely sustainable travel experiences know exactly what that looks like. The region is waking up to the reality that visitors don’t just want eco-friendly
Thailand Built a Sustainable Tourism Model in Krabi. Now It’s Rolling It Out in Chiang Mai.
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They Were Feeding Wild Sharks to Give Tourists Their Insta Moment. Bohol Just Put a Stop to It.
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Vietnam’s Best Michelin Restaurants in 2026: The Practical Guide for Conscious Travellers
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