TRIP + PLATE + 365 days
Japan is one of those destinations that rewards preparation. Not because it’s difficult — in many ways it’s one of the easiest countries in the world to travel independently — but because a little planning upfront unlocks a completely different experience. The difference between a first-time visitor who prepared and one who didn’t is visible … Read more
I’ll be honest with you: Prague was one of those cities I thought I understood before I arrived. Cobblestone streets, a famous bridge, a castle on a hill — I’d seen the photos. What I wasn’t prepared for was the sheer density of it all. Standing on Charles Bridge at golden hour in July, the … Read more
Planning your first trip to Hong Kong and not sure where to start? I spent 4 days there in January and here’s the honest truth: nothing quite prepares you for the scale of it. Towers packed so tightly together they almost touch, streets buzzing with millions of people — and yet the whole city runs … Read more
There is a type of restaurant that every neighbourhood in Seoul quietly depends on, and that visitors almost never find. It doesn’t have a neon sign optimised for Instagram. It doesn’t run a delivery app promotion or pay for placement on food ranking websites. It simply opens at the same time every day, cooks the … Read more
There is a photograph on the wall of a restaurant in Berlin’s Mitte district that stops almost every first-time visitor in their tracks. It’s a portrait of a man in a striped polo shirt, taken sometime in the 1950s — relaxed, confident, with the kind of easy charisma that makes you look twice. He looks … Read more
There is a moment that happens to almost every visitor at the Tower of London, usually somewhere between the Crown Jewels and the Bloody Tower, when you stop walking and just stand still for a second. It’s not the weight of the stones or the darkness of the stairwells, though both are considerable. It’s the … Read more
There are a lot of cafés on Brick Lane. Some have been there for decades, weathering every wave of gentrification that has rolled through the East End with stubborn, reassuring consistency. Others have appeared more recently, riding the neighbourhood’s creative energy with carefully curated interiors and pour-over menus. Most of them are good. A handful … Read more
There is a museum on Berlin’s Museum Island that most visitors somehow manage to rank second or third on their itinerary — after the Neues Museum with its Nefertiti bust, after the Pergamon with its ancient gates — and yet, on the day you finally walk up those long stone steps and pass through the … Read more
There is a version of London that most first-time visitors never find. It doesn’t involve Buckingham Palace or the Houses of Parliament. It doesn’t ask you to queue for two hours at a tourist attraction or sit through a double-decker bus commentary delivered by a bored guide with a microphone. It’s the London that actually … Read more
If you are visiting Sapporo and want to understand the roots of Japan’s beer culture, the Sapporo Beer Museum (サッポロビール博物館) is a must-see destination. Located in a historic red-brick building, the museum tells the story of how beer production began in Hokkaido and how Sapporo Beer became one of Japan’s most recognizable brands. More than … Read more