Flightster
Kentucky: A Bluegrass Odyssey
- by Jools Stone
- on May 31st, 2011
- No Comments
Kentucky may be more famous for bourbon, horse farms and the Derby, but it’s music that drew me there. For many years I have hankered after the notion of rolling up in the hometown of one of my favourite bands: Louisville’s My Morning Jacket.
A combination of stormy weather and a busy itinerary mean that when I finally get there on a press trip kindly organsied by the Kentucky Tourist Board, I never quite manage the fanboy pilgrimage I had in mind originally. But the trip is still a revelation, and music of a decidedly more old time vintage, but one whose influence you can no doubt trace in the Jacket and others of their ilk, is the key.
Secrets of Quebec’s Dog Sled Club
- by Jools Stone
- on May 16th, 2011
- No Comments
The three rules of Dog Sled Club are:
1. You don’t talk about Dog Sled Club*
2. You always keep the sled in front of you
And most important of all..
3. No matter what happens, you never let go of the sled!
Was this present in my mind as I scooped my shellshocked-looking fiance from her icy face bath, having just lost control of our sled and accidentally flung her off within mere centimetres of a stout looking tree trunk? I can’t pretend it was but such is one’s protective instinct, which of course did not have the foresight to kick in some half a second earlier or we would not have been in the farcical predicament of haplessly chasing after our guides, who in turn were chasing after the unleashed dogs and the attached sled.
The Knowledge: Two Tours of one City
- by Jools Stone
- on April 11th, 2011
- 1 Comment
Recently I zipped up my boots and went back to my roots in dirty old London town. The pretext was to attend World Travel Market and various blogging pow wows, but having been exiled north for 9 years I thought it’d be interesting to see the city as an outsider again, so I signed up for two very different, equally enlightening tours.
Finding the Smallest Pub in Europe… by mistake
- by Jools Stone
- on April 5th, 2011
- 4 Comments
The Circus Tavern, Europe's smallest pub
‘Can you help us please? We’ve come on holiday by mistake.’ This unforgettable line from the classic comedy film Withnail & I brings to mind that old travel chestnut – the joy of finding an absolute gem when and where you least expect it.
Like most travel cliches, this rarely happens to me to be honest. All too often I experience the opposite though. Places you’ve heard others rave about sometimes lose their lustre when you finally get around to checking them out for yourself. I was excited to hear of the DM Baar in Talinn, Estonia. A bar completely themed around electro goth marauders Depeche Mode. Yes, really. Apparently they even hung out there themselves for a few hours of their last appearance in the city.
Going Slow and Local with GranTourismo
- by Jools Stone
- on January 20th, 2011
- 3 Comments
A year ago Lara Dunston & Terence Carter set out on their GranTourismo project, which explores what it means to live like a local when travelling. Staying for two weeks at a time in holiday homes provided by HomeAway Holiday Rentals they’ve covered 24 destinations worldwide in 12 months.
The Englishman who went up a hill and ran away from a mountain
- by Jools Stone
- on December 16th, 2010
- 5 Comments
Chamonix Valley from Brevent, by John Williams of www.travelcrunch.co.uk
A friend of mine has a favorite saying: ‘I love work. I could watch people do it all day.’ I have the same relationship with mountains. There are few things I love more than marveling at snow capped mountain vistas, but I’m much happier looking at them, preferably from a train or a cable car window, than I am climbing them or hiking around them.
A Postcard from Myself
- by Jools Stone
- on December 6th, 2010
- 11 Comments
The other day this postcard piffed onto my mat. It was from me and here’s what it said:
‘Dear Jools, you said that you were going to pitch 5 editors you don’t know by the time this arrived didn’t you?’
Travel Blogging with Purpose
- by Jools Stone
- on December 1st, 2010
- 3 Comments
The Kurangani hills, by Makka Photography
I’ve never left Europe. Never visited a developing country really. I keep reading about India and some of the amazing adventures you can have there. There are even a few guest posts on my own blog about rail trips around the country. This tale of flying curries on board the Shimla Toy Train certainly whet my whistle, and I came close to signing myself up for this crazy journey crossing the vast country by train in just two weeks. I suppose I’m not ready for such hardcore adventure travel just yet.
Travel tweeters and meerkats with Klout
- by Jools Stone
- on November 11th, 2010
- 10 Comments
Don't leave home without your Poken, the social media business card
Unless you’ve been living in a treehouse in the wilds of Alaska (do they even have treehouses there?) you may have noticed how valuable a tool Twitter has become for anyone looking for travel tips and inspiration. Just look at the Twitchhiker phenomenom.
Traveller Paul Smith set out to hitchhike his way around the world in March 2009 relying solely on the kindness of strangers on Twitter. His updates were published in the Guardian newspaper and led to a book deal, raising over £5,000 for charity Water Aid into the bargain.
Sounds like a place I love
- by Jools Stone
- on November 3rd, 2010
- 16 Comments
Mallaig in the Scottish Highlands
There are some songs that evoke a definite sense of place, whether a country, city or even a street. Music becomes inevitably tied to a certain place and time in your mind. It’s almost impossible to escape the associations you build up around certain songs. But many are just so evocative of a specific destination.
They either bring back rose tinted memories of where you first became hooked by them or they create an image in your mind of somewhere you’ve never been. Sometimes it’s so powerful that you it makes you want to visit the place just on the strength of it.
