Table of contents for July - August 2017 in Wanderlust

“Isn’t Cuba spoiled now?” I was recently asked by a reader. It is true that tourism to Cuba has been booming, but no, it isn’t “spoiled” – whatever that means. So, we’ve highlighted a bunch of activities that take you round this incredible country (p56), which is bigger and more diverse than most people realise. We also show that Botswana can be surprisingly affordable (p26), that a little-known corner of Europe has some very big inhabitants (p112), and that the best way to explore Vietnam is via its food (p92). And for one last surprise, turn to page 42 and (without cheating) try and guess where this shot was taken. In the age of social media, photos have more power than ever to make us want to grab our passports.…

DAVID TAYLOR Photographer An expert in the art of macro photography, David has long been captivated by capturing an extraordinary world hidden from the naked eye. However, it’s a hard skill to master, so David lends a helping hand on p78 with lighting advice for some cracking close-ups Mountain, desert, ocean or jungle… which are you? Jungle (I need a hair cut). First great travel experience? Going to Bielefeld, Germany, to visit relatives. I was so excited that I stayed awake for the six-hour car journey from Ostend, Belgium. Favourite journey? Driving from the Trossachs to Glencoe – I can’t think of a more scenic route in Britain. Top five places worldwide? New York, USA; Sydney, Australia; Ait Benhaddou, Morocco; Yosemite NP, USA; Rannoch Moor, Scotland. Passport stamp you’re proudest…

There’s a colonial hangover feel to this month’s bookshelf, like a distant imperial sigh echoing across the Himalaya, which, coincidentally, is also where Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent is off to in Land of the Dawn-Lit Mountains (Simon & Schuster, £10). She traverses 3,200km of Arunachal Pradesh, India’s heavily disputed – first by the British, then later China – and much mythologised western fringe, where its tribal occupants peer warily at modernity. India’s colonial past is also the focus of Kief Hillsbery’s The Tiger and the Ruby (Oneworld, £19), as the author recounts – and retreads – his lost ancestor’s journey and attempts to not only solve his relative’s mysterious death but also get to grips with the realities of the Raj. Writer and society star Lesley Blanch spent most of the 20th…

1 Ten Acres Vineyard, Winkleigh, Devon Pitch up beside the grapevine fields, which are often grazed by furry Kunekune pigs. Peer over the vines for fine views of Dartmoor while the lack of nearby villages makes for spectacular stargazing. 2 Oak Tree Cottage, Huntingfield, Suffolk Here, you’re just a small step away from wild camping. Set among untamed meadows of tall grasses and wildflowers, the only luxury available here is a spade. No, really. 3 Jelley Legs, Studley Roger, North Yorkshire Camp out in the ultimate back garden, complete with a treehouse and shepherd’s hut – handy options if the weather turns. Plus, it’s a stone’s throw from the gorgeous 12th-century Fountains Abbey ruins. 4 Llanddeusant, Carmarthenshire, Wales Perched on the northern foothills of the Black Mountain, your pitch is…

The story of every trip is always the shot that got away. It’s never something big, either. More often than not it’s a tiny feature that catches your eye: the filigrees on a historical building or the finer details of a statue hiding in the dark recesses of a church or museum. But capturing them is another story entirely. Close-ups, especially those shot in buildings with little light, require a flash to bring out their detail. But using a flash fired direct from a camera (front lighting) can be unflattering – the police don’t shoot mugshots this way for art’s sake, it’s for maximum detail. If total recall is your aim, then fine, but your image could be dull and flat. To get the right effect, I use side lighting:…

VITAL STATISTICS Capital: Hanoi Population: 95 million Languages: Vietnamese, English, and some French is spoken Time: GMT+2 International dialling code: +84 Visas: Until 30 June 2017, UK nationals do not require a visa for stays of up to 15 days; at the time of writing, information on visas beyond this period was not yet available. For updates, check the FCO (gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice) website. For stays of up to 30 days, buy an e-visa (evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn) for $25 (£19); these take three working days to process. Money: Vietnamese Dong (VND), currently around VND29,533 to the UK£. There are ATMs in all cities and major towns. Credit cards are accepted at most hotels and upscale restaurants but you’ll need cash for the markets and tipping. When to go • The best time – Vietnam…

VITAL STATISTICS Capital: Bratislava Population: 5.45 million Language(s): Slovak; Hungarian is spoken by a significant minority in southern Slovakia; and English is spoken in popular tourist destinations Time: GMT+2 (GMT+1 Nov-Mar) International dialling code: +421 Visas: Not required by UK nationals Money: Euro (€), currently €1.15 to the UK£. Credit cards are widely accepted and ATMs are readily available in towns When to go • Spring – warming up, though mountain trails at higher levels may still be closed with snow in May. • Summer – can be very hot, if rainy. It’s also a good time for festivals and hiking in the Tatras. All trails should be open. • Autumn – a good time to visit, with low rainfall and fewer tourists; many trails close from the end of…

1 If you ever encounter a lion, don’t run – instead, make yourself look bigger, stand still and stay silent; p26 2 Vietnam’s Nguyen Dynasty didn’t do light snacks; their banquets were›often 50 courses long; p92 3 Privately run restaurants (known as paladares) were actually illegal in Cuba until the mid-1990s; p56 4 Around 2.5 million people live in Vancouver today, but the entire city grew out of one saloon built in 1867; p133 5 The tenrec may looks like a small, tailless hedgehog, but it is actually genetically closer to an elephant; p42…

CHESTNUT AVENUE South Moravia, Czech Rep Photographer: Aleš Komovec Sometimes travellers can find beauty in the most unassuming landscapes. Snapper Aleš Komovec proves this with his shot of South Moravia, a region usually famed for its vineyards. Yet it’s the basic waves of rolling emerald and cocoa-brown hills that captures the eye here. The judges of the 2017 Sony World Photography Awards were also clearly impressed by its simplicity, awarding him third place in their Slovenia National Award category. We’ll raise a glass to that… Entry for the 2018 Sony World Photography Awards is now open, with four different contests (Professional, Open, Youth and Student Focus). For more information, visit www.tinyurl.com/worldsonyawards OCEAN BEACON East Sussex, UK Photographer: Mirek Galagus Lighthouses are synonymous with Britain’s coastlines, and remain a…

‘I didn’t leave the UK until I was 17. Growing up in Oldham in the 1970s, you just didn’t leave the country’ Where’s the best place in the world that you’ve been stargazing? The best place for stargazing is the Atacama desert, Chile, just for the clarity and darkness of the sky. The reason is that the southern sky is more beautiful than the northern; it’s because the southern hemisphere points towards the galactic centre, so the Milky Way is significantly more beautiful. Chile’s a great country. Have you explored any other parts? I like Chile a lot. It’s a welcoming country. I’ve been down to Patagonia and to Easter Island. The latter is a wonderful place to visit. It’s Polynesian, but in a sort of unspoilt sense. It feels…

YES Rob John, Wanderlust reader “I have been thinking of travelling around Italy for some time, in part for the rich history that it boasts. I remember visiting an old monastery on the Greek island of Samos and it sent my imagination wild, so opening up more historic places to see would be a major plus for me. And I’d like to think anyone who visits would not damage or vandalise the properties.” NO Sophie Hall, Wanderlust reader “I get the thinking behind this giveaway, but the beauty of Italy, for me, is its quiet rural towns. Giving these buildings away is going to increase footfall but at the cost of losing authentic culture, and it will encourage multinational corporations to set up shop. For example, one of my favourite…

VITAL STATISTICS Capital: Saint-Denis Population: 876,967 Languages: French (official), Creole (widely spoken); English is understood in larger hotels and shops but not always spoken, especially in smaller towns. Time: GMT+4 International dialling code: +262 Visas: Not required by UK nationals Money: Euro (€), currently €1.16 to the UK£. ATMs are found in the main towns and tourist areas, though taking some cash is advised. Hotels, supermarkets and restaurants all take credit cards. When to go • Cyclone season – expect heavy rain and wind; humidity is at its highest, with temperatures around 30ºC. Best avoided. • Shoulder season – expect some high temperatures but fewer visitors; a good time to get the hiking trails to yourself. • High season – temperatures stick around the mid-20s (ºC). Expect lots of families…

Why did you get into birdwatching? My parents are keen birdwatchers but I was never that interested. As I’ve got older, I’ve become more curious about it. But it’s only recently, since I’ve moved to the countryside, that I’ve started birdwatching – we have so many birds in the garden. How hard was it to get started? Beyond the obvious – robin, blackbird, woodpecker – I didn’t have a clue, so it was quite daunting. Bird books require you to have an idea of what the bird is, then you can look it up and check. Instead, I focused on just trying to identify the birds in our garden. As I saw them regularly, it was easier to learn (and remember). It was also handy when I visited nearby places…

‘The fugu – or pufferfish – should be prepared by a local expert, otherwise the results could be deadly; poisoning from improperly prepared fugu carries a 60% fatality rate’ WORM TURNED I have written plenty about the risks of gastroenteritis from eating raw or lightly cooked fish and shellfish, but I wonder how many travellers are aware that such foods can also be a way to acquire interesting hitchhikers? There certainly seems to be a spate of food parasite stories of late. The UK press recently picked up on an issue of the British Medical Journal highlighting that persisting abdominal pain may be caused by tiny fish parasites. This accompanied the story of a 32-year-old man in Portugal who had abdominal pain so severe that appendicitis was suspected until –…

AMATEUR COMPETITION Scan the Wanderlust Xtra icon for more details THE CATEGORIES There are four categories in the Amateur competition: (i) People (ii) Wildlife (iii) Landscape (iv) Active Travel (a shot representing the act of travelling). You may enter up to four photos IN TOTAL. This can be across all categories or within selected categories (eg, four shots in one category OR two shots in one, two in another OR one in each, etc). One submission per individual; multiple entries will be disqualified. ONLINE ENTRIES You can submit competition entries for free at www.travelphotooftheyear.co.uk POSTAL ENTRIES You can also submit prints, transparencies and digital images by post. Here’s how: Postal entries must be accompanied by the entry form. Photocopies are acceptable. A separate sheet must accompany each entry,…

STAR LETTER Taking a road trip I read with enormous interest your piece on the ‘World’s Best Road Trips… in a Week’ [May 2017, issue 176]. I was delighted to see included Iceland’s Ring Road (Route 1), but you only covered the southern half. I’ve just come back from Iceland (early May) and had the most amazing few days driving the whole route (with stops and diversions) in just five days. This included the ‘Golden Circle’ and a trip to Snaefell to see the cliffs of Vesturland peninsula. The Ring Road is, in my opinion, a must for anyone who wants to properly see Iceland, rather than dropping in on the touristy bits around ‘The Golden Circle’ or Reykjavik (both of which are well worth visiting). For me, this was…

Before you arrive San José is not usually seen as one of Latin America’s cultural big hitters or architectural gems. Most people use it to rest up after a long flight or in between trips to the coast and national parks. It’s a hilly, spread-out city with a lot of greenery, and it houses more than a third of Costa Rica’s population of 4.9 million. Yet there’s history and sights, too, easily worth a day of anyone’s time. The city was established in 1738, so the Spanish authorities could herd its indigenous people in to one locale. Consequently, San José is quite young (Panama City, for example, was founded in 1519), and in the early 1800s it was just the size of a village. Back then, Costa Rica was merely…

Get orientated Back in 1867, John ‘Gassy Jack’ Leighton was broke. A Yorkshireman who’d fled to the New World, Leighton’s bar in British Columbia had gone bust (a pal having splurged all the takings on fireworks) and his prospects were nil. Put simply: he made an unlikely founding father. But Jack figured that Burrard Inlet would be a big port one day, so he poured his last few cents into buying a plot of maple grove and a barrel of whisky. He was also chatty (‘gassy’), and when he quickly built his Globe Saloon in July 1867 – in 24 hours according to legend, thanks to the offer of free whisky to off-duty lumber workers – he soon drew a big crowd. Others followed and a community began. In the…

Social media is often an outlet for roaming snappers, where their takes on iconic sights often balance the deluge of cats. But, says, Sony Xperia, even these images are starting to churn, with 85% of Machu Picchu shots (out of 745,000+) on Instagram taken in the same three ways. So, in search of a fresh angle, they challenged a group of travel snappers to shoot a series of world icons in fresh ways (above). From the Eiffel Tower’s iron underbelly to merging Big Ben with an old call box, the results are rather compelling. And with the return of the Wanderlust Travel Photo of the Year this month ( p86 ), we hope this inspires you to send in your unusual takes on the world – they might just be…

PHOEBE SMITH • EDITOR • Road-testing the newest budget walking boots on the market. Any excuse... SEE PAGE 83 TOM HAWKER • PRODUCTION EDITOR • Dreaming of deep-dish wonders in Chicago... and all that jazz! SEE PAGE 16 GARETH CLARK • SUB EDITOR/WRITER • Relaxing in the bubbling waters of Iceland’s geothermal baths. Bliss. SEE PAGE 22 RHODRI ANDREWS • ASSISTANT EDITOR • Looking through the office binoculars to see what birds he can spot SEE PAGE 72…

‘The price hike denies most people the chance of seeing the gorillas… It’s little short of robbery’ Gorilla trekking in Rwanda has always been a premium travel experience. At US$750 (£579), a permit was expensive but not extortionate. However, in May the fees were doubled to US$1,500 (£1,159) for all visitors (locals used to pay just £30), leaving only the wealthy able to afford the experience. “This extortionate increase is without precedent,” says Wanderlust contributing editor and wildlife guide Paul Goldstein. “It denies most people the chance of visiting ‘their relatives’ and denies locals, too. It’s little short of robbery.” However, don’t be disheartened if you’re looking for a bargain. Neighbouring Uganda charges less – from US$600 (£464) – and has committed to a 12-month price freeze. But gorilla trekking…

Where does sushi come from? Ask most travellers and they’ll tell tales of intimate Tokyo sushi-ya, sat at maple-wood counters gazing at the finesse of the chefs as they whittle tiny sculptures of fish and rice. Or maybe they’ll recall their first kaiten-zushi, lurching at a conveyor belt of dishes, unsure of the etiquette but curious enough to risk it. Yet sushi’s origins are hazy. They likely lie in ancient South-East Asia, where fermenting meat or fish within rice was a common way of preserving both. By the 7th century AD this technique had arrived in Japan, in dishes like Kyoto’s funa zushi: carp and rice left to ferment for a year before eating – it tastes like “mature Camembert and Thai fish sauce”, says Kimiko Barber, co-author of Sushi:…

PLANET EARTH II REVEALED London, 5 July www.rgs.org Royal Geographical Society, 1 Kensington Gore, SW7 2AR. Doors open at 6pm. £15; members £10; book online or call 020 7591 3100. The producers of Planet Earth II, Fredi Devas and Mike Gunton, take you behind the scenes to explain how they filmed that scene involving racer snakes and baby iguanas, and more. GLOBETROTTERS CLUB Chester, 15 July www.chesterglobetrotters.co.uk Grosvenor Museum, Chester, CH1 2DD. Doors open at 1pm. £3. To book tickets, email chesterbranch@globetrotters.co.uk Join David Redford as he talks Nile tales, and Pat Jones shares her Mongolian adventure. ATLAS FESTIVAL Malton, 29-30 July www.atlasfestival.co.uk Scampston Hall, Malton, Yorkshire, YO17 8NG. Day tickets £54; weekend tickets from £115. Concessions available; book online. The UK’s newest travel festival arrives in Yorkshire. Wander ‘Moroccan…

VITAL STATISTICS Capital: Gaborone Population: 2.3 million Languages: English, Setswana and a number of local dialects Time: GMT+1 International dialling code: +267 Visas: Not required by UK nationals for stays of up to 90 days Money: Botswana Pula (BWP), currently around BWP13 to the UK£. US dollars ($) are also widely accepted. ATMs are in all cities and major towns, with credit cards accepted at most hotels. You will need cash for the markets, however, and dollars are required for tipping. When to go • Dry season – the best time to visit is during the cool dry season. The days are warm, even if the mornings and evenings can be chilly (Jun-Aug). The Okavango also floods between June and October, making it a good time to visit for boat…

Are you suggesting I “Thomas Cook it”? Not as such. But 5 July always marks one of travel’s key anniversaries: it’s the date in 1841 when Mr Cook, the former Baptist preacher turned cabinet maker, first began sending Britons around the globe, and in doing so pioneered the package holiday. So where’d he send them? Malaga? Ibiza? Loughborough. But there wasn’t any boozey carnage in sight – in fact, just the opposite. Cook was very much a product of his era, and had a fierce Victorian belief in the ill-effects of drink on the working classes. He saw a chance to spread the word, ferrying a trainload of 500 souls from Leicester to a Temperance Society meeting 18km away, all at a shilling a head. No booze? I can’t see…

Tom Harari, Botswana product manager at Exodus Travels, shares his tips on the country’s natural wonders and wild delta… WHEN TO VISIT: Botswana is a year-round destination, but the best time to visit is from May to October, when the weather is dry and the Okavango Delta’s water levels are high. But bird enthusiasts may prefer November to March, when a number of migratory birds arrive. NATURAL BEAUTY: Probably the most famous region of Botswana is the Okavango Delta. This is one of the largest inland deltas in the world, with countless islands criss-crossed by canals. Beyond this, however, lie plenty of other areas of natural beauty, such as the Kalahari and the Makgadikgadi salt pans, with the latter’s otherworldly desolation a remarkable contrast to the lush wilderness of the…

Your Story Spying on shamans Winner of this month’s online writing competition, Daniel Davies-Llewellyn recounts the most unusual sight on his travels... The Guatamalan village of Chortiz was little more than a ramshackle collection of wooden huts, unusually high-sided enclosures and pens for the livestock, together with a couple of sturdier-looking buildings (school, church). There were no roads in or out; instead mule tracks wound their way across an almost moorland-like landscape that stretched off into a thickening mist. The only crops that grew at this altitude were potatoes, the maize having given up a few hundred metres further down the mountainside. This was a harsh place to survive in, and it was easy to forget that we were still within tropical latitudes. We came to a stop outside a…

FREE £50 travel voucher if you subscribe now – see wanderlust.co.uk/ subscribe for our latest special offers CAMBODIA: THE OTHER ANGKOR After decades of strife, we return to Preah Vihear to discover the country beyond the honeypot spots SOUTH AFRICA: TRIP PLANNER Your ultimate guide to the country Plus Discovering crowd-free Mayan sites in Belize, exploring UK’s Alderney, and much more...…