The Eiffel Tower is one of the world’s most iconic landmarks. The iron tower is both an amazing feat of engineering and an inspiring symbol of the City of Lights, and it’s a must see for almost everyone visiting Paris. The problem is, everyone else wants to visit the Eiffel Tower too. The Eiffel Tower is the most visited paid monument in the world and receives an average of 25,000 visitors a day. Security screenings can slow down the visiting process, and tickets often sell out. If you value your time, you’ll want to do a bit of pre-planning before visiting. Laurence and I have visited the Eiffel Tower multiple times together, including by stairs, by elevator to the second floor, and by elevator to the summit. I also first visited as a 16 year old on my first trip to Europe. This guide pulls together everything we’ve learned across… Read the rest
Guide to Visiting The Alamo in San Antonio Texas
We’ve put together a guide to visiting The Alamo in San Antonio as well as the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. No visit to San Antonio Texas is complete without visiting The Alamo! We’ll give you a brief history of The Alamo and the Battle of the Alamo so you can better understand and appreciate this popular attraction. Then we’ll tell you everything you need to know in order to visit The Alamo in San Antonio, including how to get here, fees, tips for parking, what to see, and nearby attractions in San Antonio. We also give you an overview of the Spanish colonial missions in Texas and why these were constructed. In addition to The Alamo, there are four other Spanish missions that you can visit in San Antonio and these form the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. We share information on each of these missions and tips… Read the rest
Guide to the Best Places to Celebrate Burns Night in Scotland
Wondering where to celebrate Burns Night in 2021? We’ve put together a guide to the top places to join a Burns Supper or other type of Burns Night event to celebrate Robert Burns and his poetry. Whether you are a lifelong Burnsian or new to Scotland’s favorite bard, there are hundreds of ways to celebrate Burns Night in Scotland. We list Burns Night events in Ayrshire, Dumfries, Edinburgh, and Glasgow and information on when, where, and how to join these events. Whether you are looking for a formal Burns Supper, The Big Burns Supper festival, a poetry reading, a casual Burns brunch, or a family-friendly ceilidh, we have you covered. We also discuss each area’s connection with Robert Burns and Burns related attractions that you may want to visit. We also provide a brief history of Robert Burns and what happens at Burns Suppers for those who are celebrating Burns… Read the rest
18 Best Day Trips from Edinburgh (By a Former Local)
We lived just south of Edinburgh for four years, and in that time we made most of these day trips ourselves, by car and by train. So rather than a list scraped together from a map, this is our take on which day trips from Edinburgh are actually worth your time, how to reach each one, and when a guided tour beats going it alone. If you only have time for one and you want the easy win, take the direct train to North Berwick for the seabirds and the beach, or to Stirling for the castle and the Kelpies. Both are under an hour from Waverley and neither needs a car. Want the classic Highland scenery of lochs and glens? That is a long day, so book a guided tour to Glen Coe and Loch Ness rather than driving 8 hours yourself in a single day. You do not… Read the rest
Top Things to Do in Belfast, Northern Ireland
Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, and it has quietly become one of our favourite cities to point people towards in the UK. We’ve visited more than once, taken the Black Taxi tours and local walking tours (often as the only non-Irish visitors in the cab), explored the city centre and driven out along the Causeway Coast, and we’ve come away liking it more each time. This guide gathers together the top things to do in Belfast, from the Titanic Quarter to the political murals, along with practical advice on getting there, how long to stay, and where to base yourself. Belfast is probably best known as the city where the RMS Titanic was built, and for the violence and division of The Troubles in the later part of the 20th century. Today it’s a compact, walkable city with a historic centre, the Titanic Quarter, hundreds of street murals,… Read the rest
Best DSLR Cameras You Can Buy in 2026
My personal opinion? If you are buying your first interchangeable-lens camera in 2026, you should probably buy a mirrorless camera, not a DSLR. I say this as someone who has been shooting with DSLRs since 2008, when my first Canon EOS 400D (the Digital Rebel XTi) was my constant travel companion. I have since shot with DSLRs across over 40 countries, upgraded through multiple Canon bodies, and used them professionally for over a decade. For the last couple of years my primary camera has been a mirrorless Canon EOS R5, and I won’t pretend otherwise: for most people starting out today, mirrorless is the better choice. So why write a DSLR guide in 2026? Because DSLRs still make sense for a certain kind of buyer, and right now the used market is offering some of the best deals in the history of digital photography. If you know what to look… Read the rest
How to Do Your Laundry While Traveling
Travel is fun but doing laundry while traveling can be a tedious chore. However, washing your clothes during a trip gives you the advantage of being able to pack less, rewear your favorite travel clothing, and return home with less dirty laundry. If you are going on a trip of more than a week, you’ll probably be thinking of laundry options. It can be difficult to figure out the best way to wash your clothes on a trip, and you don’t want to waste much of your vacation time on laundry. We’ve done trips of 6 months or more at a time, so doing laundry while traveling was essential! We’ve put together a guide to washing clothing while traveling for all budgets, whether you are a backpacker or luxury traveler. We cover all your options from hotel services to laundromats to hand washing in the hotel sink to camping solutions. We… Read the rest
20 Best Things to Do in Huntsville, Alabama (2026 Guide)
Huntsville, Alabama is best known as Rocket City, home of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and the world-famous Space Camp. But we discovered there is much more to see in this city than rockets and space shuttles (although rockets are awesome!). We first visited Huntsville in 2018, and since then we’ve moved to Alabama ourselves. Huntsville is only about a 3 hour drive from home now, and we’ve been back a number of times to explore the city’s museums, gardens, historic districts, trails, restaurants, and craft breweries. Huntsville initially grew because of its cotton and railroad industries, but today it is a center for military technology and aerospace. It was here that scientists designed and tested the Saturn V rocket that first sent men to the moon, and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center continues to be at the forefront of U.S. rocketry research, earning Huntsville its “Rocket City” nickname…. Read the rest
Best Places to See Puffins in Iceland
Want to see puffins in Iceland? We spent over 3 weeks in Iceland during puffin season one year and saw hundreds of puffins at more than 10 different locations across the country. In this guide, we share everything we learned, including the 14 best places to see puffins, which tours are worth booking, how to watch them responsibly, and tips for getting great puffin photos. Short on time? Here are our top three picks: For the easiest option from Reykjavik, take a 1-hour puffin boat tour from the Old Harbor. For the closest up-close viewing on land, head to Borgarfjordur Eystri in East Iceland, where a viewing platform puts you within a few meters of nesting puffins. For the full experience, visit the Westman Islands, home to the largest puffin colony in the world. The Atlantic puffin has become one of the most recognizable animals in Iceland, and for good… Read the rest
The Best Mirrorless Cameras for Photography in 2026
Mirrorless cameras have become the default choice for anyone serious about photography, and I’ve been shooting them across most of the major systems for years. I’ve worked as a professional travel photographer since 2010, and I’ve been taking photos since the film days of the 1990s, so the recommendations here come from time behind the camera rather than time on a spec sheet. For travel, family, landscapes, street photography, or video, a mirrorless camera is what I’d point most people toward in 2026. These picks are based on hands-on experience across the major systems, current specs checked against each manufacturer, and what actually matters for travel photography: the features and trade-offs that change how a camera performs in real conditions, not the ones that read well on paper. Jess and I visit every place we write about and take our own photos. We haven’t personally shot every camera on this… Read the rest
Guide to the Best Coffee in Rome: 14 Top Cafés in Rome Italy
Looking for the best place to get a coffee in Rome? Italy is a great place to sample coffee as it is the home of espresso and has a very developed coffee culture. If Italian coffee has you wanting to brew your own on the rest of the trip, Laurence’s AeroPress review is a good place to start — it’s what we actually travel with. We’ve visited Rome multiple times, and on those visits we’ve drunk a lot of wonderful cups of coffee in the Eternal City. So we wanted to share some of our favorite cafés in Rome to get coffee, with a focus on central locations. Need a coffee break after a visit to the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Vatican, Spanish Steps, or Borghese Gallery? If you are visiting the Vatican, our guide covers how to send mail from the Vatican post office. We got you covered. These locations… Read the rest
La Garrotxa Travel Guide: 15 Things to do in the Volcanic Region of Catalonia
The volcanic La Garrotxa region of Catalonia lies between the Pyrenees & the beautiful Costa Brava region in Spain. La Garrotxa is best known for its well-preserved medieval villages, good food, outdoor activity opportunities, Romanesque churches, and volcanic park. La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park is one of the best preserved volcanic landscapes in Europe, containing 40 inactive volcanoes. If you are looking for a rural escape from Barcelona or Costa Brava, La Garrotxa is a short distance away making for a perfect Girona or Barcelona day trip or weekend getaway spot. Scenic vistas, rural landscapes, and medieval villages abound here. With a large network of trails, Garrotxa is a popular destination for both hikers and cyclists. Laurence and I have been lucky enough to have visited La Garrotxa several times and we seem to be in the area at least once a year. In this post we’ll share all you need… Read the rest
Visiting the Covered Bridges of Madison County, Iowa
During a road trip a few years ago, Laurence and I made a detour to visit the covered bridges of Madison County, Iowa. Madison County is located about 30 miles from Des Moines and is known as the “Covered Bridge Capital of Iowa,” home to six historic covered bridges. We drove the loop, walked through each of the six bridges, and the photos throughout this guide are our own from that trip. Here is the quick version if you are short on time: There are six covered bridges in Madison County, all within about a 30-minute drive of the town of Winterset. The driving loop between all six takes about an hour without stops, so allow around 2.5 hours with short photo stops at each. It is free to visit the bridges year-round, with small free parking areas near each one. Cedar Bridge is the only one you can still… Read the rest
3 Days in London: A Complete 3-Day London Itinerary
Three days in London is enough to visit the major landmarks, explore two or three distinct neighbourhoods, and still leave time for a pub lunch in a park. We have visited London dozens of times over the past decade, and Laurence used to live there. This 3 day London itinerary reflects what we would actually recommend to a friend visiting for the first time. Over three days, this itinerary covers Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Borough Market, the South Bank, and Windsor Castle, along with several free museums, scenic walks, and one of the best viewpoints in the city. Total cost for paid attractions on this itinerary runs roughly £150 to £200 per person depending on what you choose to visit, though you can cut that significantly with a London Pass (we show the exact savings breakdown at the end of this… Read the rest
Best Compact Cameras 2026: Top Picks for Every Budget
I have been a working travel photographer for 15 years, and Jess and I have built our two blogs around the cameras we actually carry on the road. The compact camera is the one I get asked about more than any other, and the answer has shifted a lot recently. For a few years, I was telling most people to use their smartphone. In 2026, that has changed. Manufacturers are making new models again, younger photographers are choosing dedicated cameras over phones, and for the first time in years there are good options at several price points. This guide is built from the cameras we have personally used or extensively tested across actual trips, not from spec sheets and press releases. If a recommendation here is on the list, it has either been in our bag or has been picked up, handled, and benchmarked against cameras we own. Where we… Read the rest