lovely flowers outside the academy where I work Invariably when people think of Spain they think of sunshine, beaches, warm weather, siestas, sangria… But the truth of the matter is that this country is extremely varied and with that variety comes extremely variable weather. The lush, green rain-fed coasts of Galicia have more in common…
…not to read post modern travel writing. – You already know how to pack and don’t need tips from someone who hasn’t even renewed their passport yet – Your tolerance for “how to” articles is limited to the instructions on a piece of IKEA furniture – See through the inherent racism in statements like ,”not…
Springtime in Extremadura and the festival season is in full swing. Right on the heels of Semana Santa celebrations and the parading of the local virgin comes the celebration of the city’s patron saint, San Jorge, better known to English speakers as Saint George. A curious mix of fire, tradition and what some might call…
There’s a saying in Spain that goes along the lines of, “When you move the Saints, the sky opens up.” Well holy week this year in Spain seems to have been like that all over the peninsula, except here in Extremadura. While the temperatures did plunge more than 10 degrees from the week before, only…
I’ve been writing a series of articles for the Canadian travel magazine, Verge. This series of articles are basically focused on teaching English around the world while traveling (or vice versa depending on how you look at it!) They’ve introduced a new aspect to their website where you can read some of their pieces online,…
Bus trips returning home sometimes seem like the longest on earth. 37 hour South American odysseys pass by in the blink of an eye when you compare them with a milk run that turns your 300km return home journey into a 5 hour trial. There is something anticlimactic about coming home, the route is familiar…
A view of a Platskart wagon While I’m a huge train fan, I am certainly no fan of the supposedly ‘national’ train company here in Spain, RENFE. I’ve always wondered why the prices for train travel here in Spain were so much more expensive than bus travel, but it was the Barcelona-Madrid High-Speed link that…
The essence of tapas in Madrid
If you ask someone from Catalonia what they think of my adopted region of Spain, Extremadura, you might unfortunately get a derogatory remark likening the area to Africa. Worse yet, they wouldn’t be doing so in reference to the wide open spaces and conserved natural areas that are to be found out here…but that is…
If you’re familiar with the terrors that taxi travel can pose around the world. Click over to Go Nomad’s site and check out my latest piece on the perils of heading to the Azeri border in a shared taxi through Northern Iran.