Nature

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Abel Tasman, Without the Rookie Mistakes I almost talked myself out of Abel Tasman because of one number: 60 kilometres. The Coast Track is famous, everyone photographs it, and I’d quietly assumed you had to commit to a multi-day tramp with a heavy pack to earn those golden beaches. A guy at the hostel in Nelson laughed me out of that idea. “Mate, you take the water taxi out, walk one good section, and the boat picks you up. Half a day. You’re back for dinner.” ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Algarve, Done Right the First Time We almost booked the Algarve for the first week of August — peak heat, peak prices, and, as a friend who summers near Lagos warned us, “you’ll be circling for a parking spot at Praia da Marinha by nine in the morning.” We moved the trip to late September instead. Same warm sea, same gold cliffs, half the crowd, and a hotel that cost noticeably less. The coves felt like ours. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Amalfi Coast, Without the Traffic Jam Our first afternoon on the Amalfi Coast, we sat on a SITA bus for ninety minutes to cover what the map swore was twenty minutes, inching past oncoming coaches on a cliff road with no shoulder. The next morning a local at our hotel laughed and said one word: “Ferry.” We spent the rest of the week hopping between Positano, Amalfi and Sorrento by boat, watching the cliffs slide past from the water, and never sat in traffic again. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Andalusia, Done the Right Way We arrived in Seville in late June with a vague plan to “see Andalusia,” and by 2pm on the first day the pavement was throwing up heat like an open oven and we were hiding in a tiled courtyard willing it to be 6pm. A waiter watched us melt and laughed: “You came in summer? The towns inland will be hotter still — go in May next time, or get up early.” He was right on both counts, and the morning we finally drove up to Ronda at 8am — cool air, empty streets, the gorge glowing — was the trip we should have planned all along. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cairns, and the One Thing Nobody Tells You We landed in Cairns expecting a beach holiday and walked down to the waterfront on the first morning ready to swim. There was no beach. Just a wide brown tidal flat, a “no swimming” feel in the air, and a row of pelicans looking unbothered. I stood there genuinely confused — this is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, and you can’t get in the water in town? A local at the coffee cart took pity on us and pointed back over our shoulder: “The Lagoon, mate. Everyone swims in the Lagoon.” ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Canggu, Without the Rookie Mistakes The first thing nobody tells you about Canggu is that you can’t really walk anywhere. We landed thinking we’d stroll from café to beach to rice field like the photos suggest, then spent the first sweaty afternoon trudging a shoulderless lane while scooters streamed past in both directions. By day two we’d rented a scooter, learned which shortcut to avoid at 5pm, and the whole town suddenly opened up — beach in ten minutes, sunset in fifteen, a different warung for dinner every night. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cape Town, Without the Rookie Mistakes We picked Cape Town for late July because the flights were cheap, and a friend who’d lived in Sea Point laughed down the phone: “You’re coming in the middle of our winter — Table Mountain will be under cloud half the time and you’ll be chasing the weather.” She wasn’t wrong. We still had a brilliant trip, but we spent a lot of it staring up at a mountain we couldn’t see. The next visit, in early March, the cable car ran on a windless blue morning and the whole city clicked into place. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Cappadocia, Without the Rookie Mistakes The first balloon went up while we were still fumbling with the coffee. By the time we got to the terrace, the sky over Göreme was already dotted with a hundred more, and ours — the one we’d left “for the second morning, when we’re less tired” — wasn’t among them. The wind picked up the next day and the flight cancelled. We left without ever leaving the ground. Lesson learned the expensive way: in Cappadocia, you book the sunrise balloon for the first possible morning and pray, because weather, not your schedule, decides when it flies. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Chefchaouen, the Blue City Without the Crowds I almost skipped Chefchaouen. Everyone said it was “just a photo spot” — turn up, get the blue-alley shot, move on. So I gave it half a day on the way from Fes and spent that whole afternoon quietly furious at past-me for not booking two nights. The blue medina isn’t a backdrop. It’s a slow, cat-filled, mountain-cool little town that rewards the people who stay long enough to get lost in it. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Chiang Mai, Without the Rookie Mistakes We almost booked Chiang Mai for March, purely because the flights were cheap. A friend who’d spent a winter there talked us out of it in one sentence: “You’ll land into smoke and spend the week indoors.” That’s the burning season — the part of the Chiang Mai travel guide nobody puts on the brochure — and it’s the single mistake that can quietly ruin an otherwise perfect trip. We moved the dates to December instead and got blue skies, cool evenings and a city that felt like it was showing off. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Chiang Rai, Beyond the White Temple Photo Everyone shows up in Chiang Rai for one photo — the dazzling white, mirror-flecked temple that looks like a sugar palace from a dream. We did too. What nobody told us was that we’d booked our trip for late March, walked out of the airport into a grey wall of haze, and spent the first afternoon wondering where the famous northern mountains had gone. They were right there. We just couldn’t see them through the burning-season smoke. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Crete, Without Trying to See All of It We flew into Heraklion with a two-week plan and a list long enough for a month: Knossos, every beach on the map, both ends of the island, the Samaria Gorge. By day three we were exhausted from driving and had photographed three lagoons we barely remembered. A taverna owner in a mountain village set us straight over a plate of lamb: “Crete is not a city you walk in a weekend. Pick a side. Come back for the other.” ...