Travel Newsletter: 10 May 2024

Bali railway, travel fogginess, Indonesia’s Nglanggeran village, vintage motels, and more travel reads

May 10, 2024

Welcome to the Nomadic Notes Travel Newsletter, where I curate the best travel reads of the week.

I’ve been in Bali this week to work on a rail guide. A rail guide? In Bali?! Yes, maybe, who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I visited the Department of Transport (which I posted in the Future Southeast Asia newsletter), and they helped explain their vision for a Bali railway. There is a plan for an airport railway and a beach tram, so I will link to those when I have published the guides.

I’m still on blogging hiatus until this trip finishes, so new articles will resume at the end of the month. I go to Sulawesi next, which is the last stop in my month in Indonesia.

Travel reads

• In last week’s newsletter I mentioned how I momentarily wondered where I was while an earthquake was happening. It was my third hotel room in three nights, thus the confusion. A reader emailed to say this is travel fogginess, which is easier than saying If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium syndrome.

• A new tourism model: how Indonesia’s Nglanggeran village is run by locals, offering a range of authentic experiences

• “Stop trying to be an influencer, stop trying to get the same shot as everyone else, and for the love of god, stop making lists!”

• An epic 38-mile hike to England's northernmost point

• In Istanbul, the cemeteries are full of life

• Channel Tunnel: 30 years of failing to deliver transcontinental connectivity

• Never thought of it like that: Versailles, a giant nightmarish hotel