The best areas to stay in Dubai
The soul of Kazakhstan, Van Life in Japan, and an Antarctica "travel" blog
Greetings from Chiang Mai. It’s been a smoky week in the north so I will be heading south earlier than planned. I will be back in Chiang Mai for a longer spell in a few months.
My plan for Chiang Mai was to clean out the draft folder of unfinished articles. This week’s article is one of those, written when I spent 3 weeks in Dubai. The thing about Dubai is that there are plenty of guides showing what a great swimming pool a hotel might have, but then mentions nothing about how hard it is to travel from that hotel. This guide gives priority to the best areas to stay.
Latest posts at Nomadic Notes
Where to stay in Dubai: The best areas and most iconic hotels
Travel reads
• Last week I published a Cambodia railways guide. This week I published an article at Future Southeast Asia about the ambitious future railway plans for Cambodia.
“Having spent several years in Kazakhstan, the photographer Frédéric Noy paints an intimate portrait of the largest country in Central Asia, of its society and its transformations, Russia’s shadow looming large.”
• A guide for Van Life in Japan
• Varanasi: India's holy 'City of Death'
“The relentless accumulation (and management) of snow.”
I have mixed feelings about Antarctica tourism. Aside from environmental concerns, It always seemed a more impressive achievement if someone went there for work. Now anyone can buy a cruise ticket and go.
I found this blog of a worker in Antarctica with one of the most creative URLs for a destination site: brr.fyi (tagline: My Antarctica blog!)
• The ruin and revival of the city that built America
“Joshua Tree National Park is synonymous with the desert. Yet record numbers of guests threaten to overwhelm its beauty, wildlife, and small staff.”
• Meet the slow travellers choosing trains and buses over planes
• ‘Breathtaking descent in a snow toboggan
As a former Swiss resident might have formulated, S+G = F² (Snow+Gravity=Fun squared). I spent about 6 months in Switzerland during the warmest 6 months of their calendar. I have ridden mountain toboggans through grassy alpine fields, which was fun without being cold.
🚆Train travel
• Six of Europe’s best slow, scenic rail journeys
This was featured in the February edition of Europe Rail News. Subscribe for more Europe rail stories:
• Take the slow train to monkey city
✈️ Air travel
• The retired Boeing 737 that’s been transformed into a private villa
• Art is the universal language
The Nomadic Notes Travel Newsletter is a weekly newsletter of the best travel reads and interesting travel news from around the web, and random ramblings by the editor.
- James Clark