Travel Newsletter: 22 September 2023
Sumatra railways, Millennials in Mongolia (which sounds appealing for this Gen-Xer), digital nomads in Japan, Backpacking in Zambia, and more travel reads
Welcome to the Nomadic Notes Travel Newsletter, where I curate the best travel reads of the week.
This week I published a guide for Sumatra Railways. My selection process for making guides is to do something that is not already available. In the case of train travel in Indonesia there is no useful information from the national railway KAI. There are some maps at the stations that aren’t available online, and I also discovered that you can get a ferry from Singapore to a port in Sumatra that connects with a train.
I also made a guide for staying at Phan Thiet AKA Mui Ne in Vietnam. There has been a lot of coastal erosion here, so I have marked out where there is still a beach if you want a beach holiday.
Latest posts at Nomadic Notes
• Sumatra Railways: A guide to every train line in Sumatra
• Where to stay in Phan Thiet (Mui Ne): The best beach areas and hotels
Travel reads
• Why are so many Millennials going to Mongolia?
“In an era of Instagram tourism, some young people are searching for less curated travel experiences. So they’re flocking to the open spaces of this East Asian nation.”
• Le Touquet: The 'most British of French resorts'
• Does Berlin have a Chinatown? No – it has something better: this is Kantstrasse
• Backpacking in Zambia: Walking with White Rhinos at the Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park
• My trip to a Greek island idyll where electric vehicles rule
• Should tourists still visit Morocco in earthquake aftermath?
• ‘Do you know how many followers I have?’ Dodging influencers in Bali
🛏️ Accommodation
• A new house swap service for nomads and remote workers
• Muji brand owner woos travelers with renovated Japanese houses
• Airbnb really is different now
“At this point, the company hardly seems part of the gig economy at all.”
• Airbnb meme doing the rounds…
💻 Nomad news
• Japan calling: foreign digital nomads embrace work and travel lifestyle in Tokyo and beyond
• The Sardinian village tempting remote workers with free rent, party invites and immersive culture
🚆Train travel
• 6 of the world's best coastal rail journeys
• Japan: Bullet train passengers treated to wrestling match onboard, in world first
✈️ Air travel
• How an Ohio cow pasture gave rise to a monument to aviation history
• Flight attendants are burned out and quitting. Here’s why
…
[Spirit tree in Chiang Mai @nomadicnotes.]
James Clark – Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Good roundup. Liked especially the "avoiding influencers" piece and unshocked to see their gravity to Canggu, historic domain of Travelfish.
Also liked the Asian food in Berlin piece. My experience there is generally all Asian restaurants offer sushi, the well known Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai specialty.
Thanks for the tip about the digital nomad home swap service. My husband and I have used homelink.com very successfully for years, but it can be a lot to coordinate with other owners. I like the idea that you can choose your dates like you would for a hotel or Airbnb. It's a lot easier to plan.