Travel Newsletter: 4 August 2023

Walking Britain, Sri Lanka travel notes, South Africa’s Wild Coast, and more travel reads.

Hello from Lake Toba in Sumatra. Lake Toba is the world’s largest crater lake, and being inside an ancient volcano makes for a spectacular setting. I spent about one month here in 2009 and stayed in a lakeside cottage for $6 a night. I didn’t keep a good record of that trip, but I think the place I stayed at is gone. I arrived here last night and there are many new buildings here. I need to have a proper walk around to see what has changed.

I’ve been travelling a lot this week, but I still managed to find some travel reads in between train trips and cramped minivan rides.

Travel reads

• British sandwiches and walking 300km of Wainwright's coast to coast

• Sri Lanka travel notes

• 36 hours in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

• Find your community at this remote hostel on South Africa’s Wild Coast

• Man who visited every country without flying has finally returned home

• A beautiful, broken America: what I learned on a 2,800-mile bus ride from Detroit to LA

• Muji opens its first Muji Base Airbnb guest house in Japan

• Learning to coexist in peace Is the first step to protect Vietnam's last remaining elephants

• How cruise ships got so big

• This photographer from Canada captured 75 of the most odd-looking Soviet bus stops in various countries

• You can ride on trains in Northern France for just 1 euro

• One of the world’s most spectacular train rides costs less than $10