Travel Newsletter: 8 September 2023

Notes on Luang Prabang, Lake Toba by train and bus, Ha Giang province, the "vibe tourist", how not to do Singapore, and more travel reads.

Hello from Chiang Mai. This week I restarted blogging my way through my travel notes, so I have two posts this week.

Latest posts at Nomadic Notes

• Notes on Luang Prabang in the new era of the train

• How to get from Medan to Lake Toba by train and bus

Something to do if you like getting trains, but this one might be a case of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.

Travel reads

• Hà Giang's Thôn Khun is a soothing oasis for the world-weary traveler

• idle gaze 054: the plight of the vibe tourist

“This is the plight of the vibe tourist; they all want a slice of a certain ambience, but the more they hunt for that romanticised feeling of the destination, the more elusive it becomes. Desperation is its antithesis. It’s a new era of “paris syndrome”.”

• Amsterdam: The European capital fighting bad tourists

• How not to do Singapore by

Couchfish

• Sweden's second-largest city is a big, sustainable playground

• How can tourists help Maui recover? Here’s what locals say.

• Datça: The beautiful Turkish peninsula forgotten by time

• Snow leopards and citizen science: Seeking the grey ghost in Kyrgyzstan

• ‘Everyone has the same dream’: Mount Fuji grapples with rise in tourism

Perhaps a light rail system will fix it…

🚆Train travel

• The future of U.S. train travel is here—and it’s not on Amtrak

• Train versus plane: with many domestic flights banned in France, we test its rail network

• Austria offers free rail travel in exchange for getting a tattoo

✈️ Air travel

• Your guide to sleeping in an airport

• The evolution of the All Nippon Airways crew uniform over the years.

allnipponairways

A post shared by @allnipponairways