Con Dao - the former prison island in paradise
Cebu monorail plans, a ghost town in Spain, old-school travel writing, the Norway of Arabia, and more travel reads.
Hello from Ho Chi Minh City. Today is the Reunification Day holiday in Vietnam, though it’s a normal workday for me (and thankfully for my local cafe). We just recorded the first local COVID-19 cases in 35 days, so once again we wait to see if this is contained quickly.
I haven’t travelled for nearly a month, so I’ve made a good dent in my backlog of blog posts. This week I’ve published my trip report to Con Dao. I think that once travel opens up again, Con Dao will be more popular than ever. This is in part due to new flights that have made the remote islands more accessible. As you will see in the post, you can now fly from Con Dao to Da Nang. I personally rank the little town in Con Dao as just below Hoi An, so this might become a popular itinerary option when planning a north-south trip in Vietnam.
Latest posts at Nomadic Notes
Notes on Con Dao – From prison island to pilgrimage paradise
COVID-19 and travel (or lack thereof)
Vaccinated U.S. travelers will be allowed to visit Europe again starting this summer
No, the plague isn’t over no matter how tired we are!
‘I’ve escaped!’: Aussies use Kiwi bubble as back door to defy travel ban
[By Ron Hauge.]
I haven’t travelled internationally since March 2020, but every three months my passport gets dusted off and sent to the visa office for renewal. It’s currently getting another stamp added to the collection. Apart from that little excursion, my passport isn’t living its best life.
Assorted travel reads
Cebu Monorail – A 2-line transit system connecting Mactan Cebu Airport to Cebu City
The town that Hemingway watched die
A look back at the old-school method of keeping in touch while on the road by having letters sent to the post office.
In East Africa, mountain gorillas and a new paradigm for wildlife travel
Kagoshima’s Tokara Islands: A mysterious land of volcanoes, coral reefs, and masked gods
Oman's spectacular 'Norway of Arabia'
“Separated from the rest of the country by 100km of rocky desert, the small village of Kumzar is so gloriously isolated it has developed a language and culture all of its own.”
Malaysian shares that he spent RM12K and 45 days travelling from Ipoh to Amsterdam by train
Technically it wasn’t by train all the way as there is the missing link in Southeast Asia. Still, I like reading these trip reports. In the future, it will be possible to travel from Malaysia to Amsterdam by train once the China-Laos railway is finished this year.
After more than two decades, there's a new world's busiest airport
Take a virtual tour of Lebanon's ancient roman ruins, restored
@nomadicnotes at Instagram
Follow me at @nomadicnotes for real-time updates.
The Nomadic Notes Travel Newsletter is a weekly newsletter of the best travel reads and interesting travel news, and random ramblings by the editor.
If you're enjoying the newsletter, please forward it to friends who like reading about travel. The more who know about it, the easier it becomes for me to discover great travel reads.
If someone sent this to you, sign up for future emails at newsletter.nomadicnotes.com.
- James Clark