Travel Newsletter - 9 April 2021
Visiting Ca Mau in the Mekong Delta, Auckland to Wellington by train, airline meals at home, single-screen cinemas of India, Bangkokhenge, and more travel reads.
Hello from Ho Chi Minh City. I’m back from my island trip to Phu Quoc, and now I’m plotting more domestic Vietnam travels while waiting for the world to reopen.
Two recurring travel themes I keep seeing are travel bubbles and digital nomad visas.
Travel bubbles are an appealing idea, but they get complicated when one end of the bubble adds other countries to the mix. For example, Australia and New Zealand are about to bubble, but Australians can’t travel elsewhere while Kiwis can. This leads to a potential escape route for Australians.
In nomad visa developments, Indonesia and Thailand are working out how to implement digital nomad visas. Greece is also trying to work out how attract more digital nomads, which is a country I would be happy to base myself in for a while. It feels like digital nomading has gone mainstream during these covid times.
For myself, I’m not planning any travel that would require a quarantine, so I am happy to wait it out.
Here is this week’s selection of travel reads from around the web.
Latest posts at Nomadic Notes
Notes on Ca Mau – the most southerly provincial capital in Vietnam
COVID-19 and travel (or lack thereof)
Don’t believe the doomsayers. Vaccines will end the pandemic.
“A new CDC study showing vaccines cut Covid infections, not just symptoms, is the good news we’ve all been hoping to hear.”
My Facebook newsfeed has been a steady stream of American friends getting vaccinated, and like this article, those photos give me hope. I will post my vaccination photo as well when the time comes.
Covid-19 vaccine passports are coming. What will that mean?
Business class and bureaucracy hell: Surviving global travel during Covid
“Disconnected and labor-intensive travel controls are set to make mass tourism a nightmare, if you can even afford it.”
Deserted islands: Pacific resorts struggle to survive a year without tourists
The man recreating airplane meals to get through lockdown
Assorted travel reads
A front seat to the back country: A journey on the Northern Explorer
New Zealand has been in my Australian-centric newsfeed all week with the announcement of an Australia-New Zealand travel bubble. I still haven’t been to New Zealand, which surprises some people. If I was in Australia now I would be planning a trip to New Zealand by now, and the train from Auckland to Wellington would be a consideration.
A Chinese ‘Auntie’ went on a solo road trip. Now, she’s a feminist icon.
“Tired of housework and an unhappy marriage, a 56-year-old woman has been on a six-month jaunt across China that has challenged deep-rooted gender norms.”
The man who mapped a nation by hand
“Known as "the Indiana Jones of Grenada", Telfor Bedeau has kayaked around his Caribbean island home, walked nearly every inch of it and climbed its highest peak 217 times.”
Egypt continues to be in the news after that ship was dislodged. There was a parade of 22 royal mummies through streets of Cairo on their way to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, and now a 'lost golden city of Luxor' has been discovered by archaeologists.
Speaking of museums, the Musée du Louvre have created an online database for more than 480,000 works in their collection. I tried it out with their most famous item, and detail of the articles are impressive.
32,000km, 655 screens: Documenting India’s endangered cinemas
“Single-screen cinemas have been a feature of the Indian entertainment landscape for more than 100 years. One photographer set out to capture them before they are gone for good.”
25 fun facts about Iceland that most people go their whole life without knowing
[Map by @mattsurelee.]
You are probably familiar with the phenomenon of Manhattanhenge, and there is also a Melbourne Henge. Now there is another one to add to the list with, Bangkokhenge? Or is it Buddhahenge?
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The Travel Newsletter by Nomadic Notes is a weekly newsletter of the best travel reads and interesting travel news, and random ramblings by the editor.
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- James Clark