Everything we have written
48 guides, all from our own trips
Not summaries of places. Each one is built on a thing we found out by being there — what has to be booked months ahead, what is free that people pay for, and where we would go instead of where we went.
Free to read · no sign-up · nothing behind an email address
Across Europe
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Austria · 419 photographs
One-day Salzburg guide
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Austria · 419 photographs
Three-day Vienna guide
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Austria · 419 photographs
Hallstatt guide
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Austria · 419 photographs
Melk Abbey guide
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Czech Republic · 130 photographs
Two-day Prague guide
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Czech Republic · 130 photographs
Day trips from Prague guide
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Estonia · 60 photographs
One-day Tallinn guide
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Finland · 36 photographs
Helsinki and Porvoo guide
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France · 159 photographs
Paris guide
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France · 159 photographs
Strasbourg guide
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France · 159 photographs
Colmar and Mulhouse guide
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France and Monaco · 174 photographs
Two-day Riviera guide
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Germany · 371 photographs
Four-day Bavaria route
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Germany · 371 photographs
Northern Germany guide
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Germany · 371 photographs
Dresden guide
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Germany · 371 photographs
Nuremberg guide
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Germany · 371 photographs
Rothenburg guide
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Germany · 371 photographs
Stuttgart guide
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Germany · 371 photographs
Burg Hohenzollern guide
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Germany · 371 photographs
Black Forest guide
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Greece · 51 photographs
Rhodes Old Town guide
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Hungary · 54 photographs
Three-day Budapest guide
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Italy · 151 photographs
Northern Italy guide
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Netherlands · 31 photographs
Keukenhof guide
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United Kingdom · 26 photographs
Stonehenge and London guide
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Switzerland, region by region
23 of them, written as a full day each except the two that are honestly a stop rather than a day. It is the country we have been back to most, which is why it is the only one broken down this far.
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Lucerne
Two covered wooden bridges, a medieval wall and a lake promenade — nearly all of it free
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Zermatt
Car-free, and the best of the day is coming down from Sunnegga on a cart rather than the funicular
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Grindelwald
Send a mountain bike up on the outside of the gondola and ride the whole way back to the valley
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Grindelwald First
About 76 francs to get up, and the Cliff Walk, the terrace and the alp are free once you are
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Männlichen
A ridge with Lauterbrunnen on one side and Grindelwald on the other, reached by Europe's longest cable car
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Mürren
Eight hundred meters above the valley floor, and no road reaches it — everything arrives by cable car
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Fribourg
A funicular counterweighted by the city's own wastewater, and a street that changes language halfway
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Lauterbrunnen
Seventy-two waterfalls in one valley, and ten more carved inside the mountain
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Zurich
The Altstadt on both banks of the Limmat, and a nine-meter chocolate fountain down the lake
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Montreux
A free lakeside walk out of town to Château de Chillon, which is the reason to come
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Gruyère & Cailler
Cheese in the morning, chocolate in the afternoon, and an H.R. Giger museum between them
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Bern
Arcaded streets, an astronomical clock that performs on the hour, and a bear park below the Old Town
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Brunnen & Schwyz
Where you build your own Swiss Army knife — the blades, the springs, the press, your name on it
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Basel
The city that swims its own river — clothes in a waterproof bag, and the Rhine carries you through it
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Zug
Twenty-five minutes from Zurich, a medieval lakeside old town, and almost nobody stops
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Aare Gorge a stop, not a day
The Aareschlucht at Meiringen — 1.4 km inside the mountain, on a boardwalk bolted to the rock
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Lungern a stop, not a day
The lake on the Brünig line that most people only ever see through a train window
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Gelmersee a stop, not a day
A works railway up a 106% gradient, and a turquoise reservoir at the top of it
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Pilatus
Two ways up the mountain above Lucerne, and they are not open at the same times of year
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Jungfraujoch
The highest railway station in Europe, nine kilometers of track with four fifths of it inside a mountain
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Schilthorn
A revolving restaurant at 2,970 meters, reached by four cable cars from the valley floor
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Wengen
No road reaches it either, and the railway that does climbs through the rock face
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Habkern a stop, not a day
A village above Interlaken where alphorns are still made by hand, from spruce cut on the slope above the workshop
Everything above is free. The trip is the part we charge for.
These guides will tell you what a thing costs and whether it is worth it. What they cannot do is decide how many nights you have, which order the places go in, or what happens to the plan when one of them is shut on the day you arrive.
That is the job, and it is the only part of this we ask you to pay for.
Tell us about your tripThe day above is free and yours to use. What it cannot do is decide where this fits in a two-week trip, which hotel works with your arrival time and your walking pace, what needs reserving months ahead, or what happens on the day it rains. That is the part you would be hiring me for, and planning starts at $750.
Or read the questions we are asked most — what a trip includes, how far ahead to book, deposits and cancellation.