Secret
Streets

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”   
Saint Augustine

I am addicted to travel and I admit it is somehow reassuring to have your addiction validated by Saint Augustine.
Back in the 60’s, I travelled with my parents to the USA at a time when Economy was called Tourist Class, when flight attendants were called stewardesses, and when those same stewardesses had time to teach two twelve year old boys how to play poker while sitting in the dedicated bar at the back of a Boeing 707 enroute from New York to San Francisco. From that moment I was hooked…

Times have changed, but my hope is that SecretStreets will help reveal what for me makes travel perpetually so enticing. For those of you who cannot travel now, perhaps the Stories from the real world will satisfy you for the present. And for those who can share my love for visiting slightly unusual locations, I hope at least a few of the Tips I have learned (sometimes the hard way) will prove a useful time/money/life-saver. Tripadvisor just emailed me – “Congatulations, you’re among the 2% most-read reviewers of all time!” So I’ve added a Stay section with the 70 hotel and guesthouse reviews I’ve written over the past four years. And lastly, because you have to Move around and you have to Eat, you’ll find recommendations in those areas too. Just access all of this from the menu at the top.

 SecretStreets isn’t a comprehensive guide book series like Lonely Planet, nor is it a collection of country facts like WikiTravel. It’s a collection of stories from the road and tips learned along the way, contributed by me and a small collection of friends who share my love of travel. We know that we don’t know it all, and we have certainly not visited it all – if we had, we’d be pretty bored with prospects for the future. But we are always up to experience more and learn more, and so ask you to send us a note if you feel we got something seriously wrong, have a tip to add, or simply want to tell us your own story…

Here is an interactive map of the places featured in Secret Streets. Click on any pin to see the detail.