Slow Routes
A long-distance path is laid out around a day of walking, not a distance
Waymarked routes are divided into stages by where a walker can sleep and eat, which explains almost every…
Clara Lindqvist
Staff writer, The Next Postcard
Clara joined to cover cities, slow routes, rail & road and stayed for the awkward questions and reads the small print so you do not have to.
19 articles
Slow Routes
Movement is the expensive part of a trip and the arithmetic rewards staying put
A journey has two separate cost structures, one charged per move and one charged per day, and most…
Rail & Road
One ticket or two decides who is responsible when a connection fails
The number of contracts your journey is made of matters more than the number of trains, and it only becomes…
Coast
A resort coastline runs two economies and only one of them is visible in August
Somewhere built around a short season has to earn a year of costs in a few months, and almost every price…
Slow Routes
A day on a loaded bicycle is measured in wind and gradient
Distance is the least useful way to plan a cycling day, because load, surface, climbing and headwind change…
Rail & Road
A high pass is only a road for part of the year
Mountain roads are engineered around gradient and snow rather than distance, and the season, the surface…
Coast
Tides are a timetable and most coasts run on it
The rise and fall of the sea is predictable years ahead, varies enormously from one coast to another, and…
Coast
A working harbour keeps different hours from the town behind it
Fishing ports run on landings, markets and weather windows rather than on the visitor day, which is why the…
Coast
Rip currents form for structural reasons and look calm from the beach
Water pushed onto a beach by waves has to return seaward somewhere, and where it concentrates it produces…
Travel Craft
Each kind of accommodation is really selling something different
Hotels, guesthouses, hostels and rented flats are not points on a single scale of price and comfort; each…
Rail & Road
A frontier can change the gauge, the voltage and the way trains are signalled
Railways were built nationally before they were connected internationally, and the technical seams left by…
Coast
Salt marsh is land the sea is still deciding about
The flat green ground behind many coasts is neither sea nor solid land but an intermittently flooded…
Coast
The strandline is a daily delivery of everything the sea has been carrying
The untidy line of weed and debris at the top of a beach is a record of the last tide, a functioning…
Travel Craft
Travel insurance is a pool, and the exclusions are how the pool survives
A policy works by collecting small sums from many travellers to pay the rare large claim, which explains…
Travel Craft
Health preparation for a trip is mostly a calendar problem
Most of what makes a journey medically straightforward has to be arranged weeks in advance, which is why…
Travel Craft
Taking photographs abroad is governed by three different sets of rules at once
Law, property and courtesy each constrain what you may photograph, they don’t overlap neatly, and the one…
Rail & Road
A shared taxi leaves when it is full, and that is the whole timetable
Across much of the world the vehicle between two towns departs on load rather than on a clock, which…
Rail & Road
Passenger trains share their track with freight, and freight was there first
On a mixed railway the timetable is a compromise between services with different speeds and different…
Rail & Road
A rural bus timetable is written for schoolchildren and shoppers
Village services exist to serve a small number of fixed local needs, and once you know what those needs are…