One reader, one writer, several library cards.
This site is a long, slow project to write a travel guide for every city, town and island that lives inside one of my favourite books. Some of those books are old. Some I read last summer. Some I have re-read enough times that the spine is broken at exactly the page I was on when the train pulled into the station the first time.
What’s actually on the site
City guides, mostly. Each one pinned to a single book. I write them so you could take any one on the trip without having read the novel and still come home with a real itinerary, prices in the right currency, opinions about which famous attraction to skip, and a couple of cafes worth a detour for breakfast. The book is the personality. The city is the substance.
I update guides when I notice something has changed. A bookshop closes, a museum reopens with new pricing, a hotel I recommended drops a star, the ferry timetable shifts. The aim is to keep every published guide good for a real trip you would take in the year you read it.
The challenge that ties it all together
The hub of the site is the Read and Travel Challenge. The premise is simple: pick a few books for the year, decide which one is becoming a trip, and tell someone. That’s it. There’s no email signup, no leaderboard, no algorithm scoring whether you finished the chapter on the train or the plane. Read the book. Then go to the place. Whichever order works for your year, your wallet and your library hold queue.
Who I am, briefly
Someone who reads on trains, takes notes on receipts, and then writes them up properly when I get home. I have spent real time in most of the places I write about. Where I have not, I say so up front and lean on people who have. I do not run sponsored posts. Some of the booking links pay me a small commission if you book through them; the price is the same whether you use my link or not.
Get in touch
The fastest way is in the comments under whichever guide is most relevant. For everything else, the contact page has the options.