Culture Guides

Guide to Development and International Aid

Mini-guide by Suzie Capelli

Disclaimer: This article contains my opinions on the aid industry and development which have been formed in a large part by time spent as a Continue reading >>

The Bus Busker in Latin America: All the Road's a Stage

In Latin America the bus is king, holding the place occupied by the automobile in North America or the train in Europe. More than the dominant form of transport, it’s ...

Eastern Spirituality for Sale in Vanity Fair

When I was younger I thought that the Western world was lacking in spirituality. I was reading plenty of books about the East at the time and deduced that our ...

The Digital Divide and the Traveler

Once upon a time there was no such thing as the internet. Shocking, but true. Travelers on the road had to go to the nearest post office to collect their ...

Downloading in Disaster Zones

I was born in the 70’s, the so-called ‘golden age’ of porn, the decade when the term ‘swinging’ first hit the street and the Weather Underground and others were trying ...

Japanese Culture - Love Hotels

The Japanese are almost a species apart. A reserved, formal culture laden with hierarchy and rigid social expectations, when it comes to dating and sex they are in a world ...

Sex Still Sells in Brazil - TV ads

Whilst the rest of the world may have gotten the idea that women are more than sex objects, Brazil still lingers with the notion that girls in bikinis are what ...

Ethnic Slurs - World Culture at its Worst

The traveler ends up being called many names around the world and few of them are all that nice. Don’t worry, immigrants have been putting up with this kind of ...

10 Leading Causes of Travel Deaths (maybe)

The number of ways that you can die are uncountable but not to great that you can’t bring a little imagination to the proceedings and start adding up how many ...

10 Best Places to get Stoned Around the World

There’s a big difference between drugs and natural medicines in our eyes which help us see the world as it really is, infinite. Of course, the biggest trip of all ...

10 Weirdest Foods in the World

Whilst trying to gross ourselves out a while ago, our travel editors got their heads together and came up with 10 really weird foods they’d eaten or seen eaten on ...

Beggar's Karma - India, Japan, Iran

In India when one chooses to give a few rupees to a beggar by the side of the road it’s good etiquette to salute him at the same time. He, ...

Chasing Rainbows in Chennai, India

By Colin Todhunter
Chapter five from the book of the same name

I had been watching satellite TV in my hotel room for far too long. The more I watched, ...

Morocco Immigration to Spain

The Islamic Empire began inside the head of an uneducated Arab called Mohammed in an unheard of village in Saudi Arabia. A few revelations and bloody civil wars later, a ...

World Cuisine - Bugs, sheep's head soup

The pitcher of beer arrived and our Korean host filled our glasses before attending to his own. The waiter slid a few plates of snacks onto the table and I ...

World Anthropology at the Crossroads

Go! Go! Damnit!

When anthropologists approach a foreign culture in the hope of gaining some understanding of the values and nature of the people who live there, they generally consider a ...