Independent writing on open-sided houses, low-impact travel, wild places and the older habits that make hot countries easy to live in.
In cooler countries we build to keep the weather out. In the tropics the finest houses do the opposite — and once you have stayed in one, sealed rooms never…
Bali is paradise with a waste problem. Visiting well is less about grand gestures than a handful of small, repeatable decisions — and most of them cost…
One day a year, an entire island stops. No flights, no traffic, no work, no light after dark. What Nyepi does to Bali is worth understanding even if you never…
Shade, airflow, thermal mass and planting will do more for comfort in a hot country than any amount of air conditioning. The old builders knew it; the good new ones…
Three countries in ten days sounds like value. In practice it is mostly airports. The travellers who see the most are usually the ones who move the…
The terraces everyone photographs are the visible part of something far more interesting — a cooperative water system, run by farmers, that has managed an…
Ten people, one roof, two weeks. Whether that reads as a dream or a warning comes down almost entirely to how the building is…
Most advice about travelling responsibly is either too vague to act on or too demanding to keep. This is the short list of things that are genuinely worth the…
The tropical rainforest of the imagination is loud, green and full of animals. The real one is hotter, quieter and far stranger — and it takes a day or two to…
Between first light and about eight in the morning, hot countries hand you the best hour of the day. Almost nobody on holiday takes…
Earth's Echo began as a small expedition journal and remains one — written from long stays rather than press trips, for readers who would rather understand a landscape than tick it off.