Travel notes for people who'd rather see three streets well than ten cities badly. We write about overnight trains, shoulder-season prices, and packing lists that survive the return flight lighter than they left.
One Bag · October 17, 2026 · by Iris
The 40-liter ceiling, three years later
Three years ago we adopted a rule: if it doesn't fit in a 40-liter bag, it doesn't go. Readers keep asking if it ever fails. Honest answer: twice a year — winter gear and one wedding — and both times the fix was renting or borrowing on arrival, which turns out to be a service that exists in most real cities.
The list isn't minimalism, exactly. It's just the discovery that laundry is available everywhere, and that nobody at your destination knows what you wore on Tuesday.
Everything must pair with everything else — five colors max
Shoes are the budget: two pairs, one on your feet
The bag is never more than two-thirds full on departure
Trains · October 9, 2026 · by Iris
The overnight train is a hotel that travels
We priced it properly this month, since nobody ever does: a sleeper cabin booked early versus a daytime train plus a night in a mid-range hotel. The overnight train won on cost in four of five routes we checked, and that's before counting the evening you don't spend in an airport.
Bring earplugs regardless, and know where the coffee car is before the world wakes up. The rest is a window and a sunrise doing the entertaining.
Shoulder Season · October 2, 2026 · by Tomas
The exact two weeks when everything gets cheap
Every city has a cliff-edge week when hotel prices fall by half and the weather has barely noticed. It's usually the fortnight after the school holidays end and two weeks before the conference season starts — late September for most of Europe, mid-October for the south. The museums are empty, the servers are relaxed, and the sea is at its warmest of the year.
The catch, and there is one: shorter daylight hours. Plan the one big outdoor thing before 3 p.m. and give the evening to streets and tables.
Notes · September 25, 2026 · by Tomas
The departure-day checklist that fits on an index card
Four lines, unchanged for years: water the plants, photograph the stove, empty the trash, put the keys in the shoe you're wearing. The index card lives in the passport holder. Departure mornings since adopting it have been, without exception, boring — which is the highest compliment a departure morning can receive.