Author: Lucy Corne

Ever since I was about 12 I was obsessed with travel, though I don't think I realised it at the time. I thought everyone gazed at atlases, memorised capital cities and invented languages for nations so remote that a preteen girl couldn't imagine them having their own! The giant map on my wall was filled with pins marking where I'd been and where I wanted to go and I had pen friends in a dozen different countries. Over the past couple of decades I've managed to get to 45 countries across every continent except Antarctica, though I still have a tendency to lose my passport, board the wrong train and leave valuable possessions on public buses. I've been combining my two great loves - travel and writing - since graduation and have had travel features published in a range of magazines, website and newspapers, including Wanderlust, The Guardian, The Toronto Star, Travel Africa, Reader's Digest and a variety of in-flight magazines. I'm looking forward to sharing my all-consuming travel passion with you here on Travelhoppers!

Trying new foods is one of the most wonderful aspects of travel and for some, the weirder, the better. Of course, few people ever get hooked on those fear factor foods that make for interesting travel tales and a fun Facebook photo – deep fried grasshoppers, beating cobra hearts, scorpion on a stick or a whole sheep’s head eaten out of the skull – but there are weird eats across the globe that actually taste …

Read More

Inspiration for your next trip can come from many places — websites, guidebooks, other people’s travel tales and even classic Disney cartoons. Those idealized landscapes, the sweeping opening shots set to iconic music — no trip could ever be as perfect as it seems in a Disney movie, could it? Here are seven trips to try out and see if life is as wonderful as art.

An African safari (The Lion King)
Perhaps …

Read More

Travel is full of enthralling encounters, of moments that stick with you forever — a glimpse of a wild gorilla, an African sunrise, your first sight of the pyramids.

But those moving moments wouldn’t seem so spectacular if they weren’t peppered with less exciting experiences. For every lion kill there’s a lame museum; for every gargantuan sculpture there is a giant ball of yarn. Here are eight utterly underwhelming tourist attractions, places that have you …

Read More

Whether you’re an occasional wanderer or a travel obsessive, there will probably be days when your hotel room leaves you uninspired. Even the excitement of investigating bathroom freebies wears off after a while – well, just how many shower caps, sewing kits and mini soaps does one person need in their life? Luckily, the travel industry has responded to the weariness brought on by muted colour schemes, ill-fitting bath robes and identikit corridors, in the …

Read More