PASSPORT & PIXELS
Unhelpful Guides
An unhelpful guide to… Canterbury

An unhelpful guide to… Canterbury

Working as a factual TV producer takes me to all sorts of weird and wonderful places.  I’ve filmed off the coast of Namibia on a diamond mining ship.  I’ve learned how they make pearls at an Australian pearl farm (you can read about that here).  I’ve been …
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Unhelpful Guides
An unhelpful guide to… Poland

An unhelpful guide to… Poland

Recently, I was lucky enough to be offered an all-expenses paid trip to Poland. Whaaaaaat?  That sounds amazing!  I hear you cry. Ok, perhaps I misrepresented somewhat.  What I meant is: I was sent there for work – to film three stories for a British food-related TV series.  But all…
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Unhelpful Guides
An unhelpful guide to… Bruges

An unhelpful guide to… Bruges

As a TV Producer, I travel a lot with work.   Over the course of the last 14 years or so making telly shows for the likes of the BBC and Channel 4, I’ve been lucky enough to visit all sorts of random places – many in the UK but…
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Italy
A week in Umbria. Part 3: Assisi

A week in Umbria. Part 3: Assisi

I recently spent a week exploring and photographing the gorgeous Italian region of Umbria.  Click here for a look at Todi and Orvieto. Of course no trip to Umbria is complete without a visit to Assisi, the jewel in the region’s crown and a UNESCO World Heritage site.  And …
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Italy
A week in Umbria. Part 2: Orvieto

A week in Umbria. Part 2: Orvieto

I recently spent a week exploring and photographing the spectacular Italian region of Umbria.  Part One of my journey is here. After spending a few days relaxing and exploring the area around Todi, the next stop on the tour was the fabulous old town of Orvieto. Orvieto is one of&…
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Italy
A week in Umbria. Part 1: Todi

A week in Umbria. Part 1: Todi

The majority of visitors to Italy make a beeline for the big-hitting, headline attractions: Rome, Venice, Florence, the Amalfi Coast…  But if you want to avoid the crowds while still soaking up Italy’s gorgeous scenery, fantastic weather, and incredible cultural heritage, you could do a lot worse than ignoring …
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Italy
Memento Mori in Naples

Memento Mori in Naples

With its fabulous food, edgy culture and seaside location, Naples is becoming an increasingly popular city break destination. Where once tourists simply passed through en route to the Amalfi Coast, today more and more are stopping off for a few days to explore Naples’ narrow alleyways, enjoy some of the …
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Italy
The wall art of Naples – where old meets new

The wall art of Naples – where old meets new

Naples is one of Italy’s largest, oldest, and most colourful cities, and like any Italian city, it’s full to bursting of centuries-old art.   From its UNESCO-heritage-labelled Centro Storico, to the stunning hilltop monastery Certosa di San Martino, the city is generously sprinkled with palaces, churches and grand houses – …
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Italy
The real Lonely Planet guide to Naples

The real Lonely Planet guide to Naples

Like most people, I never go abroad without a copy of the latest local guidebook.  And more often than not, that guidebook will be the Lonely Planet.  Ever since I first went travelling with the 1997 edition of ‘South America on a shoestring’ (all 1170 pages of it, weighing nearly 3/4…
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Norway
A Festival Of Ice Music

A Festival Of Ice Music

In January 2016, while working on a new video project for Lonely Planet, I was sent to Norway to film at the Geilo Ice Music Festival. Geilo is a tiny ski town in the mountains in the middle of the country, about halfway between Oslo and Bergen, and every year…
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Iceland
Iceland’s falls and springs

Iceland’s falls and springs

Iceland is famous for being, well… icy.  Clue’s in the title, after all!  Snow-capped mountains, frozen lakes, whirling blizzards, ancient glaciers… when it comes to the white stuff, Iceland’s got it covered.  Literally! But when all that H2O isn’t busy being frozen, Iceland has two other …
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Iceland
The Power of Iceland’s Waves

The Power of Iceland’s Waves

It might not come as much of a surprise to learn that Iceland was one of the last places in Europe to be inhabited by humans.   Early settlers would have had to navigate the treacherous North Atlantic Ocean in little wooden boats, and many would have died or given up …
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Iceland
Photographing the Northern Lights in Iceland

Photographing the Northern Lights in Iceland

Viewing the Northern Lights is on many people’s bucket lists.  To be honest, it wasn’t really on mine. I certainly wouldn’t have made a special trip to Iceland just to see them, that’s for sure.  But since I was there for work anyway, and had the …
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Iceland
A Glacier Hike on the Svínafellsjökull Glacier, Iceland

A Glacier Hike on the Svínafellsjökull Glacier, Iceland

This is the Svínafellsjökull glacier in Iceland.  Have fun trying to pronounce that!  In Icelandic, ‘ll’ is pronounced something like tl, with a flattened tongue and a click in the back of the throat.  So I guess you’d say ‘SVEEN-a-FETLS-yok-utl.  Or just start confidently with ‘Sveen’ and …
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Iceland
The Beautiful Icelandic Horse

The Beautiful Icelandic Horse

Along with Vikings and fermented shark, one of the most well-recognised icons of Iceland is its tiny horses.  And no, you mustn’t call them ‘ponies’ – Icelanders are very particular about that and I was told off for it! I got confused by this as I thought a pony was …
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