Travels
A forced, bubbly sort of voice has come to dominate newspaper and magazine travel pages, in Britain and elsewhere. I suspect readers are tiring of it, and it is certainly not the way I write. Funny, yes; lobotomised, no. I have contributed travel pieces to publications including the Evening Standard, the Financial Times, the New Statesman, the Guardian, the Australian and MSN UK, of which I am currently travel editor. I also sell photos to accompany my articles; you can see some of my pictures here
Wired: touring the mean streets of Baltimore
I get an insider's guide to the setting of a legendarily gritty crime series, then settle down for a scoop of hot fudge sundae
Do the popes live in a palace?
I find splendour papal, artistic and otherwise on a tour of the lesser known south of France
People smugglers, misplaced Speedos and ravenous carp
I finds plenty of moving stories, and moments of bizarre comedy, on a challenging Asian gap year break
Gypsy tinkers, Faust on wheels and onion pies in Romania
In the old Saxon town of Sibiu, I find an exuberance that's consigning grim images of dictatorship to the history books
Hidden people, hidden wonders
Simon Busch is thrilled by the otherworldly landscapes of northern Iceland
God’s own country?
Simon Busch travels to the Caucasus to find an ancient Christian nation where the biblical past still throbs with life
Simon Busch has monster fun exploring Loch Ness by canoe
Spicy calypso
Simon Busch gets right into the rhythm of a mellow little Caribbean island, but why does he keep getting called ‘boy’?
Bells to men
Simon Busch wonders whether he's stumbled upon a bunch of Spanish rural transvestites or a fascinating ancient rite
Strange fruit
Simon Busch boards the sleeper train from London for some jokes in (and about) Scotland's rough-edged second city
Maltese delights
In search of the diver's nirvana - neutral buoyancy - off the ancient island home of the Knights Hospitaller
So (according to Jacques Chirac) the Finns can't cook? Wait until you tuck into a reindeer steak 170km north of the Arctic Circle
Who needs Tuscany when you can have another sunny haven of rustic food at half the price
Strange currents and currency in the remote Faroe Islands
How hedonistic Tel Aviv defies all the Israeli cliches
How the British used to holiday
Why you should never make the A-OK sign to a Greek
It’s one of travel’s biggest quandaries: where and when to tip
Why we’re still not the most sophisticated travellers
The unluckiest places in Britain
Where the rain god lurks...
Britain’s best chippies
Love and war on an Australian cattle station
In which I describe my misanthropic preference for solo travelling
Mmm! The French oyster season opens
Otherworldly Iceland is finally affordable
Morocco’s ancient imperial city may be being cleaned up to suit the western bourgeoisie, but its scents of leather, mint and mule piss still linger
‘Well preserved’ is a peculiar food recommendation but it does nicely describe Swedish cuisine
The new bard of the Turkish lake district
Another Europe, Beyond-the-Mountains
Greasy spoons are alive and unwell in Britain
Rise up, coffee drinkers of Melbourne
Sailing with a light conscience
Floating to Amsterdam
Enduring love for a rare Portuguese beauty
When spas were real
Paris is heaven for oyster lovers
Getting to grips with your bivalves
French stew over Marseille soup
Fishing around in a famous Provençal recipe
‘Tripe, pig, boar – the staples of Portuguese cuisine sound like an inventory of insults’
In the heel of the Italian boot
Lyon’s share of French cuisine
The difficulty of ordering a bad meal in Lyon
Some tips on haggling for an ‘exotic rug’
Revolutionary dreams and a barehanded cayman-catcher
I visit the country that inspired my youthful political passions - so what am I doing staying in a luxury eco-lodge?
Gunpowder, sauerkraut and mouse pee?
I get systematic about my love of wine in the celebrated vine-growing regions of Bordeaux and Madiran
A safari gone wild
I dwell on, well, not quite the beauty of nature in Kruger national park
Go on, explore
Simon Busch visits Svalbard, where adventurous travellers can follow in the footsteps - or sledge tracks - of early 20th century polar heroes
World’s best airlines?
Oh no, I hear you saying: not another dubious, commercially motivated travel survey with only a small bus stop's worth of respondents?
Nice revolution, shame about the tourism
Tunisians are beginning to worry about the fate of one of their biggest industries - us, writes Simon Busch
On the trail of Madonna
It isn't only ageing pop stars who should get to know poor but beautiful Malawi, says Simon Busch
This is your captain freaking
Sailing solo about the canals around Amsterdam, Simon Busch learns to pilot a boat the hard way
Simon Busch visits the Middle East's city of the future and finds a fascinating old settlement still poking up from the sand
Scotch missed
A memorable kind of magic oozes from the ground on the long-peopled Scottish island of Arran
When adventure travel was real: the tale of Percy Fawcett
The thrilling and tragic Amazon adventures of one of the last great British explorers
On the receiving end of a 45-minute foot massage, I discover what happened to the Ibizan hippies who didn't found all those enormous, pulsating clubs
Fierce national pride and a love of all things folk are among the ingredients that make up modern Lithuania
In pictures: one of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth
An astonishing new film captures birth, life and death among a million-strong flamingo flock
There’s life in the British pub yet, say the editors of the Good Pub Guide 2010
Very strange, and sometimes shocking, things taken by ordinary travellers around the globe
Discovering Jersey
London to Istanbul, by train, and the perils of a querulous ‘Bulgar’ conductor
Sydney v Melbourne: the cities weighed up on a drive inbetween
Looking for God in the footsteps of Moses
A crisis of atheism on Mt Sinai
Mythical monster with victory on its shell
The putative turtle of Hanoi
Sun, surf and semillon sauvignon blanc
The land in which my neuroses blossomed
If only Friuli Venezia Giulia had a better name
1,001 alleys of the Fez medina
Climbing Mt Moses with the trembling hordes
Trieste, Joyce’s city of exile
Fleamarkets I have known
In Lyon, j’adore Le Nord
Following the Moorish trail to the painted towns of Morocco
Aix-les-Bains
Scotland: nice landscapes, shame about the cooking
A Hungarian charm offensive
Puglia, the Saudi Arabia of olive oil
Trás-os-Montes
Portuguese tarts: the best in Europe
An Indian merry-go-round
‘I needed a blonde, and a
once-sharp suit’ ... Marseille
A sandy anthropology of Sydney, where I grew up
