It's hard to say what came first, traveling or travel documenting. There are accounts of travelogues dating to the Song Dynasty in China (960-1279) through Medieval times and into recent history. The Italian poet Petrarch described in personal terms his experience of climbing Mount Ventoux in 1336. A few years later, Moroccan world traveller Ibn Battuta wrote ‘Rihla’ (The Journey), A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling. Source: The Travel Tester Ships logs, journals, diaries, journalism, and until recently, postcards and letters have served to carry compact, condensed perspectives of an individual’s travel experience to others, either loved ones or strangers.

When you travel it will more often than not be solo, certainly if you travel frequently, for business, or take a number of extended trips to different destinations in a year. You may have time on your hands in some of these places, but how much of that is used up working out details once you arrive? Travel article apps are a fun and pressure-free option for exploring intended locations in advance, as you prepare to go away or while you’re en route.

And while they will save you time by giving you directions, they will also enhance the pleasure of exploration and discovery. Like the places you visit, each individual guide has its own flavor, context or story. You can mix and match, and come away from even the most rushed stay in a new place feeling like you’ve actually connected with the destination. You’ll be both relaxed and enriched, because the time you’ve spent there was well spent.

There is always a single writer. Travel writing is by definition a solitary activity, much like the experience of travel itself. But it is an activity that strives to reach out and connect another person to that same very subjective and personal experience.

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In fact, the Pemaquid-Bristol region looks a lot like Cornwall, very similar to the Fal estuary on the south coast. We even had a boat ride, to see the seals – but no ferry from St. Mawes! Lots of lobster and seafood, including fish and chips!

You don't get many chances to photograph real coal these days!

On our way, we stayed in the mountainous region of Jackson, New Hampshire. There is a funny little steam locomotive at the foot of Mount Washington, still puffing, complete with an engineer in a dirty face and overalls.

We spent one night in Jackson, New Hampshire, had dinner in the pub and listened to a local Irish folk band. The rest of the time was at Hawks House Inn, a comfortable, laid-back B&B near Damariscotta, Maine. The host was large, gregarious and couldn't do enough to make us feel at home, and the inn was busy each day. Breakfast was buffet style laid out on two large tables. Steve, the host, was very proud of his artisanal cereals and bread, all bought at the local farmer's market, he said, as was the selection of fruit. This was ideal for us since we could help ourselves to what we liked. Not having bacon and eggs each morning probably did our figures some good, and every little bit helps these days!

As you can see, the sun shone every day, which apparently is not particularly typical of the coastal region of Maine. While this is about the closest we are to the ocean, it is still almost exactly 600 kilometres away, so not an afternoon's drive.

We were lucky with the weather but here at home, we REALLY need some rain. It has been a consistently hot, dry summer and the gardens have suffered, in our case due to the heat, but also because of the ravages of the plant pests which such hot weather seems to encourage. Sigh! We can't have it all...

Located right next to the SkyWheel, classic competition can be had between friends, family or colleagues at Strike Rock N'Bowl, a 14-lane, 10-pin bowling facility. Features include high-definition audio-visual systems, LED lighting, touch screens, and adjustable bumper rails to set game levels for kids and novices. You can also play pool, pinball and other arcade games, and even ride a racing simulator.

If wax museums are your thing (and let’s face it, they aren’t everyone’s…), Niagara Falls is your place. Since 1983, the Ramunno family has been running a rock music souvenir store, while patriarch Pasquale perfected his sculpting technique. The resulting Rock Legends are not to be missed. You’ll discover a one-of-a-kind collection showcasing over 70 excessively famous and lesser-known rock stars, from Buddy Holly through Ozzy Osborne to Slipknot.

So too, on the outskirts of what is less a town than a motley collection of mismatched streets, you cannot help but be struck by the number of abandoned homes and businesses (700+ in fact), often standing alone in vacant lots against a backdrop of monster hotels. The cause is a 50% population drop since the 1960s, and the lack of a realistic recovery plan. You may wonder where the residents of the remaining shacks have gone. You won’t see them, and the people left over seem somewhat tired and worn, as if dependent on the next wave of seasonal visitors to wind them up again.

Niagara is an enigma, a place of paradox. She has dual citizenship, and on either side of the Canadian-American border the chasm between tourists and locals is about as deep as the gorge itself.

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At any given moment you can find all kinds of weird exhibits and activities to pass the time on Clifton Hill, from the famous Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum to the Moving Theater to limited engagements such as Wigan's Micro-miniatures, a display you can only see through a 400x microscope. How long each attraction holds your kids’ attention is subjective, so you may want to consider discounted flex combo packages. Wizards’ Golf is a climate-controlled, wheelchair-accessible miniature golf course – one of the largest in North America and one of the newest attractions in Niagara Falls. It’s also one of the best. A mystical, intriguing, glow-in-the-dark world of fantasy will enchant you, and no two holes are alike. If you enjoy a great challenge among good company (wizards, trolls, fairies, and dragons), you’ll get your money’s worth here.

In warm weather, both the Canadian and American towns are over-run with sightseers and impossibly crowded. On the off-season, the streets are somewhat bleak, and despite the bright lights and gaudy painted frontage of popular attractions, there is a kind of faded grey emptiness to the in-between spaces. You get the impression that everyone who works at this great pantomime is either unnaturally young or significantly old: the absence of lifeblood in the middle range is striking.

Nevertheless, whatever the weather, there’s always action within the walls of the town’s two casinos. Casino Niagara is slotted into the Crowne Plaza-Sheraton hotel complex, while Fallsview sprawls the length of the downtown mall. With 150 tables and 4,500 slot machines between them, these vast adult arcades excite the senses, day and night. Clearly, cash runs through this town like water, but there is no reservoir. Rather, it rushes over the city like the cataract, and away again, down the river.

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This Misty Mountain is not the Brigadoon of legend, emerging from the fog only once every 100 years, but it has been compared to that mystical land due to its fantastical appearance and the many stories associated with it. Notably, it has been cited as proof for the existence of giants, in particular a character named Bolster, who could stand with one foot on the hill and the other on top of St. Agnes Beacon 10 miles away. This is not surprising, given the size of the tors on Carn Brea. You can’t help but speculate how they came to be there, and the factual description of the area’s history and prehistory only adds to the mystery.
   738 feet above sea level, Carn Brea overlooks the towns of Camborne and Redruth in southern England, or Cornwall. From Pencoys village, it is less than an hour’s walk, accessed by following Loscombe Road and the dirt lanes that meander among flowering hedgerows between the fields. If you start out in the morning, it is likely to be as misty as its nickname suggests, but on a sunny day, the fog will burn off as you approach the summit. The wild and colourful groundcover is as coarse as what is found in the highland moors, and not unlike tundra in places. Well-trodden paths ensure that you won’t easily lose your way.
   The tor enclosure that you discover is worth the steep climb up one or another sides of the hill. Imposing granite ramparts line the bank, forming an eastern and a central enclave. The stones themselves command your attention, but your eyes will be torn between them and the expansive view of the countryside and villages below. Such Neolithic (4,000 – 6,000 BCE) structures could have served many purposes: ceremonial, defensive, community, but there isn’t enough evidence to say for certain what happened in the ancient days on this hill.

​Nevertheless, Carn Brea continued to captivate people’s imaginations. Pottery, Bronze Age tools, and Roman coins have all been found at the site. In the Middle Ages (1379) a castle that served as a hunting lodge and chapel was erected by ancestors of the Basset family, using some of the enormous boulders on the hill as a base. There are at least two tunnels leading from Carn Brea toward Redruth and St. Euny’s Church, which were blocked for safety reasons after 1970. Partway down the hill, St. Euny’s Well is named after the Celtic saint who brought Christianity to the area around 500 CE. 

​In addition to the tor enclosure with its massive outcroppings of rock, the carn is recognized by the 90-foot stone cross that graces its summit. The granite obelisk (1836) is a monument to Francis Basset, Baron de Dunstanville, who became a member of the nobility partly as a result of his efforts to defend the port of Plymouth from Spanish and French fleets with an army of miners. A mine owner himself, with 700-year-old Cornish roots, Basset was a philanthropist who worked to improve the conditions of miners throughout the southwest. Or so the story goes. Some historians describe Basset less sympathetically, suggesting he was grasping as a politician and controlling as an employer, giving with one hand and taking with the other. 

​Tin mines were the main sources of employment in the region throughout the Industrial period. Their abandoned chimneys define the landscape of Cornwall, which sent many of its sons overseas during the 19th and early 20th centuries to help establish mines in places as far away as Mexico, New Zealand, and South Africa. Whatever opinion these young men held of the Baron de Dunstanville, they grew up in the shadow of his memory, and their voices still carry on the winds of Carn Brea.

Nowadays, the congregation of St. Mungo's consists of a small, loyal group of caretakers and patrons who  succeeded in raising enough funds to supplement government grants and restore the exterior of the building, before moving on to the interior, which despite its age is remarkably intact.
       A gallery runs round three sides and the pews and pulpit are original. In its day, the church could easily accommodate three hundred people. Now, it is only opened two or three times a year for special services.
      Late in the 18th century, tracts of land in Chatham township were granted to veterans of the first battalion of the 84th Regiment of Foot, also known as the Royal Highland Emigrants, who fought in the American Revolution (1775-1783) and Seven Years War (1756-1763). Archibald McMillan, whose house still stands in Grenville village, brought some 450 Highlanders from Locharkaig, Scotland, to settle along the river in 1802.
      Built by the stonemasons who worked on the Ottawa River canals, St. Mungo's played an important role in uniting the vibrant Scottish pioneer community who helped develop western Québec in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. McMillan himself remarked that he had never heard more Gaelic spoken than he did along the Ottawa River Valley.