In September of 2008, two Austrians traveled 13,000km by rail from Vienna to Pyongyang - without asking permission and going through the official Koran travel agency. [more inside]
posted by dunkadunc on Apr 5, 2009 - 36 comments

Burton Holmes, Extraordinary Traveler. Burton Holmes didn't invent travel stories, slide shows, moving pictures or cross-country lectures, but he put them all together and created the travelogue (a term coined by his manager) as performance art. The site is full of information, pictures and additional links (including companion pages about the Trans-Siberian Railroad) chronicling Holmes' life and legacy.
posted by amyms on Jul 21, 2008 - 8 comments

Have Food Will Travel: Pearl River Delta is a travelogue teaser video from Leonard Shek, a second generation Chinese American from San Francisco. Shek traveled to the Guangdong Province as part of the SF Chinese Culture Center's In Search of Roots program. While the main purpose of the trips is for Chinese Americans to explore where their parents or grandparents came from, Shek wanted to explore the origins of the food he grew up with.
posted by spec80 on Jul 9, 2008 - 2 comments

Judy's tour diary (pdf, somewhat long) isn't your standard travelogue. The author is Judy Porter, a professor of sociology from Bryn Mawr Collge. Her expertise in the fields of AIDS and poverty are apparent as she paints a vivid picture of life in West Africa, and the health and social conditions that come with it. She also set up a web page that has links to a number of photo slide shows and hand shot video footage. West Africa has been extensively discussed previously.
posted by The Straightener on Mar 16, 2007 - 6 comments

Scott Stulberg takes beautiful photography of people and places in southeast Asia. Also, some fantastic nature and wildlife work. (flash, sound alert)
posted by madamjujujive on Feb 11, 2006 - 14 comments

No Condition is Permanent. World music, and African music in particular, often falls into two categories: pleasant and inoccuous, or the fetishized other. Even speaking of "African" music is misleading. Senegalese mbalax doesn't sound that much like Camaroonian makossa. And I don't say this as some great authority; I'm still just at the beginning of the learning curve. So come along with me. There's the broad Benne Loxo du Taccu, the sidebar of Mudd Up!, the great (and self-explanitory) African Hiphop, Stern's Music (this link going to a more accessible Thione Seck), Aduna (for Francophones— my middle-school French gets me by, but I'm really there for the music), Du Bruit (more Francophones, with an emphasis on vinyl sharities), and Worldly Disorientation (which covers all sorts of world music, but has some excellent African stuff). Have I missed anything great? Recommend it in the thread. I tend to prefer the psychedelic and dubby stuff more than straight folk styles, but that's me.
posted by klangklangston on Nov 17, 2005 - 42 comments

Heldencrow catalogues the far-flung adventures of an Irish barrister who nipped out of the Dublin law library on a coffee break one afternoon and never went back. Written between 2001 and 2004, his world reports run the gamut, from London to Colorado to the Himalaya. Don't miss his meditations on opera and his hand-drawn cartoon, The Hat and Spoon.
posted by nyterrant on Aug 10, 2005 - 6 comments

If in London you quickly become a grumpy old man, here it's hard not to be Andy Warhol: "Wow, that's great!" And it really is.
New York through the eyes of a transnational-European-Japanese songwriter/designer with an eyepatch.
posted by Tlogmer on Jun 24, 2005 - 4 comments

A dictionary of old hobo slang might be a handy tool to bring along when traveling through North Bank Fred's colorful stories, photos, and chalkings of today's hobo jungles.
posted by madamjujujive on Mar 2, 2005 - 16 comments

"In the summer of 1978 I undertook a 3-month 11,500-mile journey by moped from Toronto to Alaska (USA) and back to Toronto. This website contains a complete travelogue of this trip, with over 300 photographs and a description of the trip, plus technical information about the moped and details of the trip."
posted by stbalbach on May 18, 2004 - 15 comments

Swedish pixeldesign guy goes on vacation to Italy and England and makes Flash animation scrapbook more fun than most TV shows I've seen lately. via JeanSnow.net
posted by planetkyoto on Jul 17, 2003 - 13 comments

Photos by Martin - a gem of a site for vicarious travelers, it features wonderful, charming photos and fascinating stories from a guy who quit his job three years ago to travel the world. He credits global photojournalist Steve McCurry as an influence. I am such a fan of these photo travel narratives, professional and amateur alike - has anyone else discivered some special favorites?
posted by madamjujujive on Jul 8, 2003 - 22 comments

Northern Exposure: A North Korean Travelogue
posted by hama7 on May 9, 2003 - 6 comments

An American Visits the DMZ. With the rising tensions on the Korean border, it seems like a good time to get a first hand account on the situation. Insightful observations like, so I went into North Korea. It was a lot like South Korea, maybe colder. And there were more fat Canadians than I expected, especially just after a famine. While you're at his site, don't miss Tim Hoo is a Genius and Ask not for whom The Bell™ tolls.
posted by jonah on Mar 4, 2003 - 24 comments