Beside the sacred waters
November 2017
I love the odd, the outlandish and the outrageous sides of Japan, from cuddling a hedgehog at Harry’s Hedgehog Café to standing on the pedestrian bridge in Tokyo’s Harajuku district to watch the fashion show — of cosplayers, anime otaku, Decora girls, rockabilly dancers, roller skaters, Visual Kei fans and Lolitas. [...]

Pop, lock & drop it
November 2016
There's a great-value, feel-good place on Crocus Bay selling barbecued baby-back ribs and Piña Coladas. Everyone tries to get to da'Vida by 11am to bag a lounger in the shade, but even if you're late someone will shuffle along to share. [...]

Discover the Origins of Mankind
September 2016
In addition to luxurious lodges, wildlife encounters, and stunning landscapes, this experience will take you deep into the world of the Leakeys, the legendary family of paleontologists who have made numerous important discovers on the shores of Lake Turkana, near the Ethiopian border.

The day the mountains moved
April 24, 2016
There had been heavy rain overnight but now the clouds were lifting. I stopped on a promontory to admire the view across a wide valley towards the eastern arc of the Annapurna circuit. There was a steep drop below me and good visibility. I pulled out the map to pinpoint my location. The date was April 25 2015. Suddenly the ground began to shake. [...]

Freeze Frame
January 2016
The raw wilderness of Norway’s Svalbard is one of the harshest environments on the planet but it’s a land where everyone gets along, because getting along is the only way to survive. This is real-life ‘Fortitude’, the Scandic-Noir that’s soon to resurface. [...]

Bohemian Rhapsody
October 15, 2015
Guidebooks often warn tourists away from Wenceslas Square in Prague. That might be because at first glance there seems little to set apart this lozenge-shaped thoroughfare. The shops and fast-food chains could be on any high street in Europe. With three different metro stops the pavement is always crowded and locals caution against pickpockets. [...]

Born Trippy
October 2015
This was once some of the most coveted coastline on the planet. Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the French, Dutch and Portuguese clashed, conquered and colonised the stretch of Brazil wedged between the mouth of the Amazon and the north-eastern shoulder of South America. [...]

Going With the Flow on the Mekong River
July 3, 2015
Kneeling down on the pavement in Luang Prabang, I rest my swing-basket of sticky rice, warm and damp, on my lap. At this early hour, the light is still colorless and the shadows long. In the distance, a procession of monks in glorious robes trails down from one of the city’s many gilded Buddhist temples. [...]

Underwater Love
July 2015
The fish around here know how special they are. They shimmer and glow and sparkle like stars in their own biopic, performing in the spotlight of crepuscular sunrays. There’s the arresting electric-blue giti damselfish with its flash yellow tail, the alluring doe-eyed, deep reef cardinalfish, and the jamal’s dottyback with aqua-rimmed eyes as startling as Daniel Craig’s. [...]

Wander Women
July 2015
Woman are aces at adventurous. They always have been. Consider restless Freya Stark, who left behind her English-Italian family to journey through inter-war Arabia, writing dozens of vivid travel books en route. Or Gertrude Bell, an Oxford graduate who spoke eight languages, conquered numerous mountains, became a spy and made her home in Baghdad. [...]

Bohemian Rhapsody
November 15, 2014
Guidebooks often warn tourists away from Wenceslas Square in Prague. That might be because at first glance there seems little to set apart this lozenge-shaped thoroughfare. The shops and fast-food chains could be on any high street in Europe. With three different metro stops the pavement is always crowded and locals caution against pickpockets. [...]

We can’t all be Himalayan climbers
October 20, 2014
In the wake of one of Nepal’s worst trekking disasters, the rescue efforts are just beginning. Already, harrowing stories are emerging. Hundreds of tourists and Nepalis have been caught up in the recent snow storms and avalanches in the Himalayan mountains, killing more than 40 and injured nearly 200. [...]

What a difference a baby makes
July 22, 2014
As the globe-trotting Prince George celebrates his first birthday, Michelle Jana Chan - who has taken already her one-year-old on 50 flights - reflects on the challenges and rewards of travelling en famille. [...]

Peking to Paris classic car rally 2013: 'Let’s make a U-turn and do it all again'
July 6, 2013
It was a cold and wet afternoon somewhere between Saratov and Voronezh, Russia. As we drove around a corner, we saw an elderly couple standing on the side of the road in the rain. With one hand, the woman was pointing a camera at us; with the other, she was waving and cheering us on. Beside her the man was holding up a yellow banner. [...]

Brave New Worlds
August 2013
Here’s the story of a man who made a billion bucks: first he launched himself into space, then he looked on Google Maps to find an island where he could be alone. But instead, he tells Michelle Jana Chan, he fell in love with a wonky lost land full of witch doctors and spider scientists. He’s now among a group of visionaries changing the way we travel. [...]

Escaping Christmas
December 20, 2011
There’s nothing quite like Christmas Day – especially when experienced at 35,000 feet above the ground.

Beautiful and damned
July 16, 2011
Following the advice of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's pro-democracy leader, Michelle Jana Chan travels around under her own steam. Mya rubbed drops of water into the tree bark to form a yellow paste. She smeared it on my forehead and cheeks, finishing with the flourish of a dab at the end of my nose. The children jostling around me looked on, giggling. [...]

Cambodia : Beyond Angkor
November 20, 2010
More than a million tourists visit Angkor Wat each year but further afield there are countless exquisite hidden monuments testifying to Cambodia's rich past. Michelle Jana Chan reports. The older, wiser people of Cambodia say you must never plan to visit the prized temples of Angkor. Better to see them when you least expect it. [...]

The Lost World
August 2009
Crocodiles, croissants and cricket - the three Guianas are a bewitching triumvirate. Michelle Jana Chan goes into the wild. In so many ways, it’s a tough sell. On a map, all three Guianas -- in total about twice the size of the UK -- are wedged between Venezuela and north Brazil but are fiercely non-Latin. [...]

No Big Hurry
May 18, 2009
For some, there's no better investment right now than a long, leisurely trip. Everyone is looking for a good investment these days. And with stocks, currencies and companies all foundering, some are finding that taking the trip of a lifetime is actually a smart move right now. [...]

City of mud and honey
May 23, 2008
The point of departure can be as significant to a traveller’s first impressions as the destination itself. From Dubai, San’a seems all the more dusty, bleached and biblical. Yemen has long been isolated from the rest of the Gulf. The country is hemmed in by the rocky Haraz mountains, screening it from neighbouring Saudi Arabia. [...]

In the footsteps of freedom
November 19, 2005
The tea party is long over, but the celebration of independence carries on in Boston. Beside the Old State House in downtown Boston, an oversized gold teapot hangs outside a shop that once sold sacks of Darjeeling bought from the British East India Company. It's a memento of another era. Now the shop is a Starbucks. [...]

China : A land on the move
October 23, 2004
Michelle Jana Chan returns to China after a decade away, and journeys by train across a country in the throes of momentous change. Just over 1,000 years ago, present-day Xi'an was arguably the largest, most cosmopolitan and cultured city in the world. [...]

Only The Boldest
May 23, 2003
Stretching the idea of off-season travel to extreme new levels, they're defying the geopolitical elements in places like Syria, Zimbabwe and Bali. Suzana Iorga has a secret vacation hideaway. It's called Syria. She and her husband, a French diplomat based in Cairo, fell in love with the country last summer on their first holiday trip there. [...]