I knew this place was over the top when Tomoko made the Japanese sound for astonishment: a long, drawn out, “Ehhhhhhhh?” We’d just pulled up to the gate of the villa I had rented, and we were looking down the palm-lined path that led to the house. “Yeah, this is the place,” I said, pointing to the name painted in glazed tile, mounted on a pillar. “The owner left the gate open for us, and the keys...
It’s governed by Finland but its people speak Swedish. It has its own flag, stamps, and parliament, and special trading arrangements with the E.U. And it’s halfway between Finland and Sweden, smack in the middle of where the Baltic meets the Gulf of Bothnia. But it isn’t really a part of either country. Some 90% of residents live on its large main island, which is the site of the capitol town of...
Yesterday was Remembrance Day — November 11th, the day we pause to think about all those who lost their lives in the two World Wars, and in Korea and all the conflicts that have happened since. It’s also the day we assemble to thank the remaining veterans for their sacrifice, and shake the hand of those who are serving today. When I was a child, we went to the cenotaph in my hometown to join the...
Okay, I wasn’t really hanging out at Hamlet’s house. And I didn’t find myself talking to skulls in any graveyards, either. Shakespeare just anglicized this place as Elsinore, and used it as the setting for his famous tragedy. The indecisive prince wasn’t even a historical person, but such is the power of literature that people have referred to this place as Hamlet’s Castle ever since. You’ll find...
The next stop on our long northern journey took us to a rather strange island shrouded in history, mystery and avant garde film… We left Stockholm at 4am — the sleepless morning after an incredible Paul McCartney concert — for a long bus ride to the port of Nynäshamn, and a slow rolling ferry to the island of Gotland. I’ll be writing about Gotland and Fårö in the January / February issue of...
I’ve dedicated the past decade and a half of my life to traveling the world’s marginal places. I started off exploring forgotten regions, like Central America’s Mosquito Coast or the Mongolian Gobi. But I’ve also conducted a very long inquiry into expat life. I have a checklist in my head. It’s sort of a list of my ideal criteria: what would be the perfect place for someone like me? The place...
My northern journey continued by boat from Helsinki to the Åland islands. I wrote about our adventures there in Outpost magazine Issue 107 Sept/Oct 2015. I hope you grabbed yourself a copy: From Åland we sailed on to Sweden, threading our way through the Stockholm archipelago and approaching the city from the waterline. I think it was meant to be visited this way, because it is a nautical town...
I promised to tell you how we navigated the Baltics and Scandinavia without any air travel on this 7 week journey. We drove through Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, of course. But when the time came to cross the Gulf of Finland, I chose to travel by Baltic ferry. These massive ships ply the waters between all the major capitals and ports in the region, with multiple sailings a day to anywhere you’d...
My Baltic adventures came to an end in Tallinn. But Scandinavia was just beginning. We drove to the ferry port through early morning rain, and said goodbye to the brand new rental car I’d been driving for the past 3 weeks. The streets were deserted, and Tallinn felt the way a station does when no one comes to see you off. We boarded a Tallink Silja Line ship for the 2 hour crossing of the Gulf of...
Tour guides have called it the most haunted place in Estonia. And you can wander around the empty halls and rooms of this vast abandoned structure entirely on your own. It was built as a sea fortress under the orders of Nicholas I of Russia (ca. 1828) to protect the sailing route to St. Petersburg, and finally completed in 1840. The vast sprawling structure covers an area of 4 hectares (10...
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