This week in PostMag: let your mind wander with our autumn travel edition
From a sailing love story with Japan’s Sado Island, to a rail pilgrimage through China’s heartland and a stroll through the tourist-free streets of Amsterdam’s little sister city of Amersfoort, take some time out with us to consider your next trip away
Sun, sand and sea: generally, these desirables form the foundation of a stress-free getaway, if sipping mai tais on a beach lounger is your kind of thing. But with seasonal downpours and thunderstorms upon us, and typhoons inexplicably favouring weekend arrivals to interrupt our best-laid schemes, there’s not much of that peaceful idyll to be found in town, so we cast our gaze farther afield for a glimpse of holiday bliss – even if it is just from an armchair.
In comparison, Thomas Bird heads in the opposite direction, both geographically and transportationally, hopping on the high-speed rail to traverse China’s heartlands. With the recent opening of the Xian-Yanan route, the trek to the wartime base of the Chinese Communist Party is made easy, making a strong case for the rise of “red tourism”.
For those who belong to a diaspora community, travelling might mean going “home” to ancestral land. In China’s Guangdong province, Kaiping’s history is intertwined with the departure of its villagers, who set off across the Pacific Ocean to join the California Gold Rush. But what does a Kaiping “homecoming” look like for its emigrants? It wouldn’t be complete without a Magang goose, to start with. Hei Kiu Au tracks the flavour of heritage to discover how a younger generation is modernising a farm-to-table inheritance.
Elsewhere, Peter Neville-Hadley takes this opportunity to share timely instructions on how to be a better, more courteous world traveller in the age of overtourism. He walks the talk, also introducing us to the medieval Amersfoort, a worthy alternative to Amsterdam. Located 30 minutes from the Dutch capital by train, this city merits more than just a day trip.
Graham Elsom, a lifelong jet-setter who caught the travel bug when he was a child, tells Annemarie Evans about his unquenchable passion for exploring places new and exotic, his experience climbing an Egyptian pyramid and how Hong Kong was love at first sight.