Viator Travel Blog

Hanoi street scene I arrived in Hanoi by train from China, and watching from the windows, I found Vietnam to be wild and unkempt, with reddish orange dirt, dark green vegetation, and a trace of brown everywhere. Vietnam is tropical, and tropical places always have that overgrown feel – a bit wild, a bit less [...]

Balinese Dancer Ah, Bali… gentle and delicate like the petals of a flower. It may sound like a contradiction for some, who only know this island in Indonesia from news reports of the bombings that took place here in 2002 and 2005. But rest assured, Bali is a tranquil island paradise — a little chunk [...]

If it’s your first trip to New York City and you only have a few days, the clock is your nemesis. There are ways to skip the lines, but it may cost you a bit. So the following suggested itineraries offer a few options to squeeze in many of New York’s major sights, without breaking [...]

Beijing surely is a city of China’s past, present, and future – and for me, of all cities, it embodies the quixotic romance of ancient China. Beijing has a history of warlords and revolution, architectural antiquities, the old-world charm of Hutong neighborhoods that contrast with newer, tree-lined boulevards full of mirrored skyscrapers, glitzy shopping malls, [...]

While I love to travel, I am not such a fan of business travel. It’s tiring to run around a conference or to meetings all day, trying to cram in everything you came to do. Occasionally I eat somewhere great, or accomplish something worthwhile, but more often than not I return home beat from lugging [...]

There are so many dimensions to the Gordon River experience it’s hard to know where to start. For a Tasmanian — and I am a native of that place — there are the still fresh memories of the battle that pitted the State Government against an embryonic environmental movement that was determined to let the [...]

If you live in America you’ve probably seen this commercial: a man and a woman are in Italy, looking very much in love. Woman notices her father reading a newspaper on the steps. Woman notices her mother there, as well. Man drops to a knee with a ring and asks woman to marry him, again, [...]