the Alps
Faith – and why mountains move us
The French writer Sylvain Tesson feels anxiety lift, bitterness vanish and travel transform into prayer in the course of a ski journey across the Alps, spread over four winters
Grand tours and package holidays
In September 2019, Thomas Cook filed for compulsory liquidation, leaving 600,000 customers stranded abroad. It was a sorry end to…
Reaping the whirlwind of climate change
I spent part of the summer sailing around Ithaca and the Ionian Sea. It was a good reminder of how…
The cold grip of fear
A screenwriter sits in a lovely rented house somewhere up an Alp in early December. The air is clear, the…
Cantons and Cantonese
In 1863, the pioneering travel agent Thomas Cook took a group of British tourists on the first package holiday to…
Broken dreams
Oliver Balch 8 July 2023 9:00 am
Interviewing the Continent’s refugees and poorest rural inhabitants, Ben Judah reveals a world far removed from Brussels politics or Eurovision optimism