Hi, I'm Alex, a travel writer based in London, I love writing about travel as much as traveling itself. I’m a scrappy researcher, and a hoarder of info, whether it's trivial or mind-blowing. I get a lot of joy doing justice to worthwhile places, and I’m always excited to share the stories behind them.
I have a real affection for Tarragona in Catalonia, from the golden sandy beaches to the mountains. I love Hamburg and its harbour and many waterways, especially in spring. And I'll always be drawn to the rolling countryside in the south of England, especially Wiltshire. I'll go anywhere with a great art museum, and ruins, ancient or medieval.
Sharing the name of a hill range and the spring water that bubbles from it, Malvern is a town and district near the Worcestershire-Herefordshire boundary. The old spa resort of Great Malvern is the pick for holidaymakers, just as it was for Victorian travellers seeking water cures. The hydrotherapy doctor James Manby Gully set up …
In one of the richest boroughs in England, Maidenhead is a market town on the Thames, not far upriver from Windsor. The Prime Minister Theresa May’s constituency, Maidenhead has a tidy town centre that was redeveloped after the Second World War. A lot of the town’s charm comes from its riverside, where there’s an epoch-making …
A small coastal town on Lincolnshire’s low-lying fens, Mablethorpe springs into action in summer as a family tourist resort. The headline is the vast golden sandy beach, many miles long and tracked by dunes and a nature reserve to the north. There’s a lot for kids to get up to, whether it’s the simple joys …
Famed for its three-spired cathedral and profuse Georgian architecture, Lichfield is a glorious city 16 miles north of Birmingham. The cathedral is the obligatory first port of call, for its Gothic lines, invaluable Flemish stained glass and an 8th-century carving of an angel. Enveloping this monument is one of the UK’s most unspoilt Cathedral Closes, …
In a scene out of a 19th-century landscape painting, the town of Knaresborough clings to a steep gorge crossed by a railway viaduct. The riverside is as charming as it gets in summer, when you can idle at a cafe terrace by the water or hire a wooden rowboat. There are caves linked to a …
In the English industrial Midlands, Kidderminster is a town by the Severn Valley around 20 miles southwest of Birmingham. Weaving had been a way of life in this part of the country for centuries, but in the 18th century Kidderminster began to specialise in carpet-making, and became synonymous with this trade. Those old carpet factories …
On the North Devon coast, Ilfracombe is a pretty harbour town and seaside resort encircled by massive slate cliffs. The working harbour dates back to the 12th century and is protected by a hill capped with the oldest functioning lighthouse in the UK. Walkers can negotiate one of the trickiest but most spectacular stretches of …
A town on high chalk slopes in the Chilterns, Wycombe has some of South England’s prettiest countryside in its back garden. The National Trust owns big tracts of this land on former estates just outside town. One, West Wycombe Park was the 18th-century residence of Sir Francis Dashwood, and the meeting place of the notorious …
After the Second World War Hemel Hempstead was chosen as a New Town to answer the UK’s need for extra housing, and what was once a small settlement on the River Gade is now home to 90,000 people. The core of the New Town can be found at Marlowes on the east bank of the …
Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and has been for nearly seven centuries. Not surprisingly, in many ways, it’s considered the heart of the country and is the premier center for education, arts, literature, and engineering. If you’re looking to relax on a white-sand beach and sip an umbrella drink, it’s probably not a wise …