TRAVEL // Road tripping Memphis to LA
“The US is full of storied roads celebrated in literature and music, but the 10 isn’t one of them. Distinguished mostly by its size — it’s the fourth-longest Interstate in the country — it’s busy with semi- trailers, lined with billboards for personal injury lawyers, casinos, motels and fast-food restaurants. One, for a sex shop called Love Shack, pledges to ‘make love great again’.” Read more here.
TRAVEL // The Great Wall of China
“Nearby, a Chinese family stand around their sedan. Dad is lighting a cigarette, the sleeves of his beige cardigan pushed up to his elbows, burgundy cowboy hat threatening to topple from his head. Beside him, grandpa is more soberly dressed but also smoking. A round-faced little boy stands, bored, fiddling with a wooden walking stick and conical bamboo hat.” Read more here.
TRAVEL // A silent retreat in Bali
“It’d be easy to come to a place like this and poke fun, particularly if — like me — your tolerance for earnestness and the new age is limited. There’s the sign in the dining area encouraging us to eat mindfully as ‘an act of honouring the universe’, for example, and the flight of steps with words such as ‘imagine’, ‘love’ and ‘feel’ printed on each riser.” Read more here.
TRAVEL // Art & aliens in Marfa
“Driving through the high desert near Marfa, in remote western Texas, there’s something odd — an unidentified object — high in the bright-blue sky.” Read more here.
PROFILES // Artists of Margaret River
“In many ways, Tanya Cole’s studio is the quintessential artist’s workroom, a creative canvas of paint, brushes and works in various states of completion, with reference photos pinned to its paint-splattered walls and a carpet liberally splashed with colour.” Read more here.
PROFILE // Adventurer Tim Jarvis
“Admitting he finds everyday life ‘a bit dull’, Jarvis says adventuring has become a cornerstone of his identity, citing Aristotle’s maxim that ‘we are what we repeatedly do’.” Read more here
OPINION // Shopping for authenticity
“The world has become a smaller place, sometimes in ways that make it seem less varied. It’s no coincidence, then, that ‘authenticity’ has become perhaps the defining travel buzzword of our times.” Read more here.
FOOD // Locally grown to the extreme
“Alongside the orderly rows of cabbages, beans and other produce, there’s a small greenhouse for germinating seeds. All of the veggies are grown from seed, the majority collected and saved from the previous season. Still, Guy describes it as ‘just a backyard garden but big’.” Read more here.
HEALTH & FITNESS // Parkour for kids
“In a cavernous gym in Osborne Park, a boy aged perhaps seven or eight sits atop a 3m-high wooden box. With his legs hanging over the side and a quizzical expression on his face, he’s clearly wondering how to get down.” Read more here.
