Weekly Travel Reads: Poland’s Tatras

[The Travel Wire #100] Kaieteur Falls, the decline and revival of the Camino de Santiago, Swiss ‘lift safari’ through the mountains of Engelberg, and more travel reads.

Travel reads

• Poland’s Tatras: An affordable alternative to the Alps [BBC Travel]
“Breathtaking alpine scenery and budget prices make this Polish escape an alternative to Europe’s more famous mountain regions.”

• Flying to Kaieteur Falls [Scott Monaco]
“Guyana’s single-drop waterfall is one of the biggest on earth, and almost everyone who reaches it arrives by light aircraft.”

• Writing about hiking: an uphill struggle [Poste restante]
“As every travel journalist knows, some things are fun to do, but tedious to read about.”

• Camino de Santiago – the peak, wars, plagues, decline and revived. [C.A.M.I.N.O.]
“From half a million medieval pilgrims to just a few dozen walkers a year… and then back to over 530,000 in 2025. The story of Camino de Santiago and a quiet Galician priest.”

• Biking the Boot of Italy [Perceptive Travel]
“The rigors and rewards of riding to one of the “most beautiful villages of Italy” on two wheels.”

• All aboard the ‘Buiräbähnli’: We take a Swiss ‘lift safari’ through the mountains of Engelberg [Adventure]
“Hiking Switzerland’s high alpine trails isn’t exclusive to hardcore hikers. Through a patchwork of eccentric transport systems—tiny cable cars, aging gondolas and remote post buses—writer Ailsa Sheldon takes a ‘lift safari’ through the Swiss mountains.”

• Tourists chase high-octane thrill in China’s trending biker capital [The Standard]
“The roar of engines fills the night air in China’s Chongqing city as tourists awkwardly clamber onto gleaming motorbikes and cling to muscular drivers to star in personalised videos.”

• Me and my Mini chased myths through the mountains of Andorra [Intrepid Times]
“A traveller drags her Mini up and down the steep mountain roads of Andorra in search of myths and legends hiding in the Pyrenean forests, passing ancient churches and shepherd huts in a tiny nation where nature still dominates the landscape.”

• Transnistria [The Unplugged Traveler]
“Be careful what you wish for.”

• The history of the beach read, from 19th-century ‘moral debasement’ to BookTok [Smithsonian]
“The still-popular genre got its start 150 years ago, when publishers profited off the rise of travel in the United States during an otherwise slow publishing season.”