The Travel Wire: best travel reads #35

The Travel Wire is a weekly newsletter of the best travel reads from around the web, edited by James Clark from Nomadic Notes.

Travel reads

• Does anyone still hitchhike? (archive) [The Atlantic]

"Traveling by thumb isn’t popular anymore. Some say it should be."

• From fishing port to tourist hotspot: how skyscrapers came to dominate Benidorm – in pictures [The Guardian]

"Photographer Didier Bizet takes a look at Benidorm, one of the most visited tourist destinations in Europe and a favourite of Britons. Construction in ‘Beni York’ has led to the rise of 370 towers above 12 storeys tall, making it the second most densely packed urban area with skyscrapers – after New York."

• Two peas in a pod: Denmark's eastern edges [Hidden Europe]

"The Ertholm Islands (literally 'Pea Islands') are the easternmost fragments of Danish territory, even further east than Bornholm. Just two islands in this small archipelago are populated: Christiansø and Frederiksø. In the 19th century, Frederiksø served as a place of exile - a prison island."

• Is social media travel ruining small town charm? (archive) [Afar]

"During a visit to her ancestral hometown, our columnist considers the aesthetic homogenization that threatens to consume it—and what that means for the world."

• Rethymnon - Where heaven and earth meet [Claire In Crete]

• On a trip to Phnom Penh, reflecting on homecoming and change [Condé Nast Traveler]

"In a new anthology of queer travel writing, writer Putsata Reang ruminates on the bittersweetness of returning to Cambodia."

• The photo I shouldn’t have taken. [John Wreford Photographer]

• Traveling alone [The Perennial Nomad]

"I discovered early in my life as a nomad that if I insisted on always having travel companions my freedom to come and go as I pleased would be severely compromised."

• How Lanzarote's volcanic landscape has inspired generations of Canary Islanders [National Geographic]

• She took her mother’s old film camera on vacation to recreate her vintage travel photos. Here’s how they turned out [CNN Travel]

• Once the pinnacle of luxury, these 10 hotels now sit abandoned (archive) [Traveller]

Featured newsletter

Submit a travel read

Articles for newsletter consideration can be submitted to The Travel Wire Facebook Group.

Follow The Travel Wire on Bluesky.

…

James Clark (@nomadicnotes)