Travel Writing on CLUAS

Ah, it's a wonderful ole pastime. Plodding around the planet doing the travel thing, that is. Burning your skin off under the sun, suffering chronic food poisoning, not understanding anything the locals are saying and getting ripped off down the local market when buying one of those stuffed sombrero-wearing donkeys. And all this while taking your credit card to dangerous financial territory it really shouldn't ever see. If that wasn't enough some people of a more sadistic bent choose to then relive the experience by putting pen to paper and writing about. I ask ye!

Anyway, CLUAS launched this section of the site back in 1999 (although we no longer add new articles to this section, our energies being instead fully focused on the music side of the site) to give a publication platform to any plucky souls who have indeed written about their adventures on the road. Check out the pieces on French Polynesia, Cuba, South Africa, Snowboarding in the French Alps, backpacking in Australia, biking it in Tuscany and Spain's Andalucia region that are already posted. A world wide web of dreamers and armchair voyagers are waiting to read them...

A stroll in the Grampian Mountains outside Melbourne

Check out Adrienne's account of her 2 day 'bush-trek' in the wonderful Grampian Mountains outside Melbourne, Australia. And she was in the company of a most curious bunch of people...

Backpacking in Cuba

Celine O'Malley went off to discover the real Cuba. Read about her time in Havana, Santiago, Baracoa, the Bacanoa National Park and Trinidad.

Part 1 - Hemingway and Humming in Havana
Part 2 - Santiago, Baracoa and the Bacanoa National Park
Part 3 - The reality of Cuban life today

Summer Sails in French Polynesia

Mike Moore's excellent eight weeks in French Polynesia. Check out the original email dispatches he sent while out there.

April 2001 -  Bora Bora and 40 shades of blue
May 2001 - A storm, back to base, Maupiti, holy hammock.
June 2001 - P?anque, Spear fishing and Dengue fever

On the move in East Canada

Matt on his first trip back to his native Canada since, well, he was born! From planking it in Toronto to skinny-dipping in Quebec...

Part 1 - Toronto
Part 2 - Quebec

Interailing in Europe

Sheila on the simple wonders of Interailing across Europe, as provided by Prague, Vienna, Regensburg, Munich, Paris and, uh, a deck of cards (not). Or are you thinking of something a bit different in Central Europe? Then Bratislava, as visited by Sheenagh, might be the tonic.

On the trail in Talinn, Estonia

Ian on having a ball in the Baltics (Talinn, Estonia to be accurate) including his encounter with a 300 pound Mafia kingpin who recently it appears emerged from a dot com IPO.

Snowboarding in the French Alps

Stephen on his first ever attempt at Snowboarding in the French Alps.

South Africa

Caroline had the privilege of 2 weeks checking out a few jewels in South Africa. Check out the article she wrote about her time in Johannesburg and Montagu.

Biking it in Tuscany

Mary put the staff of the Stansted check-in desk to the test last March when she turned up for a flight to Tuscany with her bike. Read on for the adventures that followed.

Part 1 - Stansted to Bologna to Florence
Part 2 - ...Siena to Florence to Bologna to....

A Year in Australia

God bless the Australian Foreign Ministry who have given a whole generation of 20-somethings the opportunity to go and live and work for a year in the land of kangaroo meat and baby-sitting dingos. Tansay Murray is back from Australia having stretched the opportunity of the year-long visa to the limit. Read about it here (and marvel in her amazing lack of references to CastleMaine XXXX and Paul Hogan one-liners...).

Part 1 - Sydney, the purple crushed-velvet sofa & the half Twix bar
Part 2 - Crustie watching in Byron Bay, Whitsunday Islands & Melbourne
Part 3 - Train-lagged in Perth & jelly bait in Rottnest

Andalucia, May 1999

In May '99 the Spanish plains of Andalucia received a gentle bruising by CLUAS. In a world exclusive we are proud to (finally) present the full report. Adventures of tremendous aesthetic importance; compromising linguistic confrontations and encounters with mysterious Catalonian tubes containing yellow fluorescent liquid - it's all here in its uncensored glory.

Part 1 - Torremolinos, Sierra Nevada Mountains & Granada
Part 2 - Some tiny village in the middle of a sea of olive groves & the city of C?doba
Part 3 - Seville, Ronda and the multi-national supermarket chain.