Tropical = Paradise, right? Wrong! Travel writer Stu Lloyd simply wanted to enjoy seamless sunshine, frolic in azure waters with dusky maidens, and drink chilled beers in exotic climes—all at the publisher’s expense. Too much to ask? Apparently so … In this riotous romp through The Tropics, Stu often finds more Purgatory than Paradise, more Hell Read More

Stamford Raffles is that rarest of things — a colonial figure who is forgotten at home but still remembered with affection abroad.

Born into genteel poverty in 1781, he joined the East India Company at the age of fourteen and worked his way up to become Lieutenant Governor of Java when the British seized that island for some five years in 1811. Read More

In 1880, Isabella Bird visited the Malay Peninsula — romantically dubbed “The Golden Chersonese” — and was still able to refer to it as an almost unknown land. The world’s most famous female travel writer of the nineteenth century set sail from Japan and called at Hong Kong, Canton and Saigon before reaching Singapore. Bearing letters Read More