Inspiring Travel Writing from John Borthwick
John Borthwick, one of Australia¹s leading travel writers, is sometimes found in Sydney, but equally often in Asia or elsewhere. Writer/photographer John is the author of a very large number of magazine and newspaper features on travel and cultures, and is probably Australia¹s most awarded travel writer, having received multiple first places from the Australian Society of Travel Writers and other industry bodies.
In 2004 the government of Thailand presented him with the prestigious "Friend of Thailand" award for his writings about that country. Most recently he won the 2008 PATA Gold Award for Best Destination Article. He holds a PhD in travel literature and his extensive photographic work is represented by the Lonely Planet Images library.
John¹s books include Summer In Siam, Chasing Gauguin's Ghost andThe Circumference of the Knowable World, as well as the edited collections, The Road to Anywhere: Peter Pinney and Off the Rails.
www.johnborthwick.net
In 2004 the government of Thailand presented him with the prestigious "Friend of Thailand" award for his writings about that country. Most recently he won the 2008 PATA Gold Award for Best Destination Article. He holds a PhD in travel literature and his extensive photographic work is represented by the Lonely Planet Images library.
John¹s books include Summer In Siam, Chasing Gauguin's Ghost andThe Circumference of the Knowable World, as well as the edited collections, The Road to Anywhere: Peter Pinney and Off the Rails.
www.johnborthwick.net
Articles by John Borthwick
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Eden in Ice
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John Borthwick
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Argentina
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Tierra del Fuego
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Ushuaia
It's like sailing through the middle of the Andes. As if that weren't enough, we're slaloming down a field of ice-floes, dodging bergs as big as apartment blocks.Welcome to the Lemaire Channel. Welcome to Antarctica. With walls of black basalt and...
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Trekking to Kala Pattar
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John Borthwick
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Tibet
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other areas of Tibet
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Himalayas
Dawn at 3875 metres is a heart-stopping hour. I slip out of the trekking lodge at Thyangboche Monastery, where our group is over-nighting, and step into a world where both sound and color are muted by the snow. Glancing above the dark eaves of the...
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Ayers Rock Resort
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John Borthwick
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Australia
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Northern Territories
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Ululru-Kata Tjuta National Park
“The Rock’s got its hat on,” says helicopter pilot Mark Slade as we clatter through the air far above Ayers Rock. It’s a rare, rainy, winter’s day and for me Uluru has never looked so unlike itself. Instead of seeing it...
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The Grand Tour: Style on the Nile
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John Borthwick
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Egypt
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Cairo & Giza
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Cairo
It was a moment both sublime and ridiculous, the right royal high tide mark of a fading tradition known as "the Grand Tour". The year was 1928, the place Giza, Egypt, and that slightly pathetic playboy of the Western world, the Duke of Windsor, was...
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Nature Rules
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John Borthwick
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Australia
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Queensland
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Heron Island
Ancient Hindus thought of the world as supported on the back of a giant turtle. As a ponderous Loggerhead turtle scrapes her way up the midnight sands of Queensland's Heron Island, seemingly bearing the weight of the world upon her barnacled back, I...
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The Demon Slayer of Kuta
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John Borthwick
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Indonesia
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Nusa Tenggara/ Southeast Islands
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Bali
Back in the mid-1970s, I went to Bali. Instead of packing what everyone else "on the road" seemed to - a Swiss Army knife and a Carlos Castenada book - I threw into my bag, for no special reason, an old insulated screwdriver. At Denpasar airport a...
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The Melanesian Aisle: Vanuatu and New Caledonia
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John Borthwick
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New Caledonia
These might be the Improbable Isles of Oceania. From the last of the Conquistadors to the last of the cannibals - whose most recent feast was only 20, or perhaps ten, years ago - Vanuatu spans a Melanesia of kastom villages and five-star resorts, of...
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Persian Nights, Iranian Days
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John Borthwick
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Iran
"If men had to wear these things, they'd be outlawed tomorrow," sighs a woman who's dressed in a full-length black chador. We're in a cool vault in Iran's National Jewellery Museum, but the perspiration on her brow tells that it's more than warm...
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Adrenaline on the Rocks
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John Borthwick
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Nepal
This definitely wasn't in the brochure. Margaret took one look at the "standing wave'' that her rubber raft was about to slam into. It didn't remind her at all of the words which had convinced her to sign up for this river trip in Nepal: "Blades...
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A Leeward Breeze
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John Borthwick
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French Polynesia
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Society Islands
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Tahiti
Half way between the Tahitian islands of Tahaa and Bora Bora, we heave-to. The big catamaran lolls in the swell as my shipmate Maggie gently lowers Yurtle the Turtle (as she has nicknamed him) into the water. Tahaa restaurateur Leo Morou had found...