Great Wide Open Travel guides and transformative journeys

Travel Further.
Notice More.

Guides written slowly, for people who travel the same way. Practical enough to plan a whole trip on — and honest about where we’ve been and where we haven’t.

Plan a trip
Explore destinations
  • 20+ countries travelled
  • 7 covered first-hand
  • Every guide marked visited or researched
Country
City or region

Why we travel this way

The trips that stay with us are never the ones with the most on the list. They’re the morning spent in a single neighbourhood, the walk taken instead of the train, the temple visited twice.

Encountering the sacred, real cultural difference or genuine beauty can change how a person sees things — but only if there is time for it to land. That’s what the guides are for: get the logistics right, and the rest of the trip belongs to you.

Guides with judgement

We don’t believe the best travel guide is the one with the longest list.

Selective

A small number of places actually worth your time, chosen and explained.

Transparent

Travelled or researched — stated on every page, before you rely on it.

Unhurried

Food, walks, neighbourhoods and slow days count as much as the sights.

Start planning

Japan7, 10 or 14 days?Three routes compared, and what each one forces you to leave out.TokyoWhere should you stay?Understand the districts before you book anything.South KoreaWhat will it cost?Realistic daily budgets at three levels, from our own records.Hong KongThe first 72 hoursLand, orient yourself, and waste none of the three days.

Some journeys change the way you see a place

Across America by bikeOregon → VirginiaAcross America by bike4,200 miles, and the country you only see at fifteen miles an hour.Across Australia by bikePerth → SydneyAcross Australia by bikeThe Nullarbor, the wind, and what emptiness does to your sense of scale.The length of South KoreaSeoul → BusanThe length of South KoreaFour days on the river path, through a country most visitors fly over.

From the blog

Travel news

Travel News — week of 13 August 2026

August 13, 2026 No Comments

Two big stories, both weather. Typhoon Dolphin slammed eastern China on 9 August, grounding well over a thousand flights at Shanghai, and Asia’s storm season is at its fierce peak around Hong Kong and Japan too. Meanwhile fast-moving wildfires in British Columbia have forced more than 20,000 people from their homes and put the province under a state of emergency. Spain’s airport strikes rumble on into a second week, and — a reminder for travellers everywhere — measles is rising worldwide.

Read More »

Travel Insights

Kindred Spirits: The Writers Who Taught us to Travel Slowly

August 13, 2026 No Comments

There is a moment that happens to every traveller, usually somewhere unglamorous — a bus stop, a courtyard, a queue for bread — when the postcard version of a place falls away and something more ordinary, more alive, takes its place. You stop seeing the destination and start feeling the location: the particular weight of the air, the rhythm of a language you don’t speak, the way locals cross a square that was never built with you in mind.

Read More »

Travel Stories

Leaving Hong Kong after 4 weeks

May 1, 2026 No Comments

Leaving Hong Kong isn’t easy, honestly. We’ve got family here, and there’s just so much we love—the people, the food, the walks, the markets… all of it. We’ve been lucky to visit quite a few times, and even spend the last three years coming back regularly. Staying in Sha Tin was new for us, but it turned out to be such a good experience. We’ll definitely be back.

Read More »
Andew and Margaret in the Canadian Rockies

Where we write from experience — and where we don’t

Most of our content covers places we know well and return to. Where we are drawing on research rather than personal experience, we say so plainly. Travel changes quickly — treat us as a well-informed starting point, not the final word.

Meet us
Scroll to Top