Travel writing and film by Erica
I am Erica. I plan my travel a long way out, one country at a time, then write the guide I wish I had been handed before I went. No sponsored itineraries, no ranked lists, no places I have not stood in myself.
The camera goes everywhere. The tripod usually stays behind.
The story
The first few years of travelling, everything I learned lived in a stack of paper notebooks and a phone that eventually died in a rainstorm. Which market opened early. Which viewpoint was worth the climb and which was a bus park with a railing. Which month I should have come instead. All of it gone.
So I started writing it down properly, publicly, in the form I actually wanted to read: long, specific, slightly opinionated, and honest about the parts that were disappointing. Not a list of the ten best anything. Just what a place is like, and what I would do differently.
These days I travel with a camera, a notebook and a plan that runs about three years ahead. The plan changes constantly, which is part of the point. Everything on the destinations page is where I intend to be, written up in advance so that anyone else going can use the research too.
Featured destinations
Six full guides, each with the things worth seeing, the realistic ways in, and the months I would actually book.
01Planned for March 2026
Hong Kong SAR, China
Seven islands of dense vertical city wrapped around a working harbour, with country parks and quiet fishing villages twenty minutes from the last tower block.
Best monthsOctober to early December
Read the guide
02Planned for March 2026
Macau SAR, China
A small territory where Portuguese and Cantonese have been mixing for four hundred years, producing its own cuisine, its own street architecture and, more recently, one of the densest resort strips anywhere.
Best monthsOctober to December
Read the guide
03Planned for September 2026
Italy
A capital where republican stone, baroque theatre and ordinary weekday life are layered into the same narrow streets, and where the best hours are the ones before the coaches arrive.
Best monthsSeptember to October
Read the guide
04Planned for April 2027
Spain
Spain's inland capital sits high and dry on a plateau, with three great galleries along one boulevard, a park at its centre, and a social life conducted outdoors after dark.
Best monthsApril to early June
Read the guide
05Planned for September 2027
Russia
A capital of enormous distances and layered eras, where medieval fortress walls, imperial classicism, monumental twentieth-century public works and new glass towers all sit within sight of one another.
Best monthsSeptember to early October
Read the guide
06Planned for February 2028
New Zealand
Two long, narrow islands packing fiords, glaciers, volcanic plateaux and empty coastline into distances you can drive in a morning, best taken slowly with a car and no fixed plan.
Best monthsDecember to February
Read the guideFrom the blog
Method, field notes and the occasional argument with myself about how to travel well.
Field notes6 min read
The weeks either side of peak season usually give you a better version of the same place: fewer people, softer light and lower costs, in exchange for weather you have to plan around.
18 February 2026
Method8 min read
A two-year horizon is not about booking early, it is about putting destinations in an order that makes sense, so that each season and each long-haul flight does as much work as possible.
4 November 2025
Method7 min read
A single short day in an unfamiliar city can still be worth having, as long as you stop trying to cover the whole of it and choose instead to know one small part properly.
22 September 2025
Follow along
The same trips, told at four different speeds. Pick whichever one suits how you like to travel.