The best part about building this site was the opportunity to highlight the quirky and fascinating collections of information Trailblazer's authors have compiled on the destinations they know, love and cover. Often this is cultural information that's relatively unknown to those who have never visited a region, though sometimes it's a far more lowbrow affair.

So we've assembled links to all these pages on our site right here. Click away, and please, send us any comments you might have on these pages or any aspect of your site.

Coping With China
The Chinese will stare at anything, and after a few weeks in the country, you'll probably find yourself doing it too. Huge crowds gather in the street to gawp silently at a road accident, an argument, or any other unusual event. How convenient then, if on a long and boring train journey there's a foreigner in your carriage - particularly if he or she has some particularly non-Chinese characteristic - a big nose, hairy arms or large breasts....read more

Beware the Vampire!
On your walk in the hills, if you come across a pale gringo wearing a dark robe - beware! He could be a vampire, or as they are known locally, a pishtaco...read more

Body Language
You're asked a question but do not know the Arabic or Turkish for 'No', and so you shake your head instead. Except that in the Near East, a shake of the head means 'I don't understand', and so the question will be asked again, and again, and again....read more

Siberian BAM Railway
You will travel with ordinary Russians going about their regular lives - business people on business trips, workers on jobs, soldiers on travel orders, families going to visit their relatives, school parties, even bums. You will be granted the ordinary courtesy and camaraderie of the traveller, but nobody will offer you, or even know how to offer you, the special consideration of a tourist or the obsequious service of a rich customer....read more

The Mud Volcanoes
Mud volcanoes are just that - volcanoes which splutter forth cold mud rather than molten rock. Although not unique to Azerbaijan, the country has more of these odd creatures (300+) than any other in the world...read more

Jiri
Jiri nestles in a fertile valley and beyond the ugly materialism of the road it's a prosperous and tidy village. The people are mainly of the Jirel caste who originate, so the legend goes, from a Sherpa mother and a Sunuwar father. There are also some Sherpas and with the road (which linked Jiri in 1984) came the merchant castes, mainly Newars...read more

Honeymoon Planning
One thing you must get straight, right from the start, is how much you think you should allocate for the honeymoon. There's nothing romantic in talking about money and budgets, least of all for your honeymoon but there's also not a great deal of romance in starting married life broke. You simply won't enjoy a honeymoon if you end up scouring the cocktail menu trying to find something you can afford each time you're thirsty, or getting to some wildly exotic country and feeling you actually can't afford to go on the dug-out tour up the river to see the orangutans' sanctuary...read more

What Is Trekking?
Travelling on foot with few luxuries but with all your basic needs is a liberating experience. This may be hard to appreciate on the first few days of a trek as you struggle with the physical pain of exercise, the discomfort of few possessions, and the mental torment of veering from intense happiness one moment to the depths of despair the next. Then suddenly you break through the barrier. Rising with the sun, walking all day and sleeping under the stars feels the most natural thing in the world. Your body thrives on its new-found energy while your mind, lulled by the rhythm of walking, is freed from its habits and rush. This is the intoxication of being truly alive...read more

Off the Main Routes
In general, wherever there is a village, accommodation can be found. There may not be a lodge as such but people will often invite you to stay. If this does not happen try asking around (this is not considered rude by the Nepalis) and something will turn up. Conditions can be extremely basic, however. In strongly Hindu areas, your presence may be considered jutho (polluting) so, although you may stay, you may have to eat separately and sleep on the porch...read more

Steam Engines On The Trans-Siberian
In 1836, the first locomotive was delivered in St Petersburg, a Hackworth 2-2-2, to pull the Tsar's private carriages over the fourteen miles of six-foot gauge track to his palace at Tsarskoye Selo. The Russians have always been (and still are) conservative by nature when it comes to buying or building engines....read more

Massage in Marrakesh
There’s nothing better after a long trek than a hammam; the Moroccan equivalent of a Turkish bath. If you pay for the full works you will normally be shown into a series of increasingly hot and steamy rooms. You’ll then be expected to wash from a tap in the hottest room before some wrinkled but often surprisingly strong old character steps out to give you the traditional massage. This is normally pretty vigorous but despite what you might think while it’s happening you will feel better for it afterwards....read more