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One of the joys of travel is stumbling into scenes that feel at once unfamiliar and deeply universal. Walking down a side street, I turned a corner and found what could easily be described as an outdoor living room: a group of men gathered around a worn table, their attention locked on a backgammon board. It wasn’t staged, it wasn’t for tourists, and that was exactly what made … [Read more...] about The Living Rooms of the Street

There is a certain charm in sitting at an outdoor café, the kind where the tables spill out onto the sidewalk and the air buzzes with overlapping conversations. In this photograph, the light is sharp, bouncing off the whitewashed wall and catching on the edges of sunglasses, water bottles, and the metallic chairs. Plates are filled with generous helpings of food—bread torn … [Read more...] about Put the Phone Down and Pick Up the Moment

The scene is instantly recognizable: San Francisco’s Powell & Mason cable car, creaking its way up the city’s hills, jam-packed with tourists clinging to its wooden frame. In the image, visitors squeeze onto the narrow steps, gripping poles with one hand and their phones with the other, while others lean out into the sun as if the very act of dangling from the side is part of … [Read more...] about Hanging On by a Pole: How America’s Tourism Image Mirrors Its Cable Cars

Ice Cream, Selfies, and the Emily-in-Parisification of Travel There’s a very particular strain of travel culture that has metastasized across Europe’s most beautiful cities, and it has little to do with the actual cities themselves. It’s the Emily-in-Paris school of tourism, where the world is nothing more than a set waiting for your starring role, and the script is already … [Read more...] about Don’t be these tourists

Wandering through Lisbon’s bustling pedestrian avenues, you’ll quickly notice that the city is alive with energy: street performers, vendors with oversized bags slung over their shoulders, and curious little street photography setups. This photo captures the essence of it—an old-fashioned camera, mounted on a big red chest with a pasted newspaper clipping, handled by a young … [Read more...] about Don’t Get Scammed on the Streets of Lisbon

There’s no way around it—Lisbon is a city that refuses to let you stand still. Every step seems to demand another, either pulling you up toward the rooftops or sending you tumbling down toward the river. I’d barely set foot on the cobblestones before realizing this wasn’t going to be a leisurely stroll but an endless rhythm of climbing and descending, as if the streets … [Read more...] about Lisbon Is All Uphill, Until It’s Uphill Again

I’ll admit it straight away: when I first saw those yellow chairs scattered out on the stone pier at Ponto Final, I thought, this can’t be real. Who in their right mind decides to set up a restaurant table so close to the Tagus that one clumsy elbow could send your wine glass straight into the Atlantic’s waiting arms? And yet, there it was—utterly unapologetic, defiantly … [Read more...] about Dinner on the Edge at Ponto Final

Lisbon is a city that doesn’t just reveal itself—it tests you. Every slope, every hill, every sneaky little staircase that suddenly becomes an entire mountain is a reminder that you are either the kind of tourist who comes prepared, or the kind who gets caught in the swirl of the city and lets it take them wherever it pleases. And as I’ve come to realize, there are really only … [Read more...] about The Two Species of Tourists

There’s something magnetic about the way statues in European cities seem to keep watch over the flow of daily life. In Lisbon, I found myself craning my neck under the bluest of skies to admire the towering pedestal crowned by the statue of Dom Pedro IV at Rossio Square. The monument is so tall that at first you don’t look at the details, just the sheer vertical reach of the … [Read more...] about Under Dom Pedro’s Gaze

I came to Rua Augusta determined not to look like every other tourist craning their necks at the arch, and of course, five minutes later, I was standing in the middle of the street, mouth slightly open, camera in hand, blocking the flow of people like a clueless human traffic cone. It’s impossible not to. The street funnels you forward like a bowling alley, and at the end sits … [Read more...] about Getting Lost Beneath Lisbon’s Arch