Top Stories
Stories in Wander that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Happy Times
Along the roads in Gujarat. Our driver was taking us from Talgajada to the airport in Diu, a port side sea town. The roads sometimes smoothly paved from recent construction, to potholes, and then just chaos with road re-routes. But we stopped along the way to roadside bathrooms with food stalls, and also tea stalls.
Remember
The air hangs hot and humid, reaching nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Sweat trickles beneath your clothing as you move along the pathways. Whispers of long silenced echoes lift in the occasional breeze, surrounding you with an eerie sense of something other worldly, foreboding and long lost. Dust particles stir to settle in your lungs with each breath and step you take beneath the intertwined tree limbs hanging just overhead; they provide relief - momentary shelter from the sun’s rays. Each movement, each stir of dust leads you one step closer to whatever beckons. Not knowing exactly what you will find ahead, you still obey the summons. It's that for which you traveled one hundred miles inland.
Cindy CalderPublished 9 days ago in WanderA Love Letter to Travel Photography
We've all pondered the idea of "if money was no object". We've all considered what we might do if we were financially free; if we could make decisions without ever considering the "bottom line".
Sophia CareyPublished 12 days ago in WanderGolinda and Gallopatrot go to the Emerald Isle
The short days were getting longer. As the sun dipped below the horizon, the blue hour created the magic of the darkest phase of twilight. It was time to put Oliver to bed. Yaya felt the muse come alive when he asked for a story.
Katherine D. GrahamPublished 12 days ago in WanderUnmasking the Winchester Mystery House
Hollywood loves capturing our minds and imaginations and showing us visually compelling stories. However, it's important to peel back the layers of truth on cinematic claims that boast "inspired by true events" or "based on a true story." Such is the case with the movie Winchester.
Crystal A. WolfePublished 11 days ago in WanderHeaven on Earth
She took me into her arms in a way that felt like home. Immediately, her warm embrace was unparalleled with almost any comfort I’d ever felt.
Joe O’ConnorPublished 15 days ago in WanderA telegram to Little Me
I acquired a magical souvenir; it was a realisation. By taking an impulsive trip to Thailand, I awarded myself the chance to have it. You are our own gift shop. You choose the opening times, you choose the stock. They are the very nature of wisdom, realisations. One could say we collect them and form a magnificent portfolio entitled Experience. And that's why we do the majority of things we do. But travelling is the act most generous in the offering of experience, the gift shop with the best stock. We go on the hunt for experiences, daring ourselves to be stimulated in new ways, by new flavours. To sweat, swim or shiver in the waters of new challenges. To hear new sounds, learn novel outlooks, and relish as hinges creak with unknown doors opening in our hearts and minds. This realisation and the flourishing effect it had upon me made Thailand my best trip yet. All this realisation consisted of was merely a stripped back epiphany of why we do these things. See new places, take new risks, seek refreshing distractions from all that we're tired of being familiar with.
Konrad KrampPublished 13 days ago in WanderA Weekend in Buxton
All my life, I’ve been English in an emotional, mental, and social way, but never a physical one until the Spring of 2022 when all my Anglophile dreams came true. I was finally able to visit my soul country, meet my wonderful online friends in person, and confirm my belief that it was where I belonged.
Emily AlbersPublished 13 days ago in WanderTouching the Sky
Back in 2020 (yes, THAT 2020), I took my very first steps towards becoming an international traveler. I was 25 years old, and up to this point, the furthest I'd ever traveled alone from my home state of New Jersey without my family was to West Virginia.
Emily Marie ConcannonPublished 15 days ago in WanderGay your life must be
“My Dad’s got itchy feet” I would say. I don’t know where I first heard this phrase, but I parroted it often as a child, a vague but sufficient explanation for the fragmented answers I offered to “where did you….” questions. The assumption was that we were a military family. When I went to Sixth Form College and completed the full two years without moving, I set a personal record for time spent at any one educational institution. But we were not a military family. We were a family governed by a restless soul, for better and worse, and now, well into my adulthood, I am the restless governor of a home loving family.
Hannah MoorePublished 21 days ago in WanderStanding Still
There are very few moments in life where time truly stands still. When your breath is taken from your chest and your body hangs weightless in that moment. Just long enough for it to stay with you from that day onwards. Deep in the red sands of the Australian Outback, I found that moment and clung to it forever.
Kevin McLaughlinPublished 18 days ago in WanderCan You Drive a Ford Fiesta Through a Desert?
I’m flying down the B1 highway from Windhoek to Keetmanshoop with a map and a boot full of camping gear. I’m excited for the first stop of my Namibian road trip: the Quiver Tree Forest. I spot the sign and turn onto the C17, off the tarmac and onto the gravel. I’ll be there soon; it’s only ten miles or so. I am unprepared for what comes next. The car slides and slips across the road. I am not fully in control anymore. I slow to a crawl. The car judders and shudders, the noise deafening, the vibrations rattling the teeth in my skull. It takes me around an hour to drive the ten miles. I arrive at the campsite relieved to be in one piece, even if it feels like all my bones have been shaken slightly out of place. I will later learn that this is what happens when the gravel road becomes “corrugated”, and that the roads authority goes round once a week to “grade” them. Seems I arrived about 6 days after the grader had last been round.
Jenifer NimPublished 18 days ago in Wander