fact or fiction

Is it a fact or merely fiction? Fact or Fiction explores travel myths to help you avoid making that wrong turn.

Situ Town Spent 30 Million Yuan on NPCs. The Real Problem Starts After the Photos.
One park has Guinness records, the city’s top revenue, and a daytime problem that another mascot cannot fix. Situ Town’s founder, Zhou Xiaoming, posted a video. Online, he is known as “Village Chief Zhou.” He has 1.14 million followers and more than 10 million likes. In the video, he said the park lacks NPCs who can push tourists’ emotions to the ceiling. The park held a meeting and decided to spend 30 million yuan to invite talent. The pitch: if you have skills and dare to perform, the park will pay one million or ten million yuan a year.
By Jinabout 11 hours ago in Wander
I Trusted AI With My Vacation. It Sent Me to a Canyon That Doesn't Exist.
AI Can Put Together an Itinerary, but Not a Trip On the third day of the National Day holiday, West Street, Quanzhou. Chen Jia and her friends were walking back from Xunpu Village. The ride-hailing page on her phone spun for ten minutes. No driver accepted. The bus stop was packed. Electric scooters crept through the crowd. They walked back to the hotel. For this stretch of road, at four in the afternoon, AI had told them, "You can make it. There is enough time."
By Jin3 days ago in Wander
France’s Public Schools Are Falling Apart, and the Budget Explains Why
I Créteil, eastern suburbs of Paris. On the morning of September 28, 2025, students at Lycée Saint-Exupéry did not walk into class. They dragged trash cans to the school gate and piled them into a low wall. Someone pulled a desk out of a classroom and laid it across the entrance.
By Jin3 days ago in Wander
Making Memories
Introduction Yesterday we caught up with each other in Carlisle. The photo is in the Griffin pub just outside Carlisle Station.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 12 days ago in Wander
Pompeii Wasn’t a Theme Park. The Evidence Is Buried in the Dirt.
Every few years, the same claim circulates online: Pompeii is not an ancient Roman city at all, but a modern fabrication, a giant archaeological theme park built to manufacture a version of Western history.
By Jin14 days ago in Wander
The Ruins We Name: Why Only Financial Centers Become “Ruins”
On Queen’s Road Central, a brokerage has a “For Rent” sign by the door. Inside, the reception computer is still on. The screensaver is the company logo. The security guard says last month people worked until two in the morning. This month the lights go off at six. Downstairs, the woman who runs the tea restaurant has changed “Today’s Soup” to “Today’s Special.” She does not follow IPOs. She only knows the fish-ball noodles are selling slower.
By Jin14 days ago in Wander
No Steel. No Tower Cranes. No Problem: How Rome Built the Pantheon and the Colosseum
The Crane Is Absent: The Construction Logic of the Pantheon and the Colosseum “The ancient Romans could not have built the Pantheon and the Colosseum.”
By Jin14 days ago in Wander
The Border That Isn’t There: Why China and Pakistan Just Rattled India
1. A meeting in Islamabad, a protest in New Delhi Pakistan and China formally launched the Pakistan-China Boundary Joint Commission in Islamabad on September 16-17, 2026. The mechanism was created under the 2013 China-Pakistan Agreement on the Boundary Management System. Its first meeting brought together officials from foreign affairs, defence, interior, commerce, communications, customs and surveying authorities. The two sides discussed border management, joint surveys, the movement of goods and people, and other practical issues along the frontier. They also agreed that the next meeting would be held in China.
By Jin15 days ago in Wander
Skipping Seasons... Travelling Time
Spider webs festoon Skeletal branches stretching Up through Winter ills. Bare branches weather Winter (author photo) * Beauty blends with bleak
By Angie the Archivist 📚🪶17 days ago in Wander
Why England Doesn’t Want Independence
Why England Does Not Seek Independence In the House of Commons, English MPs hold the majority. After the Acts of Union in 1707, the English Parliament and the Scottish Parliament were both dissolved and merged into a new Parliament of Great Britain. It sat at Westminster. England and Wales received 513 seats. Scotland received 45. Another 16 Scottish peers entered the House of Lords. From the first day, the union's parliamentary majority was English.
By Jin19 days ago in Wander
681 People Wanted to Go to Space. Only Two Booked
The page later showed two bookings. The gap tells us how early the market still is. For several hours on September 16, a travel listing on Ctrip appeared to show 681 sales for a Virgin Galactic spaceflight.
By Jin22 days ago in Wander
I Surveyed China’s Pinglu Canal in 1968. Fifty-Eight Years Later, I Watched It Open.
Pinglu Canal: A River a Century in the Making, How It Pushes Southwest China to the Sea How a 1968 survey team’s idea became a 5,000-tonne waterway to Beibu Gulf in 2026
By Jin22 days ago in Wander