Couchfish

A quick word of introduction—particularly to the five hundred odd new subscribers I seem to have picked up over the last week— thanks Substack Notes . My name is Stuart McDonald and this is Couchfish —the perfect tub of ice-cream for the traveller stranded on the couch. The newsletter has a paid edition which traces a fantasy itinerary through Southeast Asia, and a free edition that covers, well,...

Earlier this year I spent a few weeks in Vietnam travelling it tail to top. I wanted to see how things were picking up in these waning pandemic times, but I also had sustainable travel on my mind—was it possible in Vietnam? In this, the first of a three-part series, I’m in the south and look at plastic, people and power. The Journey Night has fallen by the time, ears popping, my VietJet flight beg...

Over the last two weeks I’ve been somewhat distracted in Raja Ampat . How distracted? Distracted enough to forget that as I was sliding into the water a couple of weeks ago, Couchfish turned three. With that in mind, I thought I’d revisit a few of my favourite posts from the last three years. Favourite because they were fun to write, experience or sometimes even both. I’ve purposefully concentrate...

Just a quick note, I’ve written a four-part series of sustainable travel and travel writing for Talking Travel Writing , and the first piece came out last week . If you’ve an interest in travel writing, the Talking Travel Writing Newsletter absolutely belongs on your subscribe list. You can find out more here . An entrepreneur, a photographer, a kitchen hand and a travel writer walk into a bar ......

When I reviewed The Last Tourist one bit that stood out was an inference that destinations are at risk of becoming “dumb pipes.” At one point, G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip says “Travel has taken a turn and the destination is no longer relevant.” When you pull that apart, what does it mean? What are the risks for destinations when the destination itself is no longer relevant? When the Laotia...

Midway through The Last Tourist , an orphanage tourist thinks back to her time with the kids: “I had all the best of intentions, but in hindsight I didn’t do my homework. ... and when I got there I really learnt the horrible truth—they were there because I wanted to be there, not because they needed to be there. And because of people like me, they were separated from their families.” The Last Tour...

According to David Luekens over at Thai Island Quest, Thailand has over 800 islands . Don’t fret if you’ve only been to thirteen of them, as many are nothing more than a pile of rocks—others though, are more. Thailand’s islands range from huge and spoilt, to stuck-in-the-1980s near-deserted fare. There is it seems, something for everyone. In 2019, Thailand greeted a smidgen under 40 million inboun...

I’m a little out of sync this week thanks to some internet draaammmaaaaassss, so this is the free-to-read issue today rather than Friday. A few years ago a friend and I were surfing at Seminyak in Bali and, not paying attention, got sucked out towards Java. By the time we finally made it back to shore, we were up near Old Man’s in Canggu and both felt like very old men. We collapsed on the beach,...

On March 1, The Travel Foundation released “Envisioning Tourism in 2030 and Beyond: The Changing Shape of Tourism in a Decarbonising World” . Some teasers from it surfaced a while back, and while they were bad enough, the full report is a doozy. Writes Travel Foundation CEO Jeremy Sampson : “We have delayed action for too long, and as a result, our options have narrowed. This assessment should act...

If you were looking for a bonfire to incinerate your hopes for an improved approach to tourism, Thailand continues to deliver the goods. An early highlight were plans to double inbound tourism from 39.8m in 2019 to 80m—by 2027. Sounds like a totes sustainable and sensible idea. Then the other day, came news that a long-threatened tourism tax would happen($) . I’m not opposed to a tourist tax in pr...

A month or so ago, my friend James sent me a link for a travel guide to Cambodia. James has a particular talent for sending me stuff that ruins my day, and this one, well, it was a doozy. It was one of those typical “how to” travel blog pieces, with blow-by-blow instructions on how to do something. In this particular case, it explained how one can travel from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh by train. Over...

One of the many aspects travel gets flogged over are its carbon emissions. As I’ve written in the past , if you’d like to over-contribute in setting the planet on fire, getting on a plane works best. What about if you don’t? What about if you’d prefer to minimise your emissions? Skipping domestic flights is the obvious first step, but what next? With this in mind, over my recent three-week trip to...

Note : Our exisiting coverage for Cửa Đại and An Bàng on Travelfish which were researched and written in 2017 serve as good counterpoints to the following piece as they illustrate now much has changed in just a few years. I’ll be updating them to bring them in line with the following in the coming days. Let me start by saying I’ve seen more than my share of great beaches. The flip-side of this is...

Broad strokes, destinations want tourists to do three things. They want them to come, to spend, and to leave. In visiting somewhere—anywhere—a tourist does all these things by default, so the bar is low. The Holy Grail though, is to add another item—to stay—and more often than not, tourists do that too. But then the challenge becomes how to get them to stay longer. Not forever—after all we’ve all...

Xin chào from Phan Rang in South Central Vietnam. I’m typing this after an extremely wet scooter day , and while this is only my fourth full day, it feels like double that. In a good way! I’m in Vietnam to speak at a four-day conference in Huế , but I decided to turn a four-day commitment into a three week trip. It seemed like the right thing to do, but already I feel like I’m running out of time....

Blink and you’ll miss it right? I feels like only yesterday that 2019 was drawing to a close, yet here we are on the cusp of 2023. It has been, it would be fair to say, a sub-optimal spell. Last time I got into predications, I suggested the pandemic would stretch for years rather than months—broken clocks and all that. So what do I see on the cards for 2023? Smash all the clocks within reach and r...

A quick note up top. I had a motorbike accident yesterday and have a lot more stitches in my right arm than I’d prefer to have, so this is a shorter post than I had planned. It should be fairly self explanatory though. You can’t throw a satay stick without hitting a report by some mob in the travel industry saying that travellers want to travel more sustainably. These surveys are often poorly run...

Over the weekend I had a fun chat (the sound is a bit scrappy sorry—I blame Skype) with David Luekens . David worked with us for many years at Travelfish and later, as the pandemic kicked off, started a newsletter focussed on Thailand’s many islands and beaches . He has just returned to Thailand after a longish break Stateside, and has great plans for the newsletter—including changing it into a qu...

So here we are, at the conclusion of my series on “Rethinking Travel.” I have more half-written posts, which I’ll drop in over the coming weeks and months, but I wanted to tie this off for now. I know paying subscribers would like me to get back to the itinerary posts—they will recommence this coming Tuesday. Before anything else though, a quick thank you to you all for reading and/or listening! F...

A quick note, save a series conclusion running tomorrow, I’ll be back to regular programming on Monday. Yay! On one of my very early trips to Thailand, I lost a few weeks at Hin Wong Bungalows on Ko Tao . Set on the back side of the island, you’d approach on a longtail from the port. It was quiet. Very quiet. My hut was a wooden bungalow on the rise, with a bathroom down the slope a bit. The only...

In recent times, phrases like “travel like a local” or “experience whatever as a local” are a common mantra— Google offers up 2,320,000,000 results on a search for it —thanks Google. These are a marketing ploy, playing to an out-dated and exoticised fever dream of “local.” To a point, they’re all smoke and mirrors—one need only step outside their lodgings to see “the real deal.” This real deal tho...

One of the most oft-cited upsides of travel is the financial benefit it can bring to destinations. It can assist in raising living standards, covering school bills or putting food on the table. You putting your money in local hands matters and it can make a difference. Indeed, for many nations in Southeast Asia, inbound tourism is a significant source of income. How significant? This World Travel...

Yesterday, Bloomberg scored themselves an advance copy of The Travel Foundation’s Envisioning Tourism in 2030 report. While the report hasn’t been released publicly yet, going off what Bloomberg have to say , it makes for a hard reality check. Not before time. According to The Travel Foundation’s own prep for the report’s release, they took the Paris Agreement’s goal of halving emissions by 2030 a...

Sorry for the delay in this, over the weekend I got savaged by some virus which kicked off with me temporarily going blind while riding my scooter with doggo on board. Please no jokes about that bringing me down to the riding standard of most tourists on a scooter in Bali. Thankfully traffic was light. Anyway, back on deck, though still shaking the last of this plague virus thing. More than once o...

Power up Google Maps and while still zoomed out, centre the map on Ho Chi Minh City, then switch it to satellite view. Click zoom in. Zoom in again. Keep zooming. Pretend you’re at a CIA field station in a new Mission Impossible flick. Watch as the city comes into view. There’s the airport, the undulating river, a still tree-lined boulevard. Keep zooming. Each click, each zoom, wait till the image...