Most of China’s tourist mountains are just big hills. So when Darren Skelton sets out to climb Changbaishan on the North Korean border he turns down the offer of rental crampons: a few yuan saved that risk his life.

Dr Ravi Shankar finds it’s the company of friends that transform his trek from Pokhara to remote mountain palaces and monasteries.

In a smoky music bar in downtown Suzhou, Kieran O’ Donovan finds a new type of entrepreneur bringing a new sound ot China’s huddled masses.

Cockfighting is a hugely popular sport in many Far Eastern countries. Antonio Graceffo watches a couple of chickens battle to near-death in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

Thailand’s paradise islands seem a touch crowded to Caroline Joyner. So she heads out to Koh Tao island in search of a deserted beach. But she finds that getting off the beaten trail brings its own hazards.

A simple fashion display would be far too tame for the Kiwis. mily Doyle finds the ‘Wearable Art Show’ takes clothing several giant strides beyond simply keeping the weather out.

American Ted Shaffrey has always been told he’s Irish. So when he finds himself in Dublin he goes through the telephone book in search of relatives. But the truth of his ancestry proves hard to pin down.

Three years into his round-the-world bicycle ride, Alastair Humphreys hits some foul weather as he pushes and pedals his treadly through Siberia.

Long after the fall of the Roman Empire war still rages below the streets of its capital. Veteran traveller Jessica Angotti has some survival tips for Italy’s famously brusque subway system.

It’s not just the nightly curfew that makes Sagada, in the northern Philippine island of Luzon, quiet in the evenings. Jody White reports from a region where local caution is quietly beating terrorism.

Jane Cassie and her photographer husband, Brent, stroll through the streets and markets of Terrengganu village on the Malaysia’s eastern coast.

In this extract from his latest book, diver and writer Wade Hughes takes the slow boat around the Madlives and gets well beyond the postcards, to dive and discover little-known islands.

Japanese tourists might expect a cautious welcome in South Korea. But cost-conscious traveller Aki Yoshida finds a steady, gentle hospitality from the Korean people as he railcards and hitches around their little-known home.

Well, millions of Kwacha perhaps. But this new marketing idea from Octopustravel.com brings pyramid commissions to cut-price internet-booked hotel rooms. No investment, free money? Has to be worth a look.

When Californian actors die they don’t go straight to heaven. Oh no. Vladimir Perlovich finds most of them never got further than the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard.

When your son leaps on a motorcycle and drives five thousand miles away for his Christmas, most parents might take the hint and just send a card. Not Toni Giarnese, who flies down to Ocean Beach, California into a welcome she could hardly have forseen. 

Brendan Sainsbury, adrift amongst the property speculators laying siege to Nicaragua’s colonial heartlands, finds a guitar unlocks a society of hidden depths.

Forget Tuscany. Catriona MacPhee heads to Italy’s south where the town of Ostuni proves a Brindisi gem.