While savvy travellers have known for some time that Anchorage is where you find the best of Alaska all in one place, my knowledge of the city before I visited was lamentably poor.

Bangkok is overwhelming and confusing, writes seasoned traveller Len Rutledge.

Even with crowds, overpriced souvenirs, and a rather ordinary, highly-promoted pastry specialty called Schneeball, Rothenburg is still an absolute treasure.

Anyone who is a cowboy movie fan has seen pictures of Monument Valley.

I quickly found out why downtown LA is now a visitor hotspot.

Some parts of the world are now awash with tourists.

I’m rapidly discovering that very few things are considered unusual at Undara.

If you want to see some of the world’s greatest temples, and what could be the world’s richest archaeological site, go to Luxor in Egypt.

With seven hills and a church on top of each, Bamberg in Germany immediately has appeal.

Laos has suddenly become a tourism hotspot for adventurous travellers but Luang Prabang, Laos’ ancient capital, has been around for a long time.

Mozart and Julie Andrews are responsible for most visitors to Salzburg, Austria’s music city.

“There is no such thing as vampires,” I’m told on my first afternoon in Bucharest, Romania. “Dracula is our country’s biggest brand, but he is fake.”

Mountains are to be climbed but I have never been drawn to ropes, picks, anchors and spikes.

No matter where we travel there is a good chance that we will see some impressive buildings.

Wroclaw is western Poland’s biggest surprise.

There is something about waterfalls.

While driving along winding roads through dense, dark, ancient forests and over mountain passes through the Carpathian Mountains in Transylvania, it is easy to be caught up in the Dracula story.

The thick stone walls proclaim invincibility. The wide marble Placa fuses shops, cafes, churches and palaces. The fine sculpture on buildings and monuments shows the centuries-old artistic heritage.

Imagine a valley floor filled with a 150 km-long lake, wildlife including big horn sheep, cougars and rattlesnakes, rainfall of less than 30mm a year but with the greatest concentration of wineries and orchards you can imagine.

With some places in the world becoming tourist unfriendly because of the sheer number of visitors, and others feeling overcrowded when you get there, now may be a good time to think of travelling to somewhere new.

Is this on your bucket list? If not, why not?

Trains and railways have had a fascination for many of us for a long time.

We live in an age where travel is considered normal. We jump in the car to visit friends or family hundreds of kilometres away.

What did I know about Jordan? Not very much actually, except for Petra and the Dead Sea. Visiting was a big eye-opener for me.

It’s hot, dusty, often chaotic, and decidedly non-Western but Cairo, Egypt’s capital, is also fascinating, inspiring and a wonderful place to explore 4500 years of history.