Rough Guides

The 6th June 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in Normandy. To mark the occasion, in this Rough Guides podcast episode we take a look at how the Second World War is memorialised across Europe, and the importance of doing commemorating such events.

During August, all rules and social conventions are put to one side when Edinburgh hosts the world’s biggest arts festival.

One of South America 's booming capitals and major cities, Buenos Aires is a seductive and cultured city with an eclectic mix of people and places. Vicky Baker has the lowdown on the newest things to do in Buenos Aires, Argentina .

Sierra Leone has everything adventurous travellers could want – exquisite, empty beaches fringed by palms, rainforest jungles with monkeys swinging through the trees, a fascinating heritage and warm, welcoming people. But its troubled history of civil war and Ebola means that few visitors actually make it here.

Rough Guides Senior Editor Helen Fanthorpe reminisces about family holidays spent in mid-Wales, and a lockdown spent craving the countryside.

People have looked to the mountains for spiritual consolation for millennia. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,” say the Psalms, “from whence cometh my help.” For Nepalis, the link is especially powerful. The Himalayas are where the Hindu gods go to meditate and replenish their tapas, or spiritual “heat”, and the Buddhist peoples of Nepal’s Himalayan regions regard many of the highest peaks and lakes as sacred.

Modern Bangkok, historical Hanoi and tourism-boom town Siem Reap — home to the world-famous Angkor Wat temples — are some of Southeast Asia's best drawcards, and see thousands of visitors every year.

“The city that never sleeps” is probably a cliché used for cities in almost every country in the world. But is London really a nocturnal city, where night-or-day you can find somewhere to play? Lottie Gross took up the challenge to find out...

Most visitors don’t venture beyond Tallinn , but leave Estonia’s capital behind and you’ll find a country of vast, untouched wilderness. a haven for wildlife and a place to escape from it all. Olivia Rawes gets back to basics to discover some of the wilder things to do in Estonia.

Colourful Australian slang, or strine, has its origins in the archaic cockney and Irish of the colony’s early convicts as well as the adoption of words from the many Aboriginal languages. And for such a vast country, the accent barely varies to the untutored ear; from Tasmania (“Tassie”) to the northwest you’ll find little variation in the national drawl, with a curious, interrogative ending to sentences fairly common – although Queenslanders are noted for their slow delivery.

Tired of your local nightclub? Bored of trekking to the same venue every Saturday night? Then try one of these awesome experiences from Make The Most Of Your Time On Earth , as witnessed by Rough Guides writers all over the world.

Central Asia often gets a bad deal – seen as bleak and boring with a cuisine to match. But make the journey to this oft-overlooked part of the continent and you'll be rewarded with striking scenery, surprisingly tasty food and some of the world's friendliest people. Here, we bust the unfairest myths about Central Asia.

Argentines are a superstitious lot — many taxi-drivers religiously garland their rear-view mirrors with rosaries; fur-clad ladies-that-lunch avidly read their horoscopes; busmen faithfully display images of the Virgin of Luján over their dashboards; nearly everyone routinely tucks a banknote under their plate of gnocchi at the end of each month in the hope of better financial fortunes. But all this pales in comparison to their fervent dedication to the people’s saint, Antonio Gil – better known as the Gauchito Gil.

Go to Venice or Amsterdam, and you can hardly cross a street without tumbling into a canal. In London, you have to dig deeper.

Despite India’s vastness, foreign travellers tend to clump together in a relatively small number of well-known regions or cities, leaving plenty of destinations to the more intrepid few who are willing to take the challenge of escaping the tourist trail. Here’s a selection of our favourites:

A great fire festival should be on everybody’s bucket list. Here we rundown some of the greats...

A few hours’ drive from New York City (and just one hour from Washington DC), you’ll find Baltimore. Once viewed as a gritty seaport with a reputation for crime – a perspective reinforced by TV shows such asThe Wire – this Maryland city is now home to scores of millennials, magnetised by a lower cost of living and a quirky vibe.

After a road trip through Uruguay , Greg Dickinson discovers the joys of self-drive.

Sitting on the far west coast of Africa , just south of Senegal, Guinea Bissau is a small yet vibrant African nation just beginning to take its place on the tourist map. Years of colonial rule followed by decades of political instability kept this once-Portuguese outpost a secret, known only by dedicated deep-sea fishermen and a handful of NGO workers. But it’s not going to remain a secret for much longer, as Explore begin running trips to Guinea Bissau in November 2016. We sent photographer Diana Jarvis to uncover Guinea Bissau – here are some of her best shots.

The Cammino BasilianoⓇ is a long-distance hiking route tracing the dramatic and varied landscapes of Calabria in southern Italy. It takes in an area of great cultural, historic and spiritual significance, once travelled by Basilian monks who left a collection of fine religious buildings and sublimely sited shrines in their wake. 

For five days of the year each summer, the somewhat soulless exhibition centre in Earls Court is transformed into a giant pub (pictured above). Or at least that’s what it feels like. Gone are the trade stalls and suited delegates, replaced by an army of (mostly bearded) volunteers manning hundreds of kegs, dispensing beers few people have ever heard of to thousands of squiffy punters – a lot of whom are wearing traffic-cone hats or sombreros for no apparent reason.