Gallery: More travel sketches from BBC’s Tim Baynes

by Meg Nesterov on


We wrote yesterday about Tim Baynes’ delightful travel sketches from around the world on BBC and liked them so much we came back for more. You can (and should!) get lost for hours looking at his drawings on Flickr with fun anecdotes and scribbles bringing depth and humor to his slice-of-life artwork.

Check out some of our favorites in the gallery below, from a look inside the BBC Starbucks to the madness of Dubai immigration during the ash cloud to a quiet barbershop in Tripoli.

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See more of Tim Baynes’ work on the BBC, his personal Flickr stream, or order a copy of his book Doors to Automatic and Cross Check, direct from the artist.



All photos courtesy of Tim Baynes.

Travel sketches from BBC’s Tim Baynes draw on a lifetime of travel

by Meg Nesterov on


One of our favorite new travel blogs this year is from none other than the venerable news organization, the BBC. One of BBC The Passport‘s regular features is “Drawing from Experience” with sketches from Tim Baynes. Baynes’ drawings are an assortment of postcard-perfect scenes, witty observations, and random sketches from his travels around the world and commuting in London. Like many other famous travelers, his medium of choice is the Moleskine notebook, but he often involves other media such as airline ticket stubs as in the New York City skyline drawing above.

Enjoy more of Tim Baynes’ work on the BBC, his personal Flickr stream, or order a copy of his book Doors to Automatic and Cross Check, direct from the artist.

Photo courtesy Tim Baynes’ Flickr page.

Five things London needs

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Three months and change into living in London and I couldn’t be happier. The city’s exciting neighborhoods and unbridled internationalism are thrilling. The retail scene is varied and strong, the restaurant inventory is deep, 2014 fashion trends can be previewed at London Fields every weekend, and there are scores of cafes serving very good coffee. Leaving aside some infrastructural issues (delay-prone Tube lines and some weak city-to-airport links, in particular), London is a great city.

Yet London, for all of its many strengths, doesn’t have everything you could possibly want in a top-tier city. Here are five things that London doesn’t have and needs: a Korean bath house; an Uruguayan chivitos restaurant; a sabich stand; a taquería selling real burritos; 100 percent cotton swabs.

1. A Korean bath house. There is no proper Korean bath house in London. Shocking. Korean bath houses are gender-segregated temples of bliss with hot tubs of varying temperatures, saunas, swimming pools, napping rooms. They offer spa treatments, including the justifiably famous Korean full-body scrub. A London version of New York Spa Castle in Queens would be enormously popular.

2. A chivitos restaurant. The chivito (see above right) is a delicious heart attack of a steak sandwich. There are variations, but typically a chivito will contain steak, bacon, ham, egg, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayonnaise. A simple Uruguayan restaurant selling chivitos and South American beer and wine would be terribly popular.

3. A sabich stand. Freshly back from Tel Aviv several weeks ago, I walked over to Spitalfields to try the sabich at Pilpel and was terribly disappointed. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the Pipel sabich, mind you, but it tastes like a grab-bag of Middle Eastern flavors and textures and as such is a million miles from the eggplant-focused immediacy of the sabich I’d just eaten on the street in Israel. One of London’s weekend markets needs a sabich stand, plain and simple.

4. A decent burrito. Londoners, against their old reputation, are quite sophisticated about food. Just don’t ask them to suggest a place to grab a burrito. They’ll likely recommend a specimen that would make the average Californian groan. Entrepreneurs, focus! Studies show that once people have been exposed to truly good burritos, they are longer attracted to subpar variations.* There is a fortune to be made here.

5. Cotton swabs. They’re called “buds” in the UK, which is already disarming. The standard version here has plastic wands, which are flimsy and decidedly not biodegradable. I’ve seen pricey organic cotton buds, but as of yet no mainstream all-cotton swabs. Some hard cotton wands at a reasonable price point would be well received.

*This is a lie. There are no studies on this matter, as far as I know. But you get my point.

[Image: Flickr | mattrubens]

Archaeologists to raise 17th century shipwreck

by Sean McLachlan on


The shipwreck of a 17th century merchant vessel off the coast of England is going to be raised from the sea, the BBC reports.

An armed merchant vessel that plied the high seas sank in the Swash Channel off the coast of Dorset more than 300 years ago. Underwater archaeology teams have been studying the wreck and have found cannon, pottery, and an intriguing face of a man carved into the rudder. Their work has had to speed up as sediment is eroding away, leaving the old wood exposed to decay and attack by shipworms, which cut holes into the wood.

Researchers have decided the only thing to do is to raise the ship out of the water and conserve the wood for future study. Sadly, some of the ship is so decayed that it will have to be left on the sea bottom. It will be reburied in sediment to prevent further decay.

The salvage operation planned for this summer is going to be a tricky one. A ship hasn’t been raised from UK waters since the Mary Rose was brought to the surface in 1982. This 16th century warship, shown here in a Wikimedia Commons image, is now the subject of its own museum in Portsmouth, England.

While historic shipwrecks are often taken to the surface to be studied and conserved, or their locations kept secret to avoid looting, the shipwreck of Captain Kidd’s pirate ship will become an underwater museum.

Seychelles idyll for Royal Couple

by Alex Robertson Textor on

The British media reported this morning that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge–the two young lovebirds you may know as William and Kate–arrived in the Seychelles earlier today to kick off their long anticipated honeymoon.

After touching down at Seychelles International Airport in Mahé, the Royal Couple boarded a helicopter and took off for a private, unidentified island.

The location of the Royal honeymoon has been a matter of intense speculation in the UK over the last several weeks. Jordan, the Isles of Scilly, and Barbuda have all turned up as potential destinations.

The Seychelles, a cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean, are a top upscale destination, with tourist inflows coming mostly from Europe. Surely the Royal Couple’s decision to honeymoon in the country will not damage the Seychelles’ reputation as a playground for the rich.

[Image: Flickr | Olivier Cochard-Labbé]