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Hail the Rail

Modern beasts made from steel that hurl their futuristic shape from city to city at great speed, or rather rundown carriers of nostalgia that crisscross the countryside at a snail’s pace: trains. Manmade machines on tracks. I love them all. I’ve always had a great fondness for this quintessential way of getting from A to […]

Porcelain for Palaces

When I lived in China there were days where I would become overwhelmed by numbers. Numbers of people around me, numbers of buildings in cities, astronomical numbers and metrics of a scale so grand I thought could only be science fiction. I would become overwhelmed with culture shock, a stranger in an unknown land. Not […]

Lapland Lure

I arrive into Kiruna, gateway to Swedish Lapland (Sapmi in local language), around the lunch hour on an overcast Wednesday. It’s January, and the sun is about to set. I’ve come in from Stockholm, confident that I had adjusted well to the short days of Winter in Northern Europe. But up here past the Arctic Circle […]

Gotland’s got soul

In the blink of an eye, it’s over. It may not last long, but the sweet magic that Summer casts on the Swedish island of Gotland is a spell to enjoy year after year. A storybook of Swedish Summer paradise, Gotland is where savvy Swedes head from Stockholm to avoid the hordes of Southern Europe sinking Santorini into the […]

Sweatin’ it

It’s no secret I like to sweat it out. Preferably in the solitude of a wood-fired cabin by a lake surrounded by dense forest. But failing that, I get my schwitz on any way I can. One of my most memorable sauna quests took place in Malmö on the Baltic Sea coast, where on a […]

A Home in the Trees

Dreamt up by owners Kent and Britta, Treehotel is a year-round Northern outpost in the Swedish countryside, surrounded by unspoiled nature as far as the eye can see and the lush Lule river valley. They are the same couple who run Britta’s Pensionat next door; an inviting cluster of 1930-50s inspired rooms that feel like you’re staying at your […]

The Town & Country Grand Tour

This Fall, Town & Country magazine had the hare-brained scheme of planning a 170-day Grand Tour around the world for their 100th anniversary. And then they had the wise idea of asking Trufflepig to plan 43 days of it. We were tickled pink with [false] modesty. There’s a world of difference between good trip-planning and most […]