Hamba Travel Magazine
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From a detour close to home to a long road through East Africa. Pick a part of the world, or read them in order.
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153 stories from our editors. Filter by part of the world, or page back in time.
Europe · Germany · Essen
Zollverein: Coal, Coke and Culture in Essen
An orange-lit escalator rises through the former coal washery at Zollverein. It now carries museum visitors into the building where belts and heavy machinery once sorted coal from one of Europe’s largest industrial complexes.
Temple Doors and Market Bowls in Old Tainan
At Chihkan Tower, seventeenth-century Dutch brickwork sits below Chinese halls for a sea god and the patron of examination success. Old Tainan grew through such changes of use: fortifications became civic and religious ground, while nearby streets kept their shops, food stalls and workshops.
Central America · Costa Rica · Tortuguero
Tortuguero, from the canals to the nesting beach
Boats, not cars, carry visitors into Tortuguero, through lowland rainforest cut by lagoons and narrow channels. Beyond the village, the same protected landscape reaches a Caribbean beach where green, leatherback and hawksbill turtles nest.
Nyamirambo at Street Level: Markets, Mosques and Makers
Biryogo Market stands where a plateau drops into Nyamirambo’s steep flanks. In its brick-and-corrugated-iron hall, fruit and vegetables fill a central platform, while wooden stalls and narrow passages run around the edges.
Mindelo, in the Key of Morna
At Mindelo’s fish market, tuna, swordfish, grouper and moray come ashore from Porto Grande. A short walk inland passes through the old port city to places where morna is played, preserved and cut into a wall beside the waterfront.
Portugal · Baixa
Van koperen koepel naar betonnen plooien: architectuur in Maputo
Het centraal station van Maputo draagt nog altijd de plechtige gevel van een koloniale spoorweghaven. Enkele straten verder beginnen betonnen roosters, galerijen en vinnen het licht te breken; in Polana eindigt die lijn bij een kerk waarvan dak, wand en draagconstructie één gevouwen schaal vormen.
Europe · Italy · Cremona
Cremona, where the violin is still made by hand
Near Cremona’s cathedral, Andrea Amati established a workshop that helped shape the violin. Nearly five centuries later, students and professional makers still select spruce, sharpen gouges and bend maple around wooden moulds in the city.
North America
Where the Bay of Fundy Empties Beneath Your Feet
At low tide, visitors walk across the seabed beneath the red-brown pillars of Hopewell Rocks. Roughly six hours later, seawater covers that ground and surrounds the same formations.
Listening for Indri in the Rainforest of Andasibe
The indri often announces itself before anyone sees it. Around Andasibe, long descending calls travel through a damp canopy that supplies food, routes between trees and the boundaries of a family territory.
Europe · Portugal · Coruche
When Coruche’s Cork Oaks Turn Red
Freshly stripped cork oaks stand out at once: their exposed trunks are red-brown, with a white number painted across the new surface. Around Coruche, that colour marks a summer harvest built on sharp judgement, careful hands and nine years of waiting.
Asia · South Korea · Jeju
One Breath at a Time: Jeju’s Haenyeo at Work
Jeju’s haenyeo enter the sea without air tanks, guided by wind, tide and knowledge passed between working divers. Their long, whistling breath at the surface belongs to hard, uncertain work, not a performance along the island’s basalt coast.
South America · Suriname · Paramaribo
What Paramaribo Cooks Begins at the Centrale Markt
Boats and trucks bring fruit, leaves, roots, fish and spices to the Centrale Markt beside the Suriname River. Inside, those ingredients lead towards roti and pom, saoto and peprewatra, and towards the histories that shaped Paramaribo’s kitchens.