travel @hemantmistry.com

Everyone knows the real international language is love. So it's hardly surprising that so many of us are willing to relocate to far-flung places in the name of romance. I did it once. It ended in tears after two years, and actually messed me up good and proper, but I wouldn't swap my experience for anything.
Moving to the other side of the planet where you don't know a soul except your beloved puts you in a scary position. Your support circle is gone. You're dependent on your partner for your social life, emotional succour, everything.
It's a start from scratch.
But my experience is mild! At least I could speak the language and got a job relatively quickly - and it still took me about a year to feel settled. It must be a whole lot more daunting when you don't speak the language and you're not legally allowed to work, or where there's a significant culture-shock factor. Imagine what it must have been like for disco dolly Jemima Goldsmith when she married Imran Khan and moved to Pakistan!
To cut a long story short, my relationship eventually imploded and I returned to Australia. But I don't regret those two years in Manchester one bit. I made some amazing friends, saw a lot of England, got my first publishing job - and did a lot of character-building.
Have you ever relocated for love? Did it last, or did you live to regret it? Any advice for globetrotting romantics?

-Susi Watusi

Who could have said in say, August, that we'd be leaning against a bar discussing Iceland? (Of course, you may well have been - given its white-nights party scene, its noble literary history and its endearing penchant for believing in elves, not to mention the genius of Sigur Ros and Mum.) The global financial sky-fall has brought the little island to a sad state of affairs, and on a recent night a friend told me that she'd like to head over there with a case or two of rollmops and some hard currency and spread some cheer.

The joke got me thinking. After the bombings in Bali, many travellers on the hunt for a tropical paradise chose to go there as a way of helping to rebuild its devastated tourist industry. In the wake of the tsunami, various destinations were visited not only by relief workers, but (as they recovered) by sympathetic tourists looking to put their dollar where it would help the most.

Pity travel. Is it a patronising, Lady Bountiful, pampered-first-worlders' indulgence, or genuinely compassionate?

Cherry Washington

On my first backpacking trip through Europe at the age of 20, I met a girl in Ios who travelled with a bright purple carry-along suitcase. She looked ridiculous, but I was secretly envious of the ease with which she travelled. Ever since I've wondered, is backpacking an activity that actually requires a backpack?

Of course, if you're trekking to Everest Base Camp, it's an essential item. But for an island-hopping holiday through the Cyclades or a journey from one urban environment to another? It could be more trouble than it's worth. (If you think you've experienced Parisian wrath, try squeezing into a heaving metro carriage with a pack strapped to your back.)

Despite these musings, I still dutifully pull out my backpack every time I travel. Why? I'm not quite sure. It's almost automatic: I'm going backpacking, I'll take my backpack. Next time though, I might take a moment to think about where I'm going and how much actual on-the-road travelling I'll be doing before I start packing. If I do, I might find the convenience of a suitcase on wheels wins out.

What about you?

- Gab Nancarrow

Returning recently from a jaunt in Europe I was faced with a 12-hour stopover in Bangkok. Yes, it sounds like crap, and it was.

Hopping off the KLM tumbrel cart I had been strapped to for 13 hours, I slid through customs like a ghost - my head felt like someone had lined it with newspaper and replaced my brain with a ferret.

I had grand plans of hanging out at the airport. I figured that Suvarnabhumi in all its shiny newness must have something to entertain a weary wanderer for half a day. How wrong I was. My dreams of showers and cinemas, libraries and lounges were as false as the eyelashes of the local kathoey. My mother lives in rural New South Wales and Moruya airport has more to offer than Bangkok's; at least you can feed the bloody kookaburra. There was nothing to do but drag my feet around, politely declining offers of luxury cabs. The place was a boring temple to international dullness.

My aimlessness soon turned to the feverish rage of the overtired; the clock seemed frozen, the Bangkok Post was devoid of the usual lurid Thai crime stories, and the security guards were getting irritating. Broken, I realised that my only hope was to get the hell away. First I wolfed down a bowl of spicy soup and a fresh coconut, which improved my outlook no end, then I headed to the taxis.

A smiling man from Issan was my saviour, and some 45 minutes later I was loafing about the marble floors of the MBK, one of the world's greatest small-business hives. Like a happy drone, I wandered about for hours, while around me the shopkeepers slurped soup. When the ferret in my head started to squeak I knew it was time to head back to the airport and check-in. Early.

'12-hour stopover' joins 'we need to run more tests' and 'it's not you, it's me' as a phrase I never want to hear again.

- Larry O'Leary

When you're wedged in economy and the person in front of you has jacked their seat back so far you can smell their shampoo, all you can think is 'let me get reborn as a millionaire with a private jet and get me the hell outta here'. Those luxury-scented daydreams might not be as out of reach as you think - thanks to Geneva-based LunaJets. Many swanky private jets are stone-cold empty on the return leg after depositing their cashed-up clients at their chosen point. LunaJets works with private jet operators throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia and the USA to maintain a database of flights that you can get on for a fraction of the real cost. You can book a single seat or you can book a whole cabin - now there's travel worth frocking up for.

Dee Dee Luxe

OK, let's not even enter into the record vs CD vs MP3 debate. Because believe me, amigos, that argument has only one winner - vinyl - and that's final! Besides, it's not really travel-related, so we'd have to take it outside anyway.

But hey, record junkies travel too, and that's just the excuse I need to ask this burning question of you all: What's the best record shop you've ever come across on your travels?

It's a subjective thing, for sure. While a fantastic, soul-stirring and diverse range of vinyl is the obvious pre-requisite, factors such as vibe and decor, staff and location are crucial too. There's nothing worse than a record-shop assistant who's too cool to help you, or a store that prices itself out of the market - much as I love 'em, I draw the line at paying €85 for a Who 7", as witnessed recently in a certain Parisian establishment. Then there was this shop in São Paulo... I'd heard it was great, but gave up looking for it after another shopkeeper in the dark, dingy arcade where it was located tried to pull me into his store and close the door! Ah, the hazards of record-collecting.

Luckily, no such misfortunes befell me the day I came across the record shop of my dreams in Barcelona. It's called Wah Wah Records, and with a name like that, you just know it's going to tick all the boxes. Located on the super-groovy Carrer Riera Baixa in el Raval (a street comprised almost entirely of vintage clothing boutiques), Wah Wah won me over with its heart-stopping selection of 60s garage, beat and psychedelic nuggets (oh, and its lurid green walls). But that's just the beginning - it's packed to the rafters with just about every musical genre you could imagine, except classical and mainstream Top 40. And it has its own record label, specialising in reissues of cool old sounds.

The friendly staff really know their stuff, and there's even a resident cat (he's really old and his name is Marcel). I'd marry the place if I could.

Anyone else care to share their favourite international vinyl haunts?

- Suzy Wah-Wah-Watusi

My number one piece of advice to any traveller relates not to what they should take on a trip, but to what they should leave at home - basically as much as possible.

It's a hard one to get your head around, though. Your backpack is open on your bed the night before you embark, your possessions gathered around you. This is your stuff. You'll want to have it while you're away. You need it, right?

Carrying your gear around from one place to another is perhaps the best way to realise how annoying stuff can be. It weighs you down, and lets face it, those 90L backpacks you see abusing the spines of travellers and knocking into locals give us all a bad name.

Aside from the freedom of movement you'll gain by shedding the weight of your belongings, you may find a different kind of freedom. A freedom from stuff, and a realisation that two T-shirts and pair of jeans can easily be the sum total of a traveller's entire wardrobe.

- Jenni Kauppi

Volcanoes are the most extreme of tourist attractions, if not the hottest. They explode and kill, and travellers seek them out regardless. Though I'm yet to melt a sandal in semi-molten rock or toast marshmallows on hot pumice, I have got close to the edge a few times:

Aso-san in central Kyushu, Japan: Getting here by car is easy - with a Japanese friend driving. We park just below the crater lip, but could have just as easily caught the cable car. There are plenty of black mushroom-shaped magma shelters to protect us in case lava starts a-flowing. To add a level of difficulty, we visit in the middle of a typhoon. Leaning into the gale, we get to the edge and see a vast cloud-filled hollow of nothingness.

Mt Taranaki on New Zealand's North Island: Not an easy climb. We drive halfway up to the track to the ski run, cross the couloir, which in winter is an avalanche hazard, reach the huts at the base of the ski lift, and look up: the snow-covered cone is a long way away. We walk back to the car.

Tofua, an island in Tonga's Ha'apai group: The seaplane lands on the crater-lake, and put-puts to shore, and we start climbing. The scoria is loose and gravelly, and covered in weird fern-like creepers. The guide stops, says he's been up too often, and reminds us if a cloud of poisonous gas suddenly billows our way, we should run downhill. Also, we shouldn't go to the left of the crevice - if there's a tremor that half of the cone will fall away first. We get to the lip and look into a pit of poisonous steam, wind blows a cloud our way. We duck and scurry back down and eat sandwiches by the lake.

Well maybe I've only got close-ish to the edge.

Lionel Mash