James Away • real trips, no beige nonsense
Go first. Figure it out later.
A travel blog by James Moody about cruises, cities, walking, history, mythology and the bits of a trip that actually matter. Not polished influencer rubbish. Real photos, real notes, real opinions.
The site in one sentence
Less itinerary spreadsheet. More actually looking around.
James Away is built around the idea that the best bits usually happen between the planned bits: walking too far, finding a view by accident, judging a cruise ship buffet, or discovering that ancient mythology is more interesting when you are stood where it happened.
Trips
Places are about the destination: what it felt like, how James got there, what was worth doing and whether it deserves a return visit.
Cruises
Cruises get judged separately: ship, cabin, food, entertainment, service, route, price and value. The floating hotel gets a score too.
Timeline
The timeline keeps everything in order, because eventually there are too many places to just chuck them in a grid and hope for the best.
Latest trips
Fresh from the travel pile.
York
York is one of the UK’s best walking cities: Minster, walls, Shambles, Vikings, Romans, railways and enough history packed into a small centre to make it slightly unfair.
Birmingham
Birmingham is a proper working city with canals, shopping, food, industrial history and more character than its lazy reputation suggests.
Rhodes
Rhodes is a cruise stop with proper weight: medieval walls, Knights of St John, harbour views, old streets and the ghost of the Colossus lurking in the background.
Crete
Chania in Crete was one of those cruise stops that did not need much: a cheap bus, a Venetian harbour, sunshine, old lanes and a lighthouse walk that made the day.
Timeline
A proper travel record.
The timeline now works like an actual timeline: years, markers, thumbnails and links. Much better than a sad list pretending to be useful.
Open the timelineCountries
Browse by backdrop.
Countries now use photo-led tiles, so each one feels like somewhere James actually went rather than a geography homework menu.
Browse countriesJames rated
Top-rated so far.
Akureyri
Akureyri is North Iceland’s easy-going base: fjord setting, compact streets, mountain views and access to waterfalls and volcanic landscapes that do most of the showing off.
Cobh
Cobh is colourful, steep, historic and surprisingly emotional, with Titanic history, harbour views and a cathedral that dominates the town like it knows it looks good.
Crete
Chania in Crete was one of those cruise stops that did not need much: a cheap bus, a Venetian harbour, sunshine, old lanes and a lighthouse walk that made the day.
Cruises
The ship matters too.
Places are one thing. The ship, cabin, food, service, route and value are another. Cruise reviews now have their own space, because calling every cruise stop a “place” was not cutting it.
Read cruise reviewsHistory and mythology
Old stories, better trips.
Athens, Mykonos, Cyprus, Rome one day hopefully. History and mythology add the good context without turning the whole thing into homework. The new mythology directory explains the gods, heroes, monsters and real places behind the trips.
Open mythology directory