Tim Richards
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Contacting Tim Richards

Federation handle:

@timrichards@aus.social

Tim Richards's Information

Tim Richards's Bio

Travel writer living and working on Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia. Rail travel expert, current books on sale include Heading South and Ultimate Train Journeys: World. I also have a novel out in ebook form, Mind the Gap. See my published writing at iwriter.com.au, and become a patron of my Patreon at patreon.com/timrichards.

Tim Richards's Posts

Tim Richards has 14 posts.


Tim Richards

Glad this guy showed up, had expected the worst.

"A Melbourne hiker who was rescued almost two weeks after he went missing in the rugged Kosciuszko National Park survived on foraged berries along with a couple of muesli bars he found in a deserted alpine hut."
smh.com.au/national/missing-hi


@timrichards so say we all

by Kit Bashir ;

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Tim Richards

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Any other Melbourne Mastodonians fancy a lazy Wednesday arvo drink? Come and find me at Riverland. :)


Tags: #beeroclock #melbourne #waswriting #freelancelife

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Tim Richards

Right, chapter written. That's enough work for today.


Any other Melbourne Mastodonians fancy a lazy Wednesday arvo drink? Come and find me at Riverland. :)

by Tim Richards ;

Tags: #beeroclock #melbourne #waswriting #freelancelife

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Tim Richards

@mattblaze


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Tim Richards

@MattHatton Right! And we had to dress for dinner aboard it too:


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Tim Richards

Just because I happened to have this image up in the Photos app - here's one of the beautifully restored dining cars in the Pride of Africa, the luxury train operated by Rovos Rail in South Africa. The company sources old carriages from across southern Africa, and renovates them in its Pretoria workshop. Lovely job here - check out the timber pillars.


@timrichards Now that is what a fucking train should be like.

by Matt H ;

Tags: #train #trains #southafrica

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Tim Richards

@MattHatton Ugh clammy, rainy overcast summer days are the worst


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Tim Richards

Oh piss off La Niña, nobody likes you. Read the room. abc.net.au/news/2025-01-07/aus


@timrichards I do.

by Matt H ;

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Tim Richards

@MattHatton @allrite I generally wouldn't go a chain, but a burger or whatever was quite welcome occasionally.


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Tim Richards

@MattHatton In a sense that's what guidebooks are for – in fact, when they're at their best. Giving you enough information to navigate somewhere unfamiliar.

I suspect without that guide, people are thrown back on algorithmic suggestions in TripAdvisor etc. And they probably default to the popular places.


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Tim Richards

@MattHatton That's a pity really, because some of my best travel experiences have been when hanging around places not infested with tourists (eg eastern Poland). Not off the tourist map either, but not swamped.


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Tim Richards

@MattHatton Yeah it's an issue. When I researched guidebooks for Lonely Planet we tried to throw in boxed texts that encouraged people to explore some less-visited town or region, to try to dissipate the LP effect.

To some degree, encouraging ppl to go to the less-visited places could help overcome overtourism. So many ppl just seem to go where their friends went. After all these years of plugging Eastern Europe, I'm still amazed how many people stick to the west.


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Tim Richards

@ChrisMayLA6 what a resounding success


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Tim Richards

Ugh overtourism is the worst. And yet it's so easy to just visit somewhere interesting in a different area of the same country; or visit a country less swamped.

smh.com.au/traveller/travel-ne


@timrichards This is one of the things I find to be a bit cognitiviely dissonant about travel writing.

Like, so much of it is "check out this place you've never heard of that's actually amazing" followed some time later by "well this place was great but now it's shit because people go there."

I...what did you expect would happen?

I don't know how to square that circle.

by Matt H ;

Tags: #travel

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