Thomas O'Malley

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Poonam Binayak |Danielle Demetriou |Maia Roston |Thomas O'Malley

From salt deserts and jungle shrines to tribal villages and high-altitude moonscapes, there's a wilder India out thereOnce, I watched a full moon rise over an empty salt desert. The air was still. The earth glowed silver. There were no selfie-taking tourists, no tour groups, no ticket booths, no glossy brochures. Just silence, and space, and something ancient I couldn't name. Moments like this are why it puzzles me when foreign travellers come all this way only to stick to the well-trodden path.

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Danielle Demetriou |Maia Roston |Thomas O'Malley |Clare Macnaughton

On the very rare occasions I spy someone on their phone on a train, it is clearly some kind of an emergency (or a senior boss who cannot be ignored) - typically their head is apologetically bowed, one hand over their mouth, as they quietly whisper, as far away from other passengers as possible. As a former Londoner raising two daughters in Japan - first in central Tokyo, now in Kyoto - embracing silence hasn't always come easily to me, even after close to 18 years.

1 month ago | telegraph.co.uk | Thomas O'Malley |Clare Macnaughton |Billy Saxon |Damien Gabet

Our expert reveals how to plan the trip of a lifetime to this ancient, fascinating - and dauntingly huge - countryThe Great Wall, Shanghai's skyscrapers, giant pandas, the Terracotta Army, all those delicious dumplings - the reasons to visit China are legion. Hoping to boost its ailing post-pandemic economy, the world's most populous country is declaring to foreign tourists, "China wants you".