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Bhanged Up Abroad
“Dinner, madam?” A small frame stretched up and peered into my bed with inquisitive eyes as the Aravalli Range whipped past through the window behind him. He was a dabbawala – a lunchbox delivery man – and he couldn’t have come at a better time. For several weeks now, I had been traipsing across the…
I Hope You Catch Yellow Fever and Die
I’m not your fetish. I’m not easy for you to obtain, and I’m not an object of your affections. I am a Chinese girl with a dark complexion, green hair and a loud mouth. I am a Chinese girl who has spent most of her life living in the city of Brisbane, a predominantly white-populated…
Sin Palabras: Speechless in the Chilean Desert
Photo by Jens Johnsson Camping in the Atacama Desert with a group of Chilean hippies was always going to present something of a communication challenge. With my bare-bones Spanish, I had needed help just to translate the invitation. It offered a position volunteering at a weekend gathering of ceremony and traditional medicine called Vive Piuke Mapu, 150…
I Hitchhiked Around Albania
I sit in the back seat of an old Mercedes-Benz that smells like cheap tobacco and think about what I should say to the mystery man behind the wheel. Squished next to me and buried under our backpacks are Noam and Ziv, two Israeli girls I met in a hostel in Sarandë. Our driver and…
The Astray Guide to Not Looking Like a Tourist in Spain
Did you know that Spaniards have their own term of disendearment for us? Well they do, it’s guiri (pronounced giddy), and it basically means sunburnt foreigner who puts chorizo in all their dishes, but is also levelled at us whenever we commit a faux pas while travelling in the kingdom. Your Spanish friends/girlfriend/in-laws will place hand…
Here Is Good
I stare out the plane window at the twinkling lights in the darkness below. That’s Japan down there. Hitting the ground feels like victory: a life’s dream of coming here fulfilled in the matter of seconds. With a big smile despite my tired eyes, I step out of the arrival gate and drink in the…

Astray is a storytelling project centred on travel, place, culture and identity.

We’re run by a team of writers who mostly live, work and play in nipaluna / Hobart. With reverence, we acknowledge the Tasmanian Aboriginal people as the traditional and ongoing custodians of trouwunna / lutruwita / Tasmania: land that was stolen and never ceded. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.