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Story
How to Scam Wal-Mart For Free Camping Gear
This is a tale of how five young boys took on the corporate giants, putting the no-questions-asked refund policy of Wal-Mart to the ultimate test. Could the purchased items survive a three-day festival in the middle of the desert and be returned for a full reimbursement? There was only one way to find out. Preparing…
8 minRead time
Story
A Piranha in Laos
I will never forget the screams of those floating Germans. There I was, belly up on a scorching tube, drifting down the guts of the Mekong River, when a tiny fish decided to take the toe of a Deutschland-hailing backpacker. And by take, I mean bite the fuck off. As I attempted, in vain, to…
8 minRead time
Current Affairs Feature
Tiger Traps
In the North of India, lost somewhere in the heart of Rajasthan, near a tiny town with a single dirt road, I went looking for tigers. In a national park as big as a small country, the way you look for tigers is simple: you drive and drive across prairies and through forests, around lakes…
10 minRead time
Editorial
Finding Solace in Solitude at Eighteen
After hours cruising along the lone highway with nothing but my own thoughts, the bustling city centres that loom beyond exit signs seem ironically uninviting. Daunting, even. It was a shivering autumn's day when I tentatively told my friends at lunch that I wanted to buy a van. In between classes, those 40 minutes gave…
6 minRead time
Feature
Iranian Women Are Changing the Game
My third evening in the Islamic Republic of Iran lands me in an underground music gig in a hip café-cum-alcohol-free-bar in the capital, Tehran, where a special band is playing. The café swells with young tehranis, a small ocean of dark hair, streetwear and hijabs moving with excitement. Besides the bluish light illuminating the stage,…
9 minRead time
Bali Feature
I Ate Ice Cream at Bali’s Biggest Rubbish Dump
I notice the wildlife before the people. Between the hoards of holy cows and scavengers of the sky, there’s fierce competition for edible waste. I’m ankle deep in rubbish before I notice nimble fingers combing through the dump. This is Suwung, the largest official landfill site in Bali—a 44-hectare cleared plot of land. Once a…
11 minRead time

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.