Cameron Carpenter-Warren

Founding Contributor

I travel to understand the world better—and understand my place in it.

I’m drawn to cultures that feel unfamiliar at first glance, but reveal the same underlying threads you find anywhere: people getting on with life, shaped by their history, environment, and circumstances.

I’m quite introverted, which makes travelling a challenge at times. It nudges me into conversations and situations I’d normally avoid, and more often than not, those moments turn out to be the most rewarding.

What I enjoy most is getting beneath the surface—finding the details, habits, and stories that make a place feel unique rather than just different. I don’t travel to tick off sights, but to build a clearer picture of how people live.

I'm writing simply to share my experiences. Not as a guide or a set of instructions, but as an honest record. If it encourages anyone to step a little further outside their comfort zone, then I should be very happy.

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Destinations

Places featured across recent stories.

China 7 stories
Japan 4 stories
India
Republic of Serbia

Stories by Cameron Carpenter-Warren

Mount Fuji as seen going on the shinkansen, travelling at 300 kilometres per hour.
🇯🇵   Japan 10 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Failing to ‘Do’ Japan, and understanding it more deeply
The view of Mt Fuji from Lake Ashi is one of Japan’s most iconic sights, but it’s often lost behind mist. At times, Japan’s social boundaries can feel like another kind of mist for visitors, yet accepting them can reveal more of the country, not less.
 The former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, located almost directly beneath the atomic bomb’s hypocentre, remains standing as a skeletal ruin.
🇯🇵   Japan 10 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Hiroshima. The city that refused to be erased
The Japanese city of Hiroshima was subjected to the most brutal weapon in humanity's arsenal. Join me as I walk around the city and its surrounding areas, exploring how its people, infrastructure, and even its baseball team, managed to rejuvenate so spectacularly.
 The snaking path of the Uvac river
🇷🇸   Republic of Serbia 10 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Storms and unhappy tourists on Serbia's Uvac River
Balkan countries like Serbia are increasingly popular alternative destinations for many travellers. I visited Serbia's Uvac Special Nature Reserve and the Ledena Pecina caves in heavy storms with a group of uncooperative tour members. Here's what my experience was like.
 Your author enjoying a private Onsen
🇯🇵   Japan 10 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Naked in Nikko. Experiencing Japan's famous onsen
Onsen are Japan's public baths that are popular with citizens and visitors alike. I didn't anticipate learning the most about Japan while nude, but my onsen dip in Nikko demonstrated how attitudes toward public nudity, body image, and even tattoos differ in Japan.
 A cherry blossom in tokyo.
🇯🇵   Japan 5 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
There is more than one way to appreciate cherry blossoms in Tokyo
Hanami is the act of enjoying Japan’s brief blossom season. Between Tokyo’s gardens and a sakura‑goldfish exhibit in Ginza, I saw people enjoying picnics under the trees, people watching the season pass on screens, hurried salarymen missing it entirely.
 The groom bartering for access to his wife.
🇮🇳   India 15 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
A Hindu wedding in Ramnagar. Drums, food, dancing, repeat
I spent two days as a guest at a Hindu wedding in Ramnagar, playing cricket between rounds of drums, fire, dancing, and avalanches of hospitality I was absolutely not prepared for. This is what it’s like to attend the grandest destination wedding.
 A Chinese dragon, sculpted from an interesting piece of bamboo inside a traditional chinese bamboo carving workshop.
🇨🇳   China 10 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Inside a bamboo carver’s workshop in Qīngchéng
In a bamboo carving workshop in Sìchuān, a craftsman studied me for all of five minutes before carving a pendant that rewrote my personality in two lines—equal parts Sun Tzu, affection, and gentle humiliation.
 Night-time Hóngyádòng 洪崖洞 as viewed from Gate of a Thousand Servants Bridge (千厮门桥).
🇨🇳   China 5 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Chinese dining etiquette in real life. Drinking báijiǔ before lunch in Chóngqìng
I travelled to Chóngqìng to experience authentic Chinese dining etiquette, and instead found myself drinking baíjiǔ before lunch and learning more about the country’s hospitality than any guidebook could teach.
 The multicoloured, stepped pools of Huánglóng Valley.
🇨🇳   China 5 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Huánglóng Valley. Visiting the multicoloured pools of the Yellow Dragon
Huánglóng National Park, also known as Yellow Dragon Valley, features gorgeous multicoloured pools. Reaching it involves climbing to 4,000 metres, passing through misty forests and a surreal market devoted to fungus products.
 A chinese hot pot served in it's home city of Chóngqìng (重庆)
🇨🇳   China 5 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Enjoying a Chinese hot pot in Chóngqìng when a nunchaku-wielding man crashes the meal
“Chóngqìng is home to China’s iconic hot pot. I came to learn about the origins of this famous dish, but the meal took a turn when a jilted lover burst into the restaurant and started waving his nunchaku around.
 The shopping mall walkway leading to the local Chinese supermarket
🇨🇳   China 3 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Exploring Chinese culture in a supermarket in Héféi
A walk through a local supermarket in Héféi became an unexpected crash course in Chinese culture. Wander the aisles with me to explore attitudes toward fresh food, booze, and the very different ideas of acceptable body types for men and women.
 The largest lake in jiǔzhàigōu (九寨沟) the nine village valley in the Sìchuān mountains.
🇨🇳   China 5 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
Dazzling lakes in the Sìchuān mountains and the valley of Jiǔzhàigōu
Jiǔzhàigōu National Park is home to dazzling multicoloured lakes and are deep in Tibetan and Chinese heritage. Join me as an unlikely foreign tourist on a group tour through Sìchuān's dramatic valleys and wildlife.
 The turquoise pagoda and lotus ponds of new Guìhuā park where I recovered after my Guāshā massage.
🇨🇳   China 5 minutes
Cameron Carpenter-Warren
A painful guāshā massage and the ancient gardens in Xīndū
Guāshā is a traditional East Asian healing therapy where flat stones are scraped across the skin to release tension and improve circulation. Share in my experience with this intense ritual.