One of the main questions I get asked when people are wondering how to plan a trip is what attractions should they visit considering their tastes, interests and the time they have available.

It seems that in whichever way you start to research a place to visit —especially a big city like Paris or Shanghai for example— be it a guide book, a book at the local library, a person who’s already visited the city or Google, the task is a daunting one.

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I’ve spoken before about ancient civilizations, but Lascaux is even older than what we might call “ancient”.

I am always fascinated by the past, but viewed in the right context what seems old is not that old at all.

Here’s a place where we can get in touch with our earliest ancestors (or at least get an idea, more on that later) and try to get a feel of what the world was for them, how they saw it and how they lived in it.

Imagine a group of people gathered around a sacred place, painting subjects that were important for them, to the light of a torch or a small ceramic lamp with so much care.

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A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a National Geographic photograph of the Shwedagon Pagoda, en Myanmar, a sight I had never seen before and my jaw literally dropped to my chest.

Photo taken by Ralf-André Lettau, Wikipedia.

The gleaming gold structure does not resemble any western idea of architecture and it kind of looked to me like something out of this world.

But I’ve learned not to underestimate the power and wonder of the human spirit and instead I went on to research this magnificent temple.

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I heard it said a couple of times before that Simon Bolivar (Simón Bolívar as it is written in Spanish) is the historical character with more statues in the world.

Really?

I don’t know if that’s true, but there are certainly statues of the Latin America liberator in places that have nothing to do with his story or achievements. I find that fact surprising and intriguing.

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I am an enthusiastic advocate of packing light. As light as possible, at least! I do feel for the poor tourists who drag around huge pieces of luggage down cobblestone streets, taking the bus or at the airport.

People ask me about what to pack all the time! What exactly is packing light? What does that look like?

It seems it’s hard to choose because you don’t know if you might need some item or not and you don’t really know how the weather is going to be.

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