Our latest travel writing: in print and online

Aside from our new Lonely Planet Syria and Lebanon guidebook hitting the shelves, we had a couple of articles appear on the web recently. Check out our "Off the beach in Crete" piece on the NineMSN Travel website. Yes, it is a Greek Island and it is summer, but there is life beyond the beach resorts and this is one island where we strongly believe that getting off the beaten track is more rewarding than staying on the well-trodden sand. Likewise, avoiding the throngs of tourists and thousands of groups that stream through Rome's Vatican Museums each day by doing a private after-hours tour is the only way I'd recommend you visit the museums and Sistine Chapel, having now done it both ways. Terry and I road-tested one of the private tours offered by Viator when we were in Rome a few months ago (as you know, we don't recommend or write about anything we haven't tried ourselves), and this is definitely the way to do it. You can read why I think so in my post for Viator, Why Lara loved her after-hours Vatican tour (sorry, not a very original title, I know), and also here in my own post. A few readers have asked where they can buy our books... well, if you don't have a good travel bookshop near you (or any bookshop for that matter, but travel bookshops are much more fun, aren't they?), you can always buy our guidebooks online from Amazon.com via my Cool Travel Guide Shop where I've compiled our titles. I haven't updated it in a while, so a couple of titles are missing, but I promise to do so soon. You can also go straight to Amazon or other online bookshops, but obviously if you buy a book here I get a little commission. The photo? A young Italian couple kissing among the columns at St. Peters, Rome.