DISPATCH No. 84 · KYOTO · 12 MIN READ
On the long walk from Daitoku-ji to Hōnen-in
A morning in two temples and a noodle shop in between. Notes on what cherry-blossom tourism actually looks like at five in the morning, and on the small dignity of monks who have to sweep around photographers.
READ THE DISPATCH →RECENT DISPATCHES
DISPATCH No. 83 · LISBON
The fado bars that don't have signs
Two nights in Alfama, looking for the room with the third chair empty.
MAR 26 · 9 MIN READ
READ →DISPATCH No. 82 · OAXACA
Mornings at the Mercado de Abastos
Notes on a market that opens at 5 and what a stranger eats for breakfast.
MAR 12 · 11 MIN READ
READ →DISPATCH No. 81 · NORTH UIST
On a tide and a small ferry
Two days on a Hebridean island, mostly waiting for weather.
FEB 26 · 14 MIN READ
READ →DISPATCH No. 80 · MEXICO CITY
The taqueria with no name in Polanco
How a recommendation from a stranger ended a six-day search.
FEB 12 · 7 MIN READ
READ →DISPATCH No. 79 · BERLIN
Five days in February, three of them grey
On the small joys of a city in its quietest month.
JAN 29 · 10 MIN READ
READ →DISPATCH No. 78 · MARRAKECH
The riad with the orange tree
Three nights at a guesthouse so small it has only four rooms.
JAN 15 · 8 MIN READ
READ →ABOUT
Yusuf Vaughan is a travel writer and photographer. He writes the dispatch newsletter A Long Way Around — a fortnightly letter from somewhere far from his desk in Brooklyn — and his work has appeared in Condé Nast Traveler, Afar, The New Yorker, and Cereal magazine. His first book, a collection of dispatches from the eight Marches he spent in different countries, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2027.
FROM THE FIELD
Get the dispatch when it lands.
I send a dispatch every other week — usually from somewhere I'm currently in, occasionally from the desk. Free to read; the paid tier gets the full long-form guides and access to the archive.
FREE · OR $8 / MONTH FOR PAID GUIDES
SUBSCRIBE — IT'S FREE →