Hey there, travellers,

Greetings from somewhere in Lithuania! At the time of writing, I'm a little over one hour into an 11-hour train journey between Vilnius and Tallinn. And my entire train carriage is bright pink. 

When I boarded, bleary-eyed, at 6:55 AM, I wondered if Lithuania had a particular penchant for Barbie — how very 2023, I thought. And then I noticed the egg sticker on the window, and the table decal showing dill, cucumber and half boiled eggs floating on a pink background.

A few sips of coffee later, I finally noticed the sticker in the middle of the train table emblazoned with the words, "VILNIUS PINK SOUP FEST." So strong is the Lithuanian love of cold beetroot soup (šaltibarščiai), apparently, that they have a festival celebrating it each May. And this summer, overland Baltic travellers have also been given the chance to live a beetroot-drenched dream aboard the Pink Soup Train.

It seems I'm lucky, too, as this weekend is the carriage's last hurrah of the year. While it would have been nice to get a few more hours' sleep before stepping into this Wonka-esque world of cheery food stuffs, I'd now quite like to try a bowl of the pink stuff. 

My stopover in Lithuania was fleeting, unfortunately. But I'm pretty confident there'll be a vibrant Estonian version waiting to greet me in Tallinn, albeit minus the waving eggs.

Happy travels and safe landings,

Katy - Editor of The Detour

By Akasha

Flight Finder Akasha finds phenomenal flights faster than you can decide where you want to take a trip to next. A pro at finding the best of the best fares, she's also a master at sharing must-visit spots for when you land.

Simon scales fences, evades police, and crawls through asbestos. I followed him into the dark to understand what dead places do to the living. 

A burly man, cloaked in black, waits for me in the deadzone of security cameras. I’ve known him for all of half an hour, and now here I sit, teetering atop a 10ft fence, trusting that he’ll catch me if I fall. My cotton gloves are useless, offering no protection as the chain links dig into my skin. One foot scrambles for a hold, dangling for a second too long; far below, the ground is a mélange of brambles and broken concrete. 

Expertly reeling, my mind fires off a million worst-case scenarios: a broken ankle, a dog chase, disappearing off the face of the earth. My phone buzzed in my pocket — a friend’s text from Canada, “You alive?” as if her panic could bridge an ocean.

I’d sent her his Instagram profile earlier: no last name, no identifiable locations, zero posts of sunlight. Just a feed of abandoned nuclear sites. I prayed she’d at least pick a flattering thumbnail for the inevitable true-crime podcast. 

And yet, there’s something entirely too intoxicating about this moment. A forbidden dare, a promise of secret worlds hidden in plain sight. The rush comes before I even hit the ground.

This is Urbex — urban exploration — the exploration of manmade structures usually off-limits or abandoned. A regular Thursday for my new friend Simon, the man in black.

We connected weeks earlier through a dead Reddit thread, his username half-buried between broken links and breadcrumb co-ordinates. No small talk, no promises — this wasn’t a tour. Just a time he’d pick me up and the unspoken rule: “Don’t slow me down.”

Just like hackers, lurking in the shadows of society, bypassing firewalls and cracking code, urbexers chase the thrill of uncovering a backdoor into the supposedly inaccessible.

Later, I’d ask him about the moment he fell in love with Urbex. He thinks for a moment before answering with certainty. “The atmosphere. It’s like seeing the earth without humans. It’s ephemeral, temporary, history, and adrenaline all wrapped in one. And photography, of course." He pauses, a glint of passion in his eyes. “It’s about capturing something that’s fading, something that won’t be there forever.”

Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, nuclear bunkers and NYC’s legendary TB sanatorium are some of the hundreds of sites featured on Simon’s Instagram — an apocalyptic obsession fuelled by more than a decade of exploration. 

The son of a photographer, documenting his adventures is essential to him, as is the web of intricate tattoos sprawled across his skin; both ink and images are a blueprint of a life lived on the edge. He’s mastered the classic “hero shot:” a solitary figure, often snapped from behind, half swallowed by shadow and dwarfed by the grandeur of decay. 

Back in Hungary, en route to the first of two sites Simon has agreed to show me, I launch into question mode. Naturally, I want to know if he’s ever been busted, and the probability of being caught today. With his eyes focused on the road, I’m speaking mostly to his face tattoo, a leviathan cross on the side of his cheek. Its meaning I can only guess. 

“Yeah, I got caught sleeping in my hammock at Baikonur.” Baikonur, I am to learn, is an abandoned military base in the desert of Kazakhstan, a cathedral to the USSR’s failed Buran space program, housing two enormous, decrepit Soviet space shuttles.

It’s the ultimate endgame for Urbex explorers: sealed off, locked down, and just waiting for someone to bypass its firewall. Simon tells me of his masochistic journey there: A three day, forty kilometer night hike through the desert and a subsequent four days inside a Soviet military prison — a small price to pay for his SD card. 

Following the fence jump, Simon lays his backpack over the twisted snarls of a barbed wire hole I am to climb through. He emphasizes the importance of taking quiet, calculated movements, “I once fell through the roof of an abandoned morgue, got stuck between the roof and the glass and cut my arm up real bad.”

Despite his broad frame, he slips through with expert ease, a feat that seems almost cruel as I attempt to follow. His boots looked like they’d kicked in every door between here and Chernobyl. 

Mine? Soft-toed sketchers with arch support, the kind reviewed by moms visiting Disneyland. Half his size, yet twice as clumsy, I muddle through, my down jacket a caught bird against the steel. The Urbex hierarchy was clear.

He’s agreed to show me two sites today. A Cold War bunker in the Hungarian mountains and a legendary spot in the Urbex community, Kelenfold Power Station — a crumbling Art Deco cathedral of electricity, once the pride of Europe, now sealed off and slowly eroding into dust.

A beat-up old rental. A man I’ve never met. And me, alone in a foreign country, climbing into the passenger seat with nothing but a backpack and blind faith. What could possibly go wrong?

Step into the full story here.

Hey there, reader! Congrats on your wedding and MEGA congrats on the exciting honeymoon ahead. Amsterdam is a particularly good city for Indonesia connections, since you have lots of options. 

Sure, there’s the KLM of it all, but you also have the option of non-stop flights to Jakarta with Garuda Indonesia, and cheaper connections via the Middle East. In the last six months, we’ve seen that non-stop route around €650 return, while a one-stop route with Saudia has taken things below the €400 mark. For that bit of luxury, check out Etihad for business class fares — they’re currently sitting around €1.8k return, which isn’t too bad.

Of course, you may be looking more towards somewhere like Bali for the romantic island vibes. We sometimes see fares there for under €500, but recently they’ve mostly been via China — not exactly the quickest route! Given the handy Jakarta connections, and the plethora of cheap island hopping available from there, that’s where I’d focus my flight hunting.

As for where to go, that obviously depends on what you’re looking for. Bali has the reputation and lush resorts to match, but it can be overwhelmed with tourists. Have a look here at what the Jack’s Community had to say about where to skip and what to see in and around Bali.

Away from the mega tourist track, there’s another bucket-list Indonesian experience you might want to consider: orangutan spotting in the jungle. That’s a pretty special honeymoon treat, so if it takes your fancy, do some research and look for an ethical tour company. I found this reddit thread pretty useful.

Now it’s over to the rest of you, dear readers! Have you got any special Indonesia tips for our honeymooners? Where should they go to make memories with a touch of pizzazz? Let us know in the comments or by replying to this email.