The cultural psychology behind something as simple as crossing the street.

“A city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time.” — Patrick Geddes Canary Wharf, London, United Kingdom, August 2025 Introduction It’s 6:14 AM in Shenzhen airport. I’m in transit to Seoul, wide awake on London time after a sleepless night on a Starbucks couch. Reflecting on ten weeks in the city I once thought I knew, the hum of London still purred in my chest. Before: The Bias of Memory It was an absurd luxury being in one of the world’s most expensive cities wi

We live in a world obsessed with adding more. But at Wulanhada in Inner Mongolia, I realised the real challenge is learning what to subtract.

I used to nod at famous paintings, snap a picture, and call it culture. Then somewhere between a cheese painting, Bath’s Georgian streets, and Van Gogh’s trembling roses, something changed.

One evening in Dubrovnik, when the horizon flashed with lightning and rain drizzled over the medieval buildings, I felt a spark of energy. I was dressed for the night — makeup done, black skirt and red lace top on, ready to join the young travellers drinking on the top deck — when something in me shifted. Instead of heading to pre-drinks, I leapt off the boat.

If you’re thinking about booking Sail Croatia, here’s what my week was like (spoiler: a mix of turquoise swims, backpacker banter, and nights out at fortress clubs).

The Lake District is most certainly the most beautiful place I've been in the UK, and it even felt like a pocket of New Zealand in Europe.

There’s a reason people say your environment shapes you, though it’s not usually in the way we imagine. It isn’t that sitting in a trendy lobby scouting out the CEOs by their Italian leather briefcases magically makes you more productive, or that surrounding yourself with ambitious people guarantees you’ll suddenly share their drive. The truth is subtler: environment shapes belief, and belief is the thing that tips you into action.

I remember my first circuit class at the gym with Tom. Well, technically, my second one—but that first real attempt where I made it through the full warm-up and thought I might actually die. I’d done my fair share of running, even dabbled in weight training, but five minutes into this class I was puffing like I’d never moved in my life. By the end of the 45 minutes, I was drenched, beet-red, and wrecked. I didn’t go back for a month. I didn’t like the pain.

I have 26,682 photos. Isn’t being part of Gen Z just wonderful? I tell myself it’s fine to take a hundred in one go of me posing in various ways because I’ll delete the bad ones later. So there I am, same background, same moody smile, same outfit. A hundred times. 

The Willow in the Lake is a short creative piece written from the perspective of the Wānaka Tree — a lone willow in New Zealand’s Lake...

There’s something about knowing your time in a place is limited. It makes you do more, see more, appreciate things others take for granted. That urgency creates a magnetism. Newness carries a kind of magic. Barely 24 hours in, and he was already renting a car and planning a spontaneous trip. I admire—and miss—that kind of energy. The kind I had while on exchange at Dartmouth.

I was convinced that moving abroad—somewhere new, vibrant, exciting—would finally make me feel fulfilled. After all, when I was in Thailand on exchange, I was happy. When I was back in Auckland? Not so much.

Today I chatted with a 23-year-old cofounder of a $5 million technology startup. We connected on LinkedIn, set up a call, and what was initially planned as a 25-minute slot turned into an engaging hour-and-a-half discussion about careers, entrepreneurship, and mindsets for success.

I froze. My brain started firing on all cylinders, and my heart raced. Do I do it? I hesitated for what felt like an eternity.

I used to think vision boards were just star-sign-y, manifestation-y woo-woo—how could pasting colorful images onto blank white make your

During my three-month exchange term at Dartmouth in the fall, I started noticing people wearing handmade-looking rings. When I complimented them, they’d casually say, “Oh, I made it at the jewelry studio.” I added it to my mental bucket list… and promptly forgot about it.

What is the American college experience like? Is it really like what we see in the movies? These questions planted the seed for me to apply for an exchange in the U.S. I’m from New Zealand (NZ), where most people grow up engaging heavily with American media and entertainment from politics to Hollywood.

My phone buzzed. “This email is regarding the Allen House New York Trip. Your current status is: Waitlisted.” My shoulders slumped. The house committee was organising a weekend trip to New York for forty students — a trip everyone wanted in on — and I’d been wishing so hard I might bend luck in my favour.

American students told me Dartmouth is not a sports school, so its games aren't a good representation of American football culture.