travel – Tom Vater

The Best Books on Nepal

June 21, 2021June 21, 2021tom

I was invited to select 5 of my favorite books on Nepal. I picked the five books I feel will introduce Nepal best to a first time visitor. Tiger for Breakfast by Michel Peissel The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer Kathmandu by […]

Brand new paperback edition of The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu

May 28, 2021June 13, 2021tom

The Devil’s Road to Kathmandu is out in a new paperback edition with Next Chapter. ‘The Devil’s Road To Kathmandu’ is a tense, fast paced and kaleidoscopic pulp thriller, following the lives of two generations of drifters who become embroiled in a saga of sex, drugs and murder on the road between London and the […]

Ko Pha Ngan: Thailand’s tropical refuge, then and now – My long read at Travelfish

October 1, 2020October 1, 2020tomLeave a Comment

My latest reportage is a long read on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand, with eye witness accounts going back to the 1940s. I arrived on Koh Phangan on March 17th 2020 to update a German language guidebook on the Gulf islands. A few days after my arrival, the update was canceled, thanks to […]

Koh Phangan – Thailand’s Tropical Refuge Then & Now – out with Travelfish on October 1st

September 24, 2020September 24, 2020tomLeave a Comment

My long read, a lively history of Koh Phangan in Thailand, home of the infamous Full Moon Party and so much more, is out with Travelfish on October 1st. I interviewed numerous residents, both Thai and foreigners, providing eye witness accounts dating back to the 1940s, with great anecdotes and intriguing insights on island life.

Conservation activists urge post-pandemic tourism reset in Thailand in The Nikkei Asian Review

August 8, 2020tomLeave a Comment

My latest article with Laure Siegel on conservation initiatives in the Gulf of Thailand is out in The Nikkei Asian Review. “There are kids in Thailand who cannot identify a coconut. And if people don’t learn to appreciate what their country has, they will only think about how to make money out of our natural […]

Thailand’s holiday hotspots have become dystopian ghost towns in The Daily Telegraph

July 10, 2020July 10, 2020tomLeave a Comment

The white sands of Bo Phut Beach on Koh Samui, a popular tourist island in the Gulf of Thailand that usually sees more than two million visitors a year, lie deserted. A couple of jet skis and kayaks bake in the sun, looking more like beached whales than sports equipment waiting for sunbathers. Following the […]

Guidebooks in the Age of Covid in the Nikkei Asian Review

July 1, 2020July 1, 2020tomLeave a Comment

I had just reached Don Sak pier, a coastal Thai ferry port for boats to the tourist islands of Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, when I almost lost my mind. I was at the end of a 10-week, 80-destination travel stint for the British publisher Rough Guides, researching the Thailand chapter for the […]

Thai tropical paradise finds opportunity in adversity – in The Nikkei Asian Review

May 29, 2020May 29, 2020tomLeave a Comment

My latest story with Laure Siegel in the Nikkei Asian Review from our temporary lockdown sanctuary, Koh Phangan in Thailand. KOH PHANGAN, Thailand — In the late afternoon sun, a long line of sandals snakes down the beachfront road in Thong Sala, the main town on Koh Phangan, a tourist island in the Gulf of […]

We were somewhere around Barstow – my Hunter S Thompson tribute from 2005

February 21, 2020February 21, 2020tomLeave a Comment

Tom Vater’s favorite opening line in literature is Hunter S Thompson’s awesome first words in ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’. We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. On a recent trip to California I drove from LA to Fresno. With Hunter in mind, […]

The Monsoon Ghost Image reviewed at Categorically Well Read

February 4, 2020February 19, 2020tomLeave a Comment

Fantastic and exhaustive review of the third Detective Maier novel, The Monsoon Ghost Image at Categorically Well Read, published by Crime Wave Press: I was curious as I read my way through this trilogy of thrillers why Vater decided to set them in 2001-2, the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. With TMGI his […]