Globe Corner Blogs

There are not many occasions when following a guide book feels like taking advice from a native, but Fiona Caulfield accomplishes the impossible, creating a compendium of  ”better than a native” suggestions in the Love Guides for India. An Australian native, she has made India her home. Given our ongoing obsession with the Love Guides and my recent trip to India, we decided to pick Fiona Caulfield’s brain for even more tips than her books already provide. Fiona Caulfield is officially our newest author crush.

1. Do you prefer aisle or window? (Please explain.)

Aisle, specifically an aisle in a middle row. I need freedom.

2. The Love Guides are incredibly detailed. How long did you travel in India before you started making them to compile your bank of insider information?

I first travelled to India in 1992, then again in 2001. I became a resident in India late 2004 with the idea for the brand and then published the first book in February 2007. It now takes about a year to research the first edition of a book.

3. The guidebooks themselves and the maps and drawings they contain are so charming. What gives you the inspiration for their design?

The design brief was sensuality and the content brief intimacy. I wanted the content to feel like I had written a letter to a good friend and the drawings to be like a sketch I would include in a letter, if I could draw. Continue Reading »

The huge metropolis known as Delhi is overwhelming, chaotic, and bombarding – even for the most experienced traveller. But the Love Delhi guidebook by Fiona Caulfield seeks out the lovely, the hip, and the local places. It’s easy to get frustrated deciphering what’s worth seeing on a visit, but, delving into Delhi armed with the Love Guides, I seemed always to find myself in some beautiful and unknown territory.

Caulfield’s focus on the local and organic businesses of Delhi not only promotes sustainability, but also makes discovering the ever-coveted small, quaint spots easy to find. Destination attractions are listed and reviewed, but Caulfield recommends temples, restaurants, clubs, and bars that aren’t in other guidebooks. Following Caulfield’s directions, I skipped the temples I knew would be tourist ridden and headed to a temple a few minutes south of the city. At this point in the trip, after Kathmandu Valley in Nepal and Jaipur and surrounding Rajasthan, I had already visited countless temples, but these vivid colors are forever imprinted in my mind. This temple had checkered floors, towering pillars, colors that rivaled the street vendors in old Delhi, and a towering, fifty-plus foot statue of Hanuman, the monkey god. Encountering no other foreigners here, I wandered, marveled, and filled up my camera’s memory card. Continue Reading »