Welcome to East-West News Service

Explore and learn about almost any topic regarding world travel, cultural travel, Covid travel, top travel destinations, airlines, cruise lines and hotels written by award-winning travel writers and journalists. Our travel and cultural analysis articles – and stunning travel photo essays by professional travel photographers – will empower you to learn more about USA travel, North American travel, Asia travel, Europe travel, Middle East travel and Central and South America travel.

Our goal at EWNS is to share travel writings focused on the rich history, culture & economy of a location. Writings about traveling to the world’s most beautiful places to articles with well-informed analysis spotlight our top destinations. EWNS aims to equip readers/travelers with the insights they need upon arrival at their chosen location. We invite you to explore with us.

Publisher WW Norton & Company | Reviewed by Nancy Wigston

Pack your bags, saddle your horses, load your stores of wine—not forgetting your final will and testament—for we’re off to the Middle Ages with the most excellent guide, Anthony Bale, a professor of medieval studies at the University of London’s Birkbeck College. This deeply intriguing piece of historical detective work enlightens us about our travelling forebears while inevitably unearthing our own travel memories. But first, what did the world look like in 1491?  By the late 1400s, mass tourism had attracted travelers very like us to foreign, especially religious, sites. Travel offered many benefits, from escaping troubles at home to receiving saints’ blessings, and earning indulgences—reprieves for one’s allotted time in Purgatory. A very holy site like Jerusalem granted Christians plenary indulgences, wiping clean their upcoming years in Purgatory. In 1300, a Jubilee Year, a million people came to Rome to be absolved of sins. As travellers proceeded to Jaffa along the coast, many kept travel diaries describing their quarters often lively with rats. Read More