Stand in the middle of Tokyo station and watch someone who is deaf navigating it. They're fine. They're better than fine, actually – they're moving with a kind of fluency that any bewildered hearing tourist, headphones in, waiting for an announcement to tell them which platform to use, would quietly envy. That's because Tokyo station wasn't just designed for people…

Picture two cities, both claiming to be Europe's most visited destination. Both have the statistics to prove it. Both are right, and both are lying, and neither is doing it on purpose. This is the quiet chaos underneath every "top destinations" list you have ever clicked on, and it has more influence over where you end up than you might…

Somewhere in your head there is a map. It has the Lake District on it, and the Cotswolds, and probably Cornwall at the bottom. It has Edinburgh as the obvious Scottish city, and maybe St Davids or Snowdonia if you're feeling Wales-y. You didn't draw this map – you absorbed it, from adverts and school trips and the way your…

Every few decades, somewhere stops being a place and becomes a memory of itself. The hotels don't all close at once. The souvenir shops hang on for another season or two. But something has already left – the particular quality of attention that makes a destination a destination rather than just somewhere you can go. The interesting thing isn't that…