Finnuala Brett addresses the recent humanitarian and innately feminist crisis of the treatment of women and minorities under current Iranian regimes. I am not a woman of Iran, but I am a woman. And in my womanhood, I can ride a bike in the streets of my town, or wear shorts in summer when it’s too hot and trousers would stick to my skin. I leave the country without a man; I have sexual autonomy; if I wish to prioritise my career I will not be deemed less than the woman I could be as a wife. “J

Every year, the editors of National Geographic Traveller (UK) judge hundreds of entries in their search for the next big travel-writing talent. The competition asks for 500 words on an inspiring, authentic experience that conveys a strong sense of the destination and the local people. Here are 2022’s prize-winning entry and runners-up. In a secluded corner of French Polynesia, Rangiroa offers extravagant beauty and wildlife. Words: James Bregman Captain Hiro’s cry isn’t an offer of refreshments.

The Croft Magazine // It’s not the place you travel to, but rather your openness to a journey that can leave a lasting impact on the self. Travel challenges your perceptions of the world as it is known to you, and helps affirm your sense of place in it. Nearly three years ago, I left home by myself for the first time. After two months of vividly new experiences, I spent the eleven hour return flight wallowing over my journal, reading and re-reading every word about every day. The thought of dri

For two days, we walked through land as sombrely beautiful and old as Arthurian legend, hills that did not seem to have stirred since their making. Modern life had only just begun to trickle down through the creases of some valleys; others it had not touched at all. The winds did not ease in their fierce gusts, and the rain was constant enough to burst rivers, turn paths into streams. Each day we woke before the sun, ate together and left in our groups. We would start walking in six layers or

In a tent you tend to be woken with the rising of morning, a soft light tinted by nylon canvas that seeps under your eyelids before you realise you are awake. The circadian rhythm of the outdoors is unavoidable. This morning, however, it was not daylight that woke me up, but ambling hooves muffled by grass. I rubbed my eyes, groaning a bit. I didn’t feel quite alive yet and hadn’t noticed the noises from outside. Then the gentle whinnying of a horse - scarce metres away - interrupted my yawn

This year’s “Afrika Eye Film Festival” recently visited Bristol’s Cube Microplex - an independent and not-for-profit cinema, run entirely by volunteers - with the screening of two recent films focusing on the stories and lives of refugees, and the immense challenges they face. With absolute honesty and urgency, both documentaries pose an uncomfortable challenge to the world: they ‘re-humanise’ the refugee in a way that newspapers and media often fail to. Through the eyes of volunteers, asylum se

My name is Finnuala Brett and I am studying Liberal Arts at Bristol University. This piece is a refined amalgamation of diary entries that I wrote over the summer just gone. Journaling has recently become transformative for me as an opportunity for deep reflection and a way to grapple with feeling and experience. An introspective diary that is intended to be neither wise nor intelligent; it is not anything other than itself and me. I saw a dead bird today. Bike keys dangling between fingers, m