Nigerian novelist Ben Okri tackles the really big questions of our time: inequality, immigration, education and, yes, love. He does this by looking at the world and then deep inside himself until he touches the source of his own truth

Lending a hand on organic farms in exchange for room and board is a great way to meet real people around the world. English writer Kathryn Good discovered this in Australia as she weeded vegetable patches and bottle-fed baby goats in order to forget about a boy back home