The joy of curling up with a good travel book is damn hard to beat. Part fiction, part memoir, the best travel books tell weird and wonderful stories and describe the intricate things that make a journey, or place, memorable. The initial excitement of a vessel leaving port or the joy of waking up to a brand-new city, they celebrate the act of exploration itself: poking around, asking questions, getting lost and into scrapes, making all the mistakes of a newcomer.

The best travel books should ignite a travel spark to pack your suitcase and stumble forward into some world experiences of your own. 12 years ago I picked up copies of Paul Theroux’s Dark Star Safari and Alex Garland’s The Beach and have been a restless wanderer ever since.

During the periods of vexing inertia when I’m not traveling, one of my most treasured activities is reading a travel book and pretending I’m right there with the narrator. I’ll transform into their best mate on a round-the-world road trip, a stowaway on the Trans-Siberian railroad, a (not-so handy) handy-woman helping to restore a Tuscan Villa or a Monastery volunteer in Nepal.

Over the years, some of the best travel books published in the last decade — like the ones below — have inspired me to travel far and wide and have almost always left me with an insatiable starvation for new cultures and experiences.

Their innate ability to fill the gaps in my knowledge of places that aren’t exactly on most government’s “Safe List” — like the Congo or Afghanistan — is a curiosity quencher that I’m continuously thankful for.

Disclaimer: What follows is a very subjective list of 10 of the best travel books of the last 20 years (in no particular order). I’m sure I’m missing a few, but I could only choose 10 so feel free to fight me in the comments section. And no, Eat Pray Love is not on this list.

I Wouldn’t Start From Here: The 21^st Century and Where It All Went Wrong – Andrew Mueller (2008)

I Wouldn’t Start From Here is a curious tale of one man’s attempt to comically demystify the horrors and cultural complexities that plague our young world. Recounting his many crazy and death-defying experiences as a freelance correspondent for The Guardian and The Independent, Andrew Mueller’s fearless circumnavigation of some of the world’s most violent and politically shady places including Kosovo, Palestine, Libya, Sarajevo, Afghanistan and Iraq — as he grapples with “possibly the most maddening mystery of our time” — could have easily become a non-PC, jaded, samey “trouble tourism” recount.

Thankfully, the book is much more than that. With his self-effacing, good-humored cynicism extending beyond the war zones, he is able to reach deep inside each area to the people locked inside them. He slips easily between meetings with Hezbollah in Beirut, a Loyalist hitman-turned-surrealist painter in Belfast and Al Gore in Edinburgh. He is shot at in Gaza. He is imprisoned in Cameroon and he worries about the discomfort of U.S. soldiers in Iraq who look “as perplexed as people who’d togged up for a fancy dress party and gone to the wrong address.”

Under the Tuscan Sun – Frances Mayes (1996)

The “I just moved to [insert new city here] and this is why it’s so good” genre is completely and utterly saturated — this I know. We roll our eyes at the “unique” anecdotes and earth-shattering realizations of these authors — that is if they even get published these days.

We are just no longer interested in this sort of thing. We couldn’t be more bored of this genre if we tried. But, for some reason, I will never lose my childish enthusiasm for Frances Mayes’s memoir of an almost dream-like Tuscany. It’s my “go-to” book for when I want to feel all sunshine, lollypops and . . . Italian rainbows, and the aforementioned “been-there, done-that” mentality just doesn’t apply for me here. I think it’s partly because of it’s shameless la dolce vita attitude, but also because of its intelligent, engaging and empowering feminist tale (without being too pretentious). And besides, who wouldn’t want to randomly purchase a villa in Tuscany?

Dark Star Safari – Paul Theroux  (2002)

Most 60-something travel writers are looking for gigs in Provence and Tuscany, but Theroux, the grandfather of travel writing, trekked overland from Cairo to Cape Town for this modern classic. Why? Because he’s awesome and he could. The wittily observant and endearingly irascible author takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry and train. In the course of his epic and enlightening journey, he endures danger, delay and dismaying circumstances. Gauging the state of affairs, he talks to Africans, aid workers, missionaries and tourists. What results is an insightful mediation on the history, politics and beauty of Africa and its people.

The Beach – Alex Garland (1996)

If only gap years in Thailand were really like this one. Well, up until the point where food poisoning and deadly violence on an otherwise “utopic community” ensue. Alex Garland’s story of a young traveler who finds “the perfect beach” by going off the tourist trail is inspiring for any would-be modern explorer, even if things do take a sinister turn by the end.

Despite his distrust of the younger Goa and Phuket-set with their technology obsession and general detachment from society, few writers have Garland’s eloquence when it comes to describing the simplest and purest of worldly pleasures — the beauty of a Thai sunset, the serene turquoise water of an uninhabited island — it’s impossible to not to want to book a trip to paradise after reading this book.

In A Sunburned Country – Bill Bryson (2000)

This is 100% Australiana told from one of the most revered travel authors of our time. In A Sunburnt Country is set Down Under — a place that doubles as a continent with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet.

Bryson takes his readers on a rollicking fun ride far beyond the beaten tourist path. His deliciously funny, fact-filled and adventurous prose describing the clean, safe cities, cold beer and constant sunshine Down Under makes me proud to call Australia home. And let’s not forget, Bryson’s account of a uniquely sporting people (read: sports mad), who excel at games ranging from cricket to Australian Rules football: “It is a wonder in such a vigorous and active society that there is anyone left to form an audience.”

The Sex Lives of Cannibals – J. Maarten Troost (2004)

Fed up with being a directionless procrastinator and perpetual degree-swindler, Troost decides to follow his girlfriend to the vastly remote Island of Tarawa after she landed a job there. The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of.

Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas and toxic fish — all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis). 
Troost’s hilarious travelogue will leave you thankful for the staples of Western civilization such as coffee, regular showers and tabloid news.

Into the Wild – John Krakauer (1996)

In April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.

Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild. Krakauer is sympathetic to the spirit that led McCandless to set out for life off the grid.
Much like Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man, this is a story that draws sharp lines between adventure and madness, shedding light on McCandless unflinching romanticism for being free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experience of nature, which ironically cost him his life. It is for this reason that I enjoyed this story as much as it frustrated me. A great read.

Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge – John Gimlette (2011)

Between the Orinoco and the Amazon lies a fabulous forested land, barely explored. Much of Guiana seldom sees sunlight, and new species are often tumbling out of the dark. Shunned by the conquistadors, it was left to others to carve into colonies. Guyana, Suriname and Guyane Française are what remain of their contest, and the 400 years of struggle that followed.

The 2012 Dolman Award-winning book by John Gimlette sets off along the coast, gathering up its astonishing story. His journey takes him deep into the jungle, from the hideouts of runaway slaves to penal colonies, outlandish forts, remote Amerindian villages, a “Little Paris” and a space port. He meets rebels, outlaws and sorcerers; follows the trail of a vicious Georgian revolt; and ponders a love affair that changed the face of slavery. Here too is Jonestown where, in 1978, over 900 Americans committed suicide. The last traces are almost gone now as the forest closes in. Beautiful, bizarre and occasionally brutal, this is one of the great forgotten corners of the earth: the Wild Coast.

Wrong About Japan – Peter Carey (2005)

The novelist Carey and his 12-year-old son travel to Japan in search of manga and anime culture, which the son adores and the father can’t quite understand. What follows is a nuanced and enchanting tour of Japanese culture (not dissimilar to Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation), as entered through its garish, brightly lit back door.

Guided, and at times judged, by an ineffably strange boy named Takashi, the Careys meet manga artists and anime directors, the meticulous impersonators called “visualists” and solitary, nerdish otaku. Throughout, the Booker Prize-winning novelist makes observations that are intriguing even when — as his hosts keep politely reminding him — they turn out to be wrong.

The trip doesn’t bring Carey (or indeed the reader) much enlightenment about the country (in fact, the book only serves as a reminder of the generational gaps and East/West divide), but that’s most of the fun, for even in a global age, it shows we can still find meaning in impenetrable and bewildering things when they are presented to us in an engaging way.

Headhunters on My Doorstep – J. Maarten Troost (2013)

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a bit of a J. Maarten Troost groupie. He is the David Sedaris of travel writing and I want to have his babies. So you can imagine my delight when he came out with a new novel — a memoir no less — last year. And it didn’t disappoint.

Part recount of “the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel” of his alcohol addiction and part adventure story, Troost, upon completing a stint in rehab, decides to retrace the beaten path traveled by the author of Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson) through the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, the Gilberts and Samoa. Bringing his signature wit and penchant for misadventure, Troost confronts his newfound sobriety in the only way he knows how: getting lost in the real world.

The Prince of Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards Of Iraq – Rory Stewart (2006)

In August 2003, at the age of 30, Rory Stewart took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad. A Farsi-speaking British diplomat, he was soon appointed deputy governor of Amarah and then Nasiriyah provinces in the remote, impoverished marsh regions of southern Iraq. He spent the next 11 months negotiating hostage releases, holding elections and splicing together some semblance of an infrastructure for a population of millions teetering on the brink of civil war.

The Prince of the Marshes tells the story of Stewart’s year. As a participant, he takes us inside the occupation and beyond the Green Zone, introducing us to a colorful cast of Iraqis and revealing the complexity and fragility of a society we struggle to understand. Darting between funny and harrowing, moving and incisive, this book amounts to a unique portrait of heroism and the tragedy that intervention inevitably courts in the modern age.

[Hand Holding Book via via shutterstock]

By Stefanie Acworth /

Call her a nomad, but travel keeps Stefanie Acworth sane. After living and working in London and New York (and everywhere in between), she still calls Australia home (or so the QANTAS commercial says). When she’s not gallivanting around the globe and penning her adventures, you can find her making dreamcatchers in Byron Bay, copywriting for some top Australian brands or hosting the next pub trivia night at her local. Follow her travels on her blog, AModernWayfarer.com.

The post The 10 Best Travel Books Of The Last Two Decades appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Every wonder which country is the best to live in if you wanted to travel the world without ever having to get a visa? Well, turns out, if you’re from Finland, Sweden or the U.K., you can travel to exactly 173 other countries without having to spend the time or money obtaining a visa. Not bad, especially if you’re a last-minute traveler who likes to be spontaneous (or who specializes in scooping up cheap airline tickets for travel in the near future).

Citizenship planning firm Henley & Partners recently released their Visa Restrictions Index, which takes a look at 219 countries and their respective visa requirements to determine which nationalities can travel the world the easiest.

Unsurprisingly, Scandinavia dominates the top ranks of the list (like they do with most lists). Coming in at the top is Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom (173 countries), closely followed by Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg and the U.S. (172 countries).

The following shows the top countries where its residents can travel to 168 or more countries visa-free around the world.

1) (173 Countries)

• Finland
• Sweden
• United Kingdom

2) (172 Countries)

• Denmark
• Germany
• Luxembourg
• USA

3) (171 Countries)

• Belgium
• Italy
• Netherlands

4) (170 Countries)

• Canada
• France
• Ireland
• Japan
• Norway
• Portugal
• Spain

5) (168 Countries)

• Austria
• New Zealand
• Switzerland

For a full list of the index, visit the Visa Restrictions Index here.

[Towards Passport Control by Shankar S./Flickr]

By Matt Stabile /

Matt Stabile is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheExpeditioner.com. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos, purchase the book he co-edited or contact him via email at any time at TheExpeditioner.com.

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It’s true, my American passport may be slightly more useful to me, but the Finnish passport is officially my favorite one in the world. Why, might you ask? Simple, when’s the last time my U.S. passport did anything even slightly entertaining for me? (And no, including historical quotes from the nation’s founders does not count.)

You see, back in August, 2012, Finland introduced a new design for their passport, which included a number of new security features. In true Finnish style, they snuck in a little-noticed security feature that doubled as an homage to one of their county’s favorite animals: the moose.

However, this moose has some moves, as seen above, when ones flips the passport’s pages flipbook-style.

Will the U.S. respond by integrating something similar, such as the likeness of Benjamin Franklin for their next design (maybe involving a kite and lighting)? One can only hope.

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Expeditioner. The Expeditioner began in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos or contact him at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

The post This Is Why I’d Gladly Trade In My U.S. Passport For One From Finland appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

Which countries do Americans travel to the most? Is it our friendly neighbors to the north and south? Our English-speaking counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic? Maybe the land of baguettes and tourists from basically every other country in the world? The answer is “yes” to all of the above, but Mexico more so than any other country.

The National Travel and Tourism Office recently released their findings of which countries Americans travel to the most in the world, and the winner, for the second year in a row, is Mexico with about 26 million visits from Americans in 2013, followed by Canada (15.4 million), the U.K. (3.5 million), the Dominican Republic (2.2 million) and France (2 million).

Americans made a total of 60.7 million trips to foreign countries in 2012, which is up 3% from 2011 when the U.S. logged its second-lowest number of foreign trips in a decade with 59.2 million trips, but down from a decade-high 64.1 million trips in 2007 (just before the Great Recession!), which, if these numbers reflect anything, it’s this: a better economy means more trips abroad. Odds are very likely that 2013 will indicate an increase as well.

Here’s a full listing of the top countries Americans traveled to the most:

1) Mexico
2) Canada
3) U.K.
4) Dominican Republic
5) France
6) Italy
7) Germany
8) Jamaica
9) China
10) Spain
11) India
12) Japan, Costa Rica
13) Ireland
14) Netherlands
15) Hong Kong
16) Israel
17) Philippines
18) Switzerland
19) South Korea
20) Colombia
21) Austria
22) Taiwan
23) Brazil
24) Greece
25) Peru
26) Thailand, Cayman Islands
27) Russia
28) United Arab Emirates
29) Argentina
30) Singapore
31) South Africa
32) Poland, Ukraine, Morocco

Lastly, if you’re curious as to where people touch down last before heading out in the world, the answer is New York’s JFK Airport, followed by Miami, Atlanta, Newark and Los Angeles (together they are the last airport for over half of all Americans on trips abroad).

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Expeditioner. The Expeditioner began in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos or contact him at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

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Lest you think all records in The Guinness Book of World Records are inane, useless markers of time-poorly-spent by various humans around the world, consider this one: Mumbai’s Dhobi Ghat was noted as the record holder for the “most people hand-washing clothes simultaneously at a single location” in March 2011. Take that guy who attached 150 clothespins to his face.

The Globe and Mail has this great photo essay about the ghat, chronicling its history and portraying what everyday life is like for the workers there.

As the piece notes, “Dhobi Ghat is where Mumbai’s traditional laundrymen work in the open to wash clothes from different parts of the city. The open air laundry has about 700 washing platforms made of stones where about 200 washer-men families have been washing clothes as their family business for decades.”

[Mumbai boasts the world’s largest open air laundry via The Globe and Mail]

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Expeditioner. The Expeditioner began in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos or contact him at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

The post India Is Home To The World’s Biggest Outdoor Laundromat appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

What animals make up the Big Five? Outside of bar trivia night, this classification may not be as important today since travelers going on safari tend to be shooting the animals they see with a camera rather than with a hunting rifle. However, the Big Five is still an important classification for safari-goers interested in checking off “See the Big Five” from their bucket list.

For those wondering, the Big Five refers to these five animals:

1) African elephant
2) Black rhinoceros
3) Cape buffalo
4) Lion
5) Leopard

Though genetically these animals have little in common (except maybe a shared distaste for gawking tourists in faux-safari getups), the Big Five historically referred to a set of animals that were the most difficult to hunt on foot, and thus the most prized. With the decline of hunting in Africa and the rise of wildlife conservationism, you’re more likely to hear references to the Big Five by safari and tour operators than by hunters.

As a side note, if you’re looking to distinguish the black rhinoceros from the white rhinoceros, don’t go by the coloring — their names have nothing to do with the colors black and white. In reality, the white rhinoceros was likely either a reference to the Dutch word wijd (as in wide), which described the white rhinoceros’s mouth, or wide as a reference to their large population numbers (which meant the black rhinoceros was harder to find and ultimately hunt down).

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Expeditioner. The Expeditioner began in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos or contact him at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

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One of the first questions people asked me ahead of my past trip from New York to Africa was how long the flight was going to be, to which I would answer, “I don’t know, a few hours.” Well, it was actually 14 hours, 55 minutes, by far the longest flight I had ever taken until that time. And it got me thinking: What is the longest nonstop flight in the world? Well, the answer is not exactly exact, given that you’re looking at different flight lengths due to fluctuations in jet streams, weather conditions and the daily whims of the airlines based on fuel prices (flying slower saves expensive jet fuel).

But the current record holder for the longest scheduled nonstop commercial flight in the world is Singapore Airlines Flight 21, clocking in at a whopping 18 1/2 hours (scheduled length). This 9,539-mile (15,351 kilometers) flight on an Airbus A340-500 from Newark to Singapore is about 15 minutes faster than the return flight from Singapore to Newark as a result of the jet stream. As you can see on this live map of the flight, the plane actually takes a slightly longer route over Europe due to various safety issues (the fastest route would be north over the North Pole and over Siberia).

UPDATE

However, Singapore Airlines recently announced that it would be discontinuing this flight and therefore giving up its title as the airliner with the longest nonstop flight in the world in 2013, and handing that distinction over to Quantas, whose Sydney to Dallas nonstop flight on a Boeing 747-400 will be the reigning champion, and whose flight will cover a scheduled 8,589 miles (13,822 kilometers), and will last 15 hours and 33 minutes.

As reported by News.com.au, “The airline found the only way to make the routes profitable was by configuring the plane with 98 business class seats that sell for about $8,000 roundtrip. Other airlines operate the same plane with about 250 seats in first, business and economy classes.”

LONGEST FLIGHT EVER?

The record for the longest flight by a commercial airplane ever (though this was a test flight with no real passengers) was a Boeing 777-200LR’s 11,664-nautical mile trek from London to Hong Kong, which lasted 22 hours and 42 minutes and saw two sunrises.

The 777-200LR left Hong Kong International Airport at 10:30 p.m. on November 9, 2005, and landed at London Heathrow Airport at approximately 1:30 p.m. GMT November 10, 2005. To travel that distance (rather than take a shorter, Polar route), the plane traveled eastbound towards London, flying over the North Pacific Ocean, across North America, and then over the mid-north Atlantic Ocean. That flight shattered the previous record holder which was a 747 Boeing London to Sydney flight that traveled 9,200 miles.

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheExpeditioner.com. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos, purchase the book he co-edited or contact him via email at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

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Are all those miles spent cruising thousands of miles above the ground actually better for the environment than if you were making the same trip by car? Turns out, the answer is yes — kind of.

Smithsonian.com busted out their abacuses (or abaci — no really, that’s the plural) to calculate just how much fuel on average one saves flying rather than driving. Using the statistics for a Boeing 747, Smithsonian calculated that a capacity plane (400 people) works out to about 50 gallons per person for a 4,000 mile flight. The same trip using a very fuel efficient 30 mile-per-gallon Honda Civic would necessitate 133 gallons of fuel.

However, they note that just because planes are a little more fuel efficient than the average car, everyone shouldn’t rush to start maxing out their airline miles in an effort to save the environment. Consider the fact that emissions emitted into the upper atmosphere stick around longer and thus cause more harm, and the fact that airline travel is often unnecessary (many flights are due to vacations and the desire for face-to-face meetings versus trips to the grocery store or the option of tele-conferencing).

Bikes, wind-powered dhows or Gump-style long-distance jogs are still the go-to methods for the truly environmentally conscious. Until the invention of teleportation, that is.

[How Bad Is Air Travel for the Environment?]

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How much do you know about Boeing’s latest jet, the super-efficient 787 Dreamliner, which is making the tongues wag of airplane nerds, and which is poised to be the biggest competition to Airbus’s A380 (which ditches fuel efficiency for in-flight showers and a boozy cocktail lounge)?

The Chicago Tribune has this handy quiz highlighting some of the more quirky aspects about the 787, like how the windows dim via electric currents shot through a gel sandwiched between two glass panes to change the plane’s windows à la Blade Runner, or the fact that the designation of 787 is simply the result of being the next in line for models number (767, 777, 787).

[The Boeing 787 Dreamliner Quiz]

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Did you find yourself watching Cast Away and think to yourself, I wouldn’t mind being stuck on that island for a few years myself, sans the tooth ache and anthropomorphic sporting goods. Which begs the question: Where exactly was the Cast Away island anyway? (You know, just in case you get a few years off from work and are looking for a little R&R.)

In the movie, Helen Hunt tells Mr. Hanks that his plane veered south due to a storm and the island he ended up on was about 600 miles south of the Cook Islands. Of course, even a cursory look at Google Maps reveals there’s a whole lot of nothing south of the Cook Islands until you hit Antarctica, whose islands, if any, are more likely to be populated with penguins and ice than coconuts.

So where was the Cast Away island that they filmed on located? Turns out the Cast Away crew headed to Fiji, and to a small island off its western shores named Monuriki, which is part of a group of islands known as the Mamanuca Islands. The island itself is little over half-a-mile long, and its total land area is only about a quarter of a mile.

If you want to see the island yourself (virtually), plug in this link: http://goo.gl/maps/4OUvD, for a satellite view from Google Maps. If you zoom in, you can see on the eastern edge of the island the beach where Hanks spends much of his time, and to the south I believe is the crevice where he eventually shacks up in a cave for shelter.

If you want to see the island yourself (in reality), your best bet is to head to the coastal town of Nadi in Fiji, where there are a number of tour operators that offer day trips to the island where you can snorkel, lie on the beach or even climb the mountain in the center of the island where Hanks was going to hang himself (bring your own rope for this activity — the climbing, not the hanging). Prices vary, but expect to pay around USD$100 for a full-day trip.

Or, if you want the exact opposite experience of Cast Away, you can book a reservation at the exclusive Matamanoa Island Resort, located on a small island to the south of Monuriki, where you can enjoy meals prepared by an executive chef, swim in an infinity pool and sleep in your own beachfront air-conditioned bungalow, all for the low price of about USD$400 a night. A bit pricey, but  it’s either that or crash-land on your own island to get the same experience.

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheExpeditioner.com. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos, purchase the book he co-edited or contact him via email at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

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The mystery around whether you are banned from certain countries if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport is one of those vexing travel questions that seems to come up during every discussion about travel to Israel, especially given the number of travelers visiting Israel through Birthright. So the question remains, is it true? Are you prohibited from visiting other countries in the Middle East if you have a stamp from Israel?

The answer is that the answer is not very clear. One thing to remember when trying to find hard “rules” regarding entrance requirements for countries in much of the world is that there are no hard rules. (Ask five different people what was required of them to enter country “X” and you’re likely to get five different responses, each depending on the competency, level of training and desire for bribes by the local official at that particular border crossing.)

Needless to say, trying to find exact information as to which countries will deny you entrance based upon having an Israeli stamp varies wildly. As one would assume, a country that denies entrance to another country’s citizens based solely on their citizenship is likely not a country with a model bureaucracy staffed with honest, highly-trained personnel who follow strict orders.

However, there does seem to be some consensus as to which countries do restrict access. They are as follows:

Syria
Lebanon
Libya
Kuwait
Iran
Iraq (except the northern Kurdish region)
Sudan
Yemen

There have also been reports of problems entering the following countries:

Saudi Arabia (reportedly not strictly enforced due to pressure by the U.S.)
Malaysia
Pakistan
Algeria
Indonesia
U.A.E.

However, that being said, even a cursory search through Lonely Planet’s thorn tree forum reveals numerous instances of travelers entering the above countries despite having an Israeli stamp — most likely a result of local border guards stamping passports without bothering to spend much time looking through it. Bribes, insistent pleadings, name-dropping and just plain good luck all seemed to have also played a part in travelers getting by these restrictions.

Of course, planning to drop your Uncle’s name or slipping $20 to an immigration official isn’t the best way to organize a trip. Most visitors recommend getting by this restriction by simply asking the Israeli immigration official upon arrival not to stamp your passport, but instead to stamp a piece of paper that you can present upon your departure. Most travelers have success with this tactic, but be forewarned, there have been reports of Israeli officials finding this behavior suspicious and singling those travelers out for questioning. So make sure to allot plenty of time for your departure if you plan to take this route.

The good news is that neighboring countries Egypt and Jordan clearly allow travelers with Israeli stamps, and you will have no problems crossing over their borders, something our friend Aaron of Aaron’s Worldwide Adventures told me recently upon returning from the region.

Given the region’s recent unrest and political turmoil, this list is obviously in flux. Where have you been recently? Have you had any experience or problems traveling with an Israeli stamp? If so, leave your comments below.

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheExpeditioner.com. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos, purchase the book he co-edited or contact him via email at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

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And you thought that all we do is cover “soft” news here at The Expeditioner. Today we tackle one of those nagging questions we all have as we stand (or squat) above a toilet while cruising in a plane at 30,000 feet: “Is this about to land on some farmer’s house in Iowa?”.

The answer is, sadly, no, planes do not dump their sewage while they are flying, despite a recent news report of a Long Island couple that reported being hit by plane sewage in late February. (In that instance it turns out that a plane did in fact malfunction, dumping treated sewage on the unlucky couple’s home and back yard.)

But take comfort, dumping sewage mid-air is not the norm. As Slate’s Explainer recently investigated, planes — like most cruise ships and your great-aunt Margie — store their sewage on board after it’s been created and dispose of it safely upon reaching their destination.

However, “blue ice” (sewage that has been treated by that blue gunk you see in plane toilets and which has subsequently leaked out of the plane and frozen) once in a while does escape from planes, and sometimes causes damage to the plane or lands in the backyard of random English couples’ homes. However, examples of this are rare, and you can rest assured that the chances of you being pelted by any discharge from that 747 flying overhead are about as likely as you finding any remaining soap in the soap dispenser when you’re done creating blue ice.

Side Note: For those of you with weak stomachs or any sense of dignity, I highly discourage you from doing any sort of Google Image or Flickr search for any combination of the words: “plane toilet” or “lavatory waste.” You’ve been warned.

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1) How many three-star Michelin star restaurants are in France?

Twenty-five, which is quite a few, but is surprisingly only second. The country with the most: Japan  with 29.

2) How many foreign visitors traveled to France in 2011?

76.8 million visitors, making it the most-visited country in the world, with the U.S. coming in a second at 59.75 million.

3) What U.S. state is closest in size to France?

France is roughly the same size as Texas. In fact, Texas is actually slightly larger (268,58 square miles to France’s 260,558).

4) What is the most-visited site in France (paid entry)?

Sorry to have to break this to you, but the answer — embarrassingly enough — is Eurodisney with 14.5 million visitors last year. The Louvre came in second with 8.3 million visitors.

5) Which city has the most French speakers?

Not surprisingly the answer is Paris. What is surprising are the runner-ups. Nope, not Lyon or Marseille. The second-most French-speaking city in the world is Kinhshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, followed up by Montreal, Canada.

6) How many liters of wine does the average resident of France drink?

The per capita consumption of wine in France is 45.32 liters, which is actually down 14% from 2006. That’s roughly 60 bottles per year, or one bottle of wine ever six days. (France is actually second in this category, next to Luxembourg at 54.29.)

7) How often do the French have sex?

According to Durex (a reliable source if there ever was one), 70% of adults have sex weekly. Not bad, but Greece has them beat at 87%.

8) How French is France?

France is experiencing one of the most diverse moments in its history with 4.9 million foreign-born immigrants currently living there right now (8.1% of the country’s population). Recent immigrants and their offspring (foreign-born + first and second generations of immigrants) make up over 10% of the population of France, including 8.7% of Muslims.

9) What is France’s biggest company?

Forget haute couture and wine production, France’s largest companies are dominated by energy and finance, with Total coming in at first, with AXA, BNP Paribas, Carrefour, and GDF Suez rounding out the top five.

10) What was the most popular movie in France in the last five years?

2008’s Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks) racked up $193 million dollars, making it the most popular movie in France in the last five years, edging out Avatar, which made $158 million.

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheExpeditioner.com. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos, purchase the book he co-edited or contact him via email at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

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So you’re one of those adventure, off-the-beaten-path travelers that revels in the fact that you don’t bother with those touristy destinations around the world; that you knew about Laos, Colombia and Jordan long before everyone else did; and that there’s no place in the world you wouldn’t at least consider visiting.

So how about the North Pole? What’s that you say, you aren’t one of the few people that have trekked to the land of perpetual ice and snow to go where so few humans on Earth will ever visit?

Turns out you’re not exactly in the minority. In fact, the North Pole only gets about 1,000 visitors a year, as Annie Aggens, director of Northwest Passage Polar Explorers, recently told the Montreal Gazette. Though the North’s Pole evil twin, Antarctica, remains relatively accessible and well-visited — attracting close to 20,000 visitors last year — the North Pole has far more barriers to entry.

Namely, given the extreme temperatures, access is limited to just a few months out of the year (roughly the Northern Hemisphere summer). Further, if you plan on making the trip, get ready to shell out $20,000 minimum just to get there by plane, another $10,000 or so if you plan on skiing or dogsledding there. (No fancy Antarctic cruises or research stations here.)

Although, what’s even more discouraging is the fact that the North Pole has no fixed physical location. Given that its true location is basically located on a hodgepodge of floating chunks of ice, its actual location isn’t marked by any permanent marker like a monument or a Starbucks.

In other words, you basically walk along a white, frozen landscape until you abruptly stop as your guide announces that according to their GPS, you’ve made it. You look around, not able tell that it looks any different from what you’ve been looking at the past few days or so, and you take solace in knowing that one more box has been checked off in that virtual bucket list in your head. Then you turn around and head back, one more feather in your travel cap.

By Matt Stabile

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Stabile is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Expeditioner. The Expeditioner began in 2008 and is headquartered in New York City. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos or contact him at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)

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It happens during every trip. When researching what to see in a particular city, your guidebook lists a notable church/temple/palace as a UNESCO World Heritage site. “Great,” you think to yourself, “I should definitely see it then.” And then when you get around to blogging or telling your friends about said structure, you inevitably state (in the interest of sounding authoritative and informed), “Today I visited [Blank]. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site you know! And after seeing it, I can certainly see why it made the list.” Of course for the fact that you (and I) have no idea why it actually did, right?

To start off, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), is a specialized agency within the U.N. whose roots date back to 1945. At the end of World War II, 37 countries came together to found the agency with the purpose of “creat[ing] an organization that would embody a genuine culture of peace and establishing the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind and, in so doing, prevent[ing] the outbreak of another world war.”

To that end, one could say they’ve been quite successful (67 years and counting of a world war-free planet!), but one who is a bit more realistic would likely point to their more modest success in preserving certain landmarks in the world as the agency’s real success story over the past half-century and counting.

As the New York Times recently discussed in a look at the impact of the agency’s preservation effort, “the World Heritage Convention, dating from 1972, buil[t] on the notion of the United States national parks system, which was set up to defend a wild landscape before it disappeared. The second, the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, was introduced in 2003 to defend traditions, not places, and is more controversial.”

So what goes into making the list as a Heritage site? According to UNESCO’s (web) site, a (non-web) site “must be of outstanding universal value and meet at least one out of ten selection criteria,” to which it then lists requirements including some as general as #1 (To represent a masterpiece of human creative genius), to some as narrow as #10 (To contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation).

For the full UNESCO World Heritage list of the the 725 cultural, 183 natural and 28 mixed properties in 153 countries/states, check out their site here, and go into world full-well knowing whether you’ve seen a certifiable masterpiece of human creative genius (besides this humble site).

The post Admit It, You Have No Idea What It Means To Be A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Do You? appeared first on The Expeditioner Travel Site.

1) The total distance covered by the trains on the Indian Railways everyday, equals 3 1/2 times the distance to moon. [Link]

2) Longest Run (Time): Himsagar Express (3,751 km in 74 hrs and 55 min). [Link]

3) 18 million passengers ride 9,000 Indian trains every day. [Link]

4) Cost for ticket from New Delhi to Mumbai (1st class): $52.

5) Cost for ticket from New Delhi to Mumbai (Sleeper class): $8.37.

6) One compartment of the lowest class of accommodation is earmarked for women in every passenger carrying train. [Link]

7) Time to travel from Mumbai to Calcutta on the “Superfast” train: 30 1/2 hours.

8) Sample of various types of riders that receive fare discounts: “Circust Artists,” “Mental Patiens,” “Polo Team,” “War Widow,” and “Unemployed Youth.”

9) Cost for 30-day unlimited Indrail pass (first class): $495. (Per capita income for India: $1,170.)

10) Number of people killed by trains in India over the last five years: 1,220 [Link]

[Indian Train by Jasmine Kowner/Flickr]

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I’m not one for taking to heart the warnings of danger when traveling. From the overblown threat of pickpocketers in Barcelona to the unfounded warnings of imminent kidnapping the second one steps off the plane in Colombia, I often wonder whether these rumors of danger are often nothing more than a classic fear of the unknown. (I also take heart — if that’s how you want to put it — that the violent crime rate in my own neighborhood here in New York probably far exceeds most anywhere I choose to travel on the globe.)

That being said, danger does exist in certain countries — Mexico for example, where a very real organized crime problem is making certain northern states make Chicago in the ’20s look tame.

But why not take a look at the hard facts, as The Washington Post recently did, and examine how widespread the crime really is in Mexico?

Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, chief operating officer of the Mexico Tourism Board, cites to the fact that crime is relatively limited to a small portion of the country (despite what you see on the news):

Of 2,500 municipalities (what we call counties), only 80, or fewer than 5 percent, have been affected by the drug war, which accounts for only 3 percent of all crime. Mexican cities are also safer than some urban centers north of the border: Mexico City, for example, has 8.3 homicides a year per 100,000 people. That’s fewer than Miami (14.1) and Chicago (16.1). On a global scale, Mexico is safer than many of its neighbors. In 2008, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported Mexico’s homicide rate as 11.6 per 100,000, significantly lower than Honduras (60.9), Jamaica (59.5) or El Salvador (51.8).

Something to keep in mind next time you’re somewhere like Miami. Come to think of it, last time I was in Miami I ended up at a club where Paris Hilton happened to be, which kind of made me wish I was in a gang-controlled Mexican state instead.

[El Zòcalo by borgodioria/Flickr]

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Where is Nicaragua again? It may be a crashing generalization, but for many people, Nicaragua could just as well be the name of a new prescription to help you stop smoking (just in case you didn’t know, it’s a beautifully diverse Central American country just north of Costa Rica and south of Honduras, with both the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean at its shores). Yet, as recently discussed by the Montreal Gazette, there really has never been a better time to visit.

They make some excellent suggestions in terms of planning an itinerary. The Island of Ometepe, for example, is truly stunning and there is a lot of outdoorsy stuff  do. Granada is also pretty handy, with Lago de Apoyo only 6 miles away, though it remains surprisingly underrated.

But they make one glaring omission in their piece: Not including the Corn Islands off the Caribbean coast. It takes a significant amount of effort to get there, but those who make the trek seem more than satisfied with what they find.

Little Corn, especially, is real Jack Sparrow territory, with all the obligatory desert island trimmings, white sandy beaches, crystal waters lapping, etc . . . The set-up is rustic, to say the least, and you may be one of only a handful of people there, ideal for a group of friends in search of a little piece of paradise.

Careful though, we’ve all heard the statistic about shark attacks and coconuts. Getting knocked off by taking a nut to the noggin would be a fairly embarassing way to go . . .

[Little Corn Island by Hector Estepa]

By Hannah Bowman

About the Author

A restless Brit with big dreams and limited cash flow, Hannah is an English graduate and former Publicist who has spent the past 18 months living and working in Central America. You can follow her wanderings at TheTangerineRidiculousness.com.

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Did you know that the woman, you know, that woman, whose voice you hear at every airport terminal, bag carousel and curbside drop-off, not to mention subways, train stations and weather alerts, is actually the voice of 63-year-old Carolyn Hopkins of northern Maine, and she kind of looks a whole lot like your Aunt Barbara.

CBS profiled the ever-caring sexagenarian in this video where she shows where she shows off where she records all her announcements. Turns out she worked for the company that pioneered installing these announcement systems (IED — Innovated Electronic Design), and given that the predominantly male company needed a soothing female voice, Carolyn stepped in and history was made, and your eardrums have never been the same.

[YouTube]

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Remember that time you were making that approach into Shanghai International Airport on your way from spending a month in Brazil during your round-the-world trip when you thought to yourself, “My God, how are the pilots going to speak with the ground crew? Do they know Mandarin? Does the ground crew know Portuguese? If the plane crashes on the tarmac and someone sets up a memorial page on Facebook commemorating my fiery death, how many people do I think will “like” it?”

As the beads of sweat roll down your newly-tanned forehead and you grasp for that questionably-obtained bottle of Xanax you picked up in Recife, you realize that surely, like most of life’s problems, this one has probably already been addressed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the shadowy group that some speculate Mission: Impossible‘s Impossible Missions Force agency was based on (or more likely, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) agency).

According to the nefarious ICAO, pilots and ground crew in member countries (read: everyone but North Korea) needs to know English. So as USA Today pointed out, a Russian pilot flying into Brazil would be speaking in (and would need to be proficient in) English to the ground crew, and vice versa.

As Amendment 164 to Annex 1 of the charter states: “[P]ilots on international flights shall demonstrate language proficiency in either English or the language used by the station on the ground. Controllers working on stations serving designated airports and routes used by international air services shall demonstrate language proficiency in English as well as in any other language(s) used by the station on the ground.”

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