• LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

Travel The MEGA Travel Thread!

I am absolutely dying to go to:
  • Alaska
  • Iceland
  • Finland
  • Japan alps (to ski)
  • The Maldives
There's more on my list but they're the ones that come to mind immediately.


Oh and Jam you own this thread! Don't stop! :)
 
Have you considered travelling to Alaska? I've heard the cruises to and through that great wild country are visually breathtaking.

alaska is AMAZING! i can't imagine just visiting here, though, especially on a cruise. bleah! to experience it properly, you should be here long enough to slow down to alaska-time -- at least six months.
 
socotra:

The Hebrides:

South Georgia Island:
YES Please!
YES... and pretty much any other place on the Trans-Siberian (more of that in a coming post ;)).
I second the "Jam owns this thread" comment. :)
Thanks ladies! Your wish is my command ;)

Since I notice I'd left out Europe, I'll include some European exotics there...

Lithuania
hill-of-crosses-1.jpg

(This one deserves a double-take)
Hill%20of%20Crosses%20LIthuania%20006.jpg


Moldavia (Modern day Romania and Moldova)
romania140.jpg


And while we're at it, Transnistria (Too WTF to explain in one line...)
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The Crimea (The Diamond-shaped peninsula in the Black Sea)
Bakhchisaray-Mosque-Ukraine.jpg


---

Back outside Europe...

Iran (This is in Isfahan)
lotfolla--mosque.jpg


Kurdistan-Iraq
yezidi1.jpg


Inner China (Sichuan here)
most-beautiful-sceneries-The-colorful-waters-of-the-Jiuzhaigou-river-china.jpg


Benghal (Bangladesh and corresponding Indian state - although I have been to the latter so this is cheating, sorta ;))
tarakeshwar_west_bengal.jpg


Burma
bagan-myanmar-burma-buddhism-ballooning-David-Haberlah.jpg


North Korea (Ummm....)
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^those are awesome pictures. that lake in china looks really serene. i'd be afraid i would get myself arrested if i ever went to iran.
 
So many amazing pictures of awe inspiring places. I want to visit them all. :)

Jam we should defo meet up in S. America I can tell you'd have to me off to all sorts of exotic off the beaten track places. :D
 
Goddamn it i had a bigass response typed out and for no damn reaason firefox crashed and it logged me out and lost the shit i wrote. :(

Anyways, panderbear, high 5 on Priyapat....I always been fascinated with that place....the idea of a whole abandoned city like that, just left exactly as it was , shit puts a chill in my spine to just think about it. i would loooove a chance to go there someday. like u and noodle i always been into places that is abandoned, forgotten, left behind, etc....I aint tryna go all into it here since im startin to think that maybe a "abandoned, forgotten, etc" thread for that kind of shit would be cool....but too bad u missed out on Asbury Park back in the day yo. let me tell u...u would never know it now...but back in the late 90s and early 2000s shit was insane...You could drive thru the whole city and it looked like a fuckin ghost town, word bond.

I use to drive thru there at sun rise, or at sun set...and the vibe of it was so eerie...you could drive for a half hour and not see one fuckin soul on the street...it was really like everybody just up and left....there was mad abandoned shit, i mean blocks and blocks of abandoned hotels just left to rot...it was like a no mans land...if you only looked at pictures you would honest to god think nobody lived there anymore...I use to love exploring down there...and i got many tales to tell...One of my fav. places was Palace Amusements, it was totaly abandoned. it was a gaming hall/arcade type place in a huge warehouse right on the boardwalk, and it was just left....but somehow me and my man got in one day and we gave ourselfs a tour of the inside....shit. aint no words for it except maybe some stupid hippy-speak that I never would be caught dead sayin , but i think there aint much other way to describe it--shit was a "trip."

Skeeball machines and pool tables and arcade games with their wires ripped out just hanging like dead snakes from the back....all kind of shit yo, creepy old clown faces and oldschool signs and decorations from the 50s and 60s....with plenty of 1cc insulin syringes liberally scattered all around the floor and tables, etc...it was like a dream....And i aint even started yet on the old Monroe Hotel.....If you ever want to hear my story of the long crazy day i spent in there smokin base and doin dope, in this fuckin 3 or 4 story abandoned hotel that had to have been like THE definition of luxury back in the day.....It was like if the mutha fuckin Titanic had became a crackhouse, word bond....Shit was so elegant but totally destroyed. it was a insane sight to see. So holla at me if u ever want to hear about that shit--i wish i still had all my old pictures that I took of that place yo. they probably gone now but if i ever find em ill show em to you.

But nevermind all that cool abandoned places talk....

I also would like to go to russia or ukraine in general...that also always seemed mad exotic to me. i guess becuz i dont know the language or nothing like that--bein there would definately feel like i was on the other side of the world. i coudl travel across the Us to california and still feel like i was in NJ in many ways....But some shit like Russia, you KNOW you aint at home. i always wanted to go there also becuz i heard of how down and out it is in that area...in my mind , i imagine whole cities that looks like they coulda been abandoned, but people is still livin there and doin regular everyday shit in a city of ruins....Iunno, just seems mad interesting to me.

Im mad attracted to places like that...places where the language, the way the buildings look, the roads, even the trees and plants, are so totally different that its almost like a alien world....Thats why China and Japan is so interesting to me too. A house in Japan dont look nothing like a house in new jersey. The roads aint even the same, they drive on the opposite side. Even the trees look different. Everything about it is totally different than the shit here is, u might as well be on another planet. and that shit always intrigued me.

here is some examples of the coast line in japan, and China, that kinda helps fuel these fantasies in my mind...

In japan they got this shit caled tetrapods on the beaches, its to help break heavy waves and shit like that i think.. Look at that shit, even a regular-ass beach in japan looks all crazy and alien and different.

tetrapod_1.jpg

tetrapod_6.jpg

^^I mean damn look at that shit! tell me that dont look crazy! it looks like some shit on a beach on a alien planet or somethin. I love it.

And shit, in china, even the mountains shape looks different.
huangshan-yellow-mountains-11.jpg


this shits so fuckin exotic that they used this mountain in china to design the floating mountains in avatar from!
avatar-mountain.jpg


i always thought these pictures i would see inside chinese restaurants on the walls, etc, was cool as hell...and when i realized that it REALLY LOOKS like that in china as a kid i was like damn, now i really wanna go there...

PAINTING.jpg

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chinese-fisherman-on-river.jpg

Yangtze-River-Of-China3.jpg


Damn, shit just looks so cool to me....

i also would love to go visit some of the onsen there, the natural hot spring baths...
DSC06141.JPG

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(that last pic is from a fashion photo shoot so the broad in it aint exactly natural looking, but everything else in the picture is real and how it really looks. i would love to go soak in one of those in the winter with the snow all around but the water mad hot.)

Well i think i posted enough pics for now...Ill have to come back later and put some pics of the amazing gardens in china, in the city of suzhou there is so many of them that its known all over the world for its gardens....For now tho I guess Ima be stuck goin to the chinese and japanese gardens in the staten island and brooklyn botanical gardens :p
 
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O yea....And i always wanted to go to this lake in China where they filmed the lake scenes of the movie hero at....The film makers said that every day for 2 hours it was perfectly still , not one ripple, so it was mad hard to shoot the film with only 2 hours per day to work on it and get it right...

I would love to go there early in the morning when everything is still and calm and theres prolly mist still coming off the lake and the water is perfectly still like a mirror...
 
Lacey, those pictures are awesome!


Jamshyd- The Lithuania photos- I love those.
My fathers father is Lithuanian and my brother is really into learning about it.
I love those photos of the Hill of Crosses.
I believe they were one of the last countries to cross over (on the mainland part of Europe- b/c I think Norway or Iceland was actually last?) to Christianity???
I think they still have a high Pagan population??


Alaska- voxmystic- I think you are right about staying in Alaska for a time.. I think my problem would be I wouldn't want to leave. I've tried to talk my hubby into moving there but he says no way. It is one place I would LOVE to spend a year or two.......
 
this is easily my most favorite thread right now. thanks, Lacey!

those pics of Japan and China are fucking amazing, Lacey. whenever i think of Japan, i immediately think of Toyko, which in itself seems like a great bustling city, but i agree that it looks like a crazy world.

and china... WOW. those photos are just... WOW.

Jammy's got some awesome, inspiring destination picks, too.

i feel bitten by the travel bug! :D
 
^ Agreed. Also agreed that it'd be a great loss if we don't meet on the road :).

Ocean: Yes, Lithuania and especially Latvia still have sizable pagan populations. Lithuania sort of did a total flip once the Teutonic knights were introduced and became a bastion of christianity. Obviously certain things don't change... christians normally don't stack up fetish-objects (crosses in this case) to excess, but pagans certainly do ;).

Btw, Ireland is one place I'd love to visit, not so much because I find it particularly exotic, but because I love the Irish and secretly hope I'll find a husband there =D.

Lacey: The uniquely-chinese landscapes you are looking for are actually pretty concentrated in the southeastern quarter of China (particularly the areas surrounding Hong Kong) and Northern Vietnam. I know there is at least one such mountain site that is a day-trip from Shanghai... at least according to a friend. I urge you to save up and go... you won't regret it :).

Btw, I have been to an Onsen - all naked old men, lol. The fumes and the heat will actually give you a strong buzz, you feel like total shit right afterwards, but then after a good sleep you feel 100% refreshed.

Will post more pics soon, hehehe.
 
i don't think it's as easy as Americans think it is, especially if you're just touristying.
That is correct.

Iran is a sort of well-kept secret in that it is very easy to travel in yet completely shrouded in misunderstanding.

A stickier issue - particularly for Canadians as of late - is actually managing to get in in the first place! Iranian visa policies are very fickle and volatile.

If I could get it my way, Iran would make a perfect travel junction between Anatolia, The Mid-east, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Indian Subcontinent. That, in fact, has been its cultural and political role throughout history anyway...
 


Ocean: Yes, Lithuania and especially Latvia still have sizable pagan populations. Lithuania sort of did a total flip once the Teutonic knights were introduced and became a bastion of christianity. Obviously certain things don't change... christians normally don't stack up fetish-objects (crosses in this case) to excess, but pagans certainly do ;).

Btw, Ireland is one place I'd love to visit, not so much because I find it particularly exotic, but because I love the Irish and secretly hope I'll find a husband there =D.


Yeah, the Irish have great accents!! Pretty sexy.

Lithuania- Are they Catholic there? The Catholics tend to clutter symbols of their faith (Mary for example) But imo they are basically a Pagan/Christian...... ;)
So interesting.
 
by the way i just realized that when i was postin in my picture post it sounded like i was talkin about china when i mentioned the Onsen...those are in japan just for the record.

But anyways tho , good to know Jam...also that fire pit thing in the one pic you posted is amazing looking.

I think thats the shit I like so much about some of these places....When i see it, its so foreign and exotic that I might as well be on another planet... I like the feeling of everytihng bein so new, like every step i take could uncover another new crazy wonderful thing that i never even imagined before. .Beaches with strange giant blocks piled all over the sand into the water....Flat open desert land with giant holes of fire that just naturally occur....Hot springs bubbling out of the mountains in the middle of a snowy mountain peak with steam rising off them....rivers with giant hills just rising up out of the water , covered with moss and plants hanging off it half way hidden by mist...the shit sounds like it could be the description of one of the planets from Star Wars or somethin, lol.

I love that everybody is postin pictures. Seein the photos of just the things that makes each place so interesting to each person makes it alot more fun.

I was worried that nobody would reply to this thread. i hoped that i wasnt the only one with such a curious imagination who is fascinated with these far off kind of mysterious places....Im so glad to see that so many people replied so fast. I guess that feeling , of just wondering about somewhere so different and unknown, is somethin that alot of people can relate to. Im glad that this thread brought it out.

I forgot to mention too...You know, animal cookie, thats one of the things that fits this thread just perfect. You right, Denmark aint all THAT exotic, but the idea of how its so dark and so light for so long at different parts of the year is exactly the kind of thing that can make a place so intriguing. when a place does something so totally different than you do it can make you super curious about it, i think.

Keep postin yall, i am glad so many people is enjoyin this thread as much as i am :)
 
these are truly inspiring photos -- makes me wanna update my passport! if i ever travel abroad again, though, i'd like to go somewhere where they don't hate americans. limits my options, rather......
 
^ Just use the Canadian flag trick =D. Just kidding. IME on the road, intelligent americans get the same treatment as any other intelligent nationality. You might get the occasional "You tell Bush/Obama..." statement, but it isn't as bad as it seems. I think you'd do just fine in India, for example :).

Lacy: Yes the Onsen and the culture that surrounds them are distinctively Japanese. As for the Fire-pit, these are in fact Natural Gas vents commonly found around the Caspian Sea that were lit on fire sometime and never went off. There is one in Azerbaijan that has been burning at least since the middle ages (Marco Polo talks about it).

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Zoroastrians build their shrines around these sites, too (the vilage in my photo of Azerbaijan is one of the last remaining Zoroastrian-majority communities). The same natural gas is also responsible for Azerbaijan's famous Mud Volcanos...

imgp5982.jpg


As well as the building (and for the most part abandoning) of a water-world city on the sea centred around a bunch of oil rigs:

7-57.jpg


Definitely, all bizarre things I'd love to experience sometime... Azerbaijan is very high on my list to visit and live in, as it is a sort of wonderland - both natural and cultural.
 
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