Travel The MEGA Travel Thread!

[Kenickie]

my lame contribution to this win win thread--

Iran, for sure.

Azadi Square

flower exhibit!

I've been in love with Tehran from afar for years and years now...

Mosallah Mosque

 

[ebola?]

You might get the occasional "You tell Bush/Obama..." statement

Hah...I think that I'd like to.

ebola

 

[ocean]

The cactus flower garden is awesome.

 

[_a_A_C_c_]

i don't think it's as easy as Americans think it is, especially if you're just touristying.

you are prolly right. i am basing my views off stories from people who are citizens there.

 

[thujone]

great thread, love the pics and such. i also want to go to japan and pripyat, japan is unfortunately still three years away for me because i need to finish getting a degree just to work there ughhh. but i've made plans to visit pripyat next year since i'll hopefully be near there :D google earth surprisingly has pretty high resolution imagery for the chernobyl area.

most of the other places i'd like to visit are pretty "common" seeming, but here are some of the more interesting ones...

mont st michel in the north of france

here's a nice shot of it at high tide.

damascus

bulgaria (as it is home to the most amazing variety of wildlife)

 

[Jamshyd]

^ The guy who filmed Baraka (mandatory viewing for anyone who likes this thread, btw ) made a smaller, more experimental project before that ("Chronos") where a centrepiece is a time-lapse filming of Mt. St. Michel with the ebb and flow of tides. Very stunning.

Damascus... I have mixed feelings about, but it could be because most of its exoticism is rather familiar for me. Make no mistake, it is an industrialized, heavily gentrified, heavily polluted capital of the curious case of a country that is Syria. However, it certainly does have its magic, and I do wish I'd spent more time there than I already have. I feel that if Syria were a more reasonable country, that Damascus could have been better-maintained as the cultural-capital of the area which it has always been before the 20th century. Aleppo further north is, in my limited experience, far more pleasant of an exotic experience than Damascus:

 

[Jamshyd]

Btw, about chernobyl: if you wanna be REAL hardcore about it, you might as well go to southeastern Belarus, where MOST of the damage was done. Belarus is one of those often forgotten places that I'd love to check out:

I will have the Trans-Siberian post I promised tomorrow, when I have the time to find worthwhile pics. For now, I'll make a little train of exotic places that I actually *have* been to and would definitely recommend to everyone in this thread:

Petra, in Jordan. Ok, so I was born there... but still, even if you weren't, if there is a single place worth visiting in the middle-east, this would be it!

Bosnia and Hercegovinia, Europe's best-kept secret, IMO...

Wadi el-Qelt near Jericho, in the Palestinian territories.

New Orleans, Louisiana

Varanasi (Beneres), India

Albania - the Third World in Europe...

 

[thujone]

you were BORN in PETRA? NO FUCKING WAY! were you named after the dog? (hope you've seen the final [decent] indiana jones film to get that one). I have a friend in NOLA atm, kind of ehhhh on visiting. it's a lot more further than i thought. would take a good half week if i drove, but i am curiously tempted.

 

[Pander Bear]

Kenickie has a boner for belarus before all other travel destinations. I am not so sure. All I know of the place is the shakedown from the guys carrying AKs on the train my father and brother took to St Petersburg.

 

[Jamshyd]

^ LOL somehow I doubt much has changed

you were BORN in PETRA? NO FUCKING WAY! were you named after the dog? (hope you've seen the final [decent] indiana jones film to get that one). I have a friend in NOLA atm, kind of ehhhh on visiting. it's a lot more further than i thought. would take a good half week if i drove, but i am curiously tempted.

I was in N'awlinz exactly 1 week before Katrina. I had experienced Rita there, and that alone was a trip right there. I do not know how much it changed since then. Interestingly, aside from the cool voudun and cemetery cultures, what I found "exotic" was actually where I lived: on the west bank (impoverished), in what is (was?) essentially a Black Neighborhood. Never would I have imagined the USA to be like that!

And lol, no, I was born 1h away from Petra. The "there" I meant was Jordan.

Though continuing on the theme of the thread, it is little-known that there is actually another Nabatean city (Mada'in Saleh) south of Petra. Sadly, it is in what is today's Northern Saudi Arabia:

What is more interesting is that there is even a train-station on the Hijaz railway...

This train line is so antiquated that its current situation in Jordan is basically as a museum piece. When I was a kid, it was more or less operational but never went further north than the area of Jal'ad (the biblical Gilead). There is some talk between Syria and Jordan for restoring it. I don't know how something that makes so much sense has been so overlooked for so long!

More of the Hejaz:

This stuff would definitely be of interest to anyone into Ottoman and/or Lawrence of Arabia history. Or just plain rail maniacs like yours truly

 

[ocean]

Btw, about chernobyl: if you wanna be REAL hardcore about it, you might as well go to southeastern Belarus, where MOST of the damage was done. Belarus is one of those often forgotten places that I'd love to check out:

I will have the Trans-Siberian post I promised tomorrow, when I have the time to find worthwhile pics. For now, I'll make a little train of exotic places that I actually *have* been to and would definitely recommend to everyone in this thread:

Petra, in Jordan. Ok, so I was born there... but still, even if you weren't, if there is a single place worth visiting in the middle-east, this would be it!

Bosnia and Hercegovinia, Europe's best-kept secret, IMO...

Wadi el-Qelt near Jericho, in the Palestinian territories.

New Orleans, Louisiana

Varanasi (Beneres), India

Albania - the Third World in Europe...

Amazing Photos.
And NOLA is for sure a place to be listed.
In the US I think The West Coast (More specifically the PNW) should be seen.
It has the most breathtaking natural areas I've ever seen. (Never been out of the US so......)

 

[psood0nym]

I recommend Nepal. Stay away from Kathmandu, the countryside is where it's at.
Here's a jungle trek photo:

I took this while riding tandem with a former Russian Mig pilot who became a paragliding instructor. I ate a bunch of shrooms I bought off the street in Pokhara and then injected 50 mg of DPT in the place's bathroom before going. We followed an eagle up a thermal into the clouds and the vapor made for a majestic backdrop to all the exploding visuals. Unfortunately my camera's battery died before I could get the bird:

Here's the place where I bungee jumped after eating a bunch of hash:

If I had the money all I would do is take psychedelics and travel. It's a fantastic way to live but it takes so long to build up money and find the time.

 

[TheSpade]

With every picture that gets posted I add another destination to my travel list.

I second Bosnia as a place worth visiting, definitely one of my travel highlights so far. So much history and culture and a beautiful place.

Someone mentioned Bulgaria, I really did not like much.

 

[daysonatrain]

"CHAI CHAI!"

India's trains are an attraction in and of themselves, regardless of how uncomfortable

---

But yeah, give me a private sleeper compartment and I can live on a train...

There is something about the clicketing, the occasional honk, the whirr, and the surrealistic gliding, uniform motion that I find amazing for some reason.

haha
trains are amazing. why cant the us have a train system like india?

i strongly recommend anyone traveling in india take the lowest class car at least once, a tripped out experience that soooo many humans deal with on a day to day basis.

kinda makes me understand how some people are resentful of americans, always traveling in their private train cars, no stress to their lives whatsoever

 

[mariacallas]

Lithuania

(This one deserves a double-take)

Damn. These pictures just totally made me wet myself.
Right click - save.

 

[mariacallas]

Sensational thread. Unlike most of you, I'm not really one for travelling, as I am stubborn, lazy, and quite fixed in my habits plus I love my home I've had my fair share of travels though. Nevertheless, if given the choice, I'd love to visit the following places in this lifetime:

Choquequirao, Peru

Siracusa , Agrigento and Taormina (The Pearl of the Ionian Sea) in Sicily

Praia da Marinha and Lagos, Algarve in Portugal

Salvador, Brazil

 

[Noodle]

I was wondering what exotic might be for someone from the Phillipines.

 

[Busty St Clare]

I'm more about events than actual places.

Speedweek on the Bonneville salt flats

Watch a Test match at Lords

Although I have been before I really want to go back to the Notting Hill Carnival one day... yeah maan

Watch the real life chess at Marostica in Italy

Rock out with the cool cats in Harajuku in Tokyo

 

[Jamshyd]

^ Harajuku on a sunday is most definitely recommended. Definitely comes to life. All sorts of talent show all round Yoyogi park, the Rockabilly dancers being the most enduring.

Usually an apparently spontaneous (but actually scheduled... how japanese) mini-rave takes place at the other end of that road by the end of the day. I think that was where an Australian kid offered me E for the equivalent of eighty bucks a pill .

 

[TheSpade]

Japan is VERY high on my must visit list. Next time.