Morocco - In Sidi Ifni, the hotel sits atop a rocky cliff with a beautiful view over the town and the Atlantic Ocean. Sidi Ifni was long an enclave of the Spanish, and Spanish influences are still very present in the town center. We walk through the center and ...

Thailand - Through Chiang Rai, we drive to the Golden Triangle, the tri-border area of Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand. Here, the Mekong and Ruak rivers converge. The village of Sop Ruak is located right at the Golden Triangle. Here, we have lunch at a buffet. Afterwards, ...

Morocco - Amtoudi is an off-the-beaten-track attraction for most tourists in Morocco and yet one of the most captivating stops to visit. The reason is simple: Amtoudi has one of the oldest and best-preserved granaries, or agadirs, as they are called in North Africa. ...

Lebanon - Byblos is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and is located on the Mediterranean Sea in Lebanon. Byblos has a history dating back to around 7000 BC. It was a thriving Phoenician city and played an important role in the trade ...

United_Arab_Emirates - The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the tallest building in the world and a global icon of modern architecture and technological advancement. Standing 828 meters (2,717 feet) tall with 163 floors, this impressive skyscraper is not only one of the most recognizable ...

Kazakhstan - From the village of Saty, it’s still twelve kilometers along a dirt road to Lake Kaindy. The road is little more than a cart track. Oncoming cars can only be passed by pulling off into the roadside. Suddenly, we reach a river. Other drivers advise us ...

Albania - In the center, most passengers leave the bus. A young man gestures that we should get out too. Outside, he points the way to the citadel. We quickly follow his directions and climb up to the citadel, located 214 meters higher. It’s quite a climb. The ...

Romania - In the region of Bukovina, where we’re staying, monks had a stronghold in the 16th century. Due to frequent Ottoman attacks, they built fortified monasteries in the mountains. These also provided shelter to villagers during attacks. The monasteries ...

Czech Republic - Today we drive to the German city of Dresden. On the way, about sixty kilometers east of Prague, we visit the Sedlec Ossuary in Kutná Hora, also known as the Bone Church. The road to Kutná Hora runs via local roads. We again drive through the rolling ...

Luxembourg - Little Switzerland lies on the border of Germany and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg along the Sure River. The fantastic hikes you can take here in an imaginative world attract many tourists. There is a network of paths with caves, cracks, grottoes, and ...

Georgia - We drive on to Gori, a city world-famous as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. He was born here in 1878 in a modest wooden house, still standing next to the museum later built in his honor. Visiting a museum dedicated to a man responsible for the oppression ...

Georgia - From Mestia we continue driving to Ushguli. Mestia is located at an altitude of 1,400 meters. Ushguli at 2,200 meters. This makes Ushguli the highest continuously inhabited mountain village in Europe. We do wonder if this is not higher in the Alps. The ...

Cambodia - In the afternoon, we first visit the Wat Phnom temple. The city gets its name from this temple. Inside the temple is a colorful collection of Buddha statues. Around the temple, many (a bit too many) people bother us asking for money. Phnom Penh remains ...

Serbia - The Kalemegdan Fortress, also known as the Belgrade Fortress, is a historic fort and park complex situated at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers. Located on a rocky hill in the center of Belgrade, it is one of the city’s oldest and most significant ...

Australia - The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. It lies in the Coral Sea, east of the state of Queensland, running parallel to the northeastern coast of Australia. It stretches over a length of more than two thousand kilometers from the ...

Germany - The Bed and Breakfast is located right in the center of Monschau. Everywhere stand the typical half-timbered houses. It feels as if time has stood still here. We wander through the streets. The old center of Monschau isn’t very large, but every street ...

Vietnam - The Great Temple of Cao Dai in Tay Ninh is one of the most bizarre places of worship in the world. It resembles a religious fairy tale land. Services are held four times a day, always at six o’clock and twelve o’clock. We arrive just in time for the ...

Denmark - Free Town Christiania was founded in 1970 when a group of hippies squatted an area with abandoned military barracks in the Copenhagen district of Christianshavn. Since then, the neighborhood has had a form of self-governance. About 1,000 people live permanently ...

Lithuania - We drive for about an hour to the village of Trakai. As we drive through the main street, the brightly colored wooden houses catch the eye. You would expect wooden houses to suffer greatly in the cold winters. However, Trakai is mainly famous for the ...

Hungary - We continue our route via the highway toward Miskolc, a city in northeastern Hungary. Because of the time difference, we arrive around 11:30 a.m. at the edge of town. At an ATM, we withdraw some cash—not too much, since we’re only spending one day ...

Bosnia_and_Herzegovina - We leave Sarajevo and drive into the hills on the other side of the Miljacka River. The navigation leads us through winding back roads into the mountains, where some roads rise steeply with gradients of more than twenty percent. We have to take a run-up ...

British_Virgin_Islands - Road Town, the capital of the British Virgin Islands, is a picturesque harbor town that enchants visitors with its stunning natural surroundings, rich history, and relaxed atmosphere. Located on the south coast of Tortola Island, Road Town is the largest ...

Uzbekistan - I take a taxi to the Plov Center. Plov (or pilaf) is the national dish of Uzbekistan — a one-pot meal with rice and lamb. Uzbeks come to the Plov Center to eat plov for lunch. I sit down at a table and order a plate of plov. Then I continue to the old ...

Martinique - The Bibliothèque Schoelcher, located in Fort-de-France, Martinique, is an impressive architectural gem that embodies the island’s rich history and cultural heritage. This beautiful library, named after French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher, was built ...

Vanuatu - Mount Yasur is an active volcano on Tanna, Vanuatu, with a height of 361 meters above sea level. The volcano lies near the coast by Sulphur Bay, southeast of the taller Mount Tukosmera. The volcano is a largely barren cone with an almost circular crater ...