"The summit was almost continuously obstructed by clouds, and one had to gaze at it for quite long before coming to the idea of the shape of the mountain.......

"Whom God loves, he drops in this country" -Bavarian poet Ludwig Ganghofer, describing Berchtesgaden Few travellers to Germany have natural beauty at the top...

Some mountains are so imposing, so mighty, that those who live in their shadow feel compelled to set their stories and legends on their unforgiving slopes. M...

“Wherever we had been in Russia, in Moscow, in the Ukraine, in Stalingrad, the magical name of Georgia came up constantly. People who had never been there, a...

“To follow the Silk Road is to follow a ghost. It flows through the heart of Asia, but it has officially vanished leaving behind the pattern of its restlessn...

"Bokhara, the most shameless sink of iniquity that I know in the East." -Arminius Vambery, Hungarian traveller and first European to visit Bukhara In the min...

“We travel not for trafficking alone; By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned: For lust of knowing what should not be known We take the Golden Road to Sa...

Tropical islands are what most people envision when they imagine paradise. For every mountain-lover who dreams of jagged peaks and rocky slopes, there are a ...

It’s hard not to feel a bit of empathy for countries or states that share borders with more famous ‘celebrities’. Although Abu Dhabi and Dubai are two kingdo...

The world’s second deepest canyon goes by several different names. You may see it called Wadi Ghul or Wadi Nakhar, with Wadi being an Arabic word to describe...

I wouldn’t be the first to remark that the feeling of being in a desert is not too different from that of sailing through wide-open ocean. The horizons are v...

What images come to your mind when you read the word “Oman”? If you had asked me this question two years ago, I probably wouldn’t be able to name a single th...

Deep in the dry Sierra mountains north of Guanajuato is the village of Real de Catorce. The origin of the town’s name, Royal Fourteen, differs depending on w...

The Cradle of Independence. El Bajio. Central Mexico. La Ruta Plata. The highlands running through the center of Mexico above Mexico City go by several names...