Middle East
The Nastiest Critters Lurking Outside Your Tent
The bite of a Goliath bird-eater is hardly worse than a bee sting to a human---but this beast is among the nastiest things that could skitter across your face in the dark night of the Amazon. Zip up your tent
May 08, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
More Fruits Worth a Voyage Around the World
Pawpaws are scarcely cultivated and even more rarely sold in markets, so pack a machete and a fruit bowl and get thee to the backwoods of Kentucky
April 10, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
The Greatest Diving Sites in the World
The vertiginous void of the Great Blue Hole offers divers the feeling of facing off with the edge of the world
March 28, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
The World’s Best Uphill Bike Rides
Long, steady climbs on a bicycle are the holy grail of athletic conquests. We hill climbers measure the worth of a landscape by its rise over run
March 20, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
Great Walks of the World
The fact that people opt to walk today, in the age of the wheel and the combustion engine, tells us there is something virtuous and irresistible in the plodding of one foot forward after the other
March 06, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
New Zealand and Other Travel Locales That Will Break the Bank
New Zealand is worth visiting, but I'm not sure how long I can keep traveling here while claiming to be "on the cheap"
January 12, 2012 |
By Alastair Bland
Faux Pas: Mortifying Missteps of the Innocent Abroad
It was only weeks later that I learned what a klutz I'd been. It's a miracle I wasn't thrown to the bears
December 20, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
Holiday Gift Ideas for the Adventure Traveler
A chess set, soccer ball, bear spray and other items, even dog food, make the list of gifts to give your favorite hardened traveler
December 16, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
The Most Pungent Prize: Hunting the Truffle
“As a journalist working on a story about truffles, it felt like risky business. There’s a lot of cash flowing around, there’s a black market, and I felt like I was entering a world where I wasn’t wanted”
December 06, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
Crying Wolf Among Motor Vehicles and Landmines
Five drunk young men—the first visibly intoxicated men I think I've seen in Turkey—spilled out and began dancing in the highway to Turkish music from the car’s radio
November 15, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
Zen and the Art of Sleeping Anywhere
By camping wild, we bypass unloading the luggage, taking off our shoes at the doorstep, and all the other finicky logistics of dwelling in a well-groomed society
November 10, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
The Figs and Mountains of Izmir
Travel horizontally in any direction and you see no change in landscape; Siberia remains Siberia from Finland to Kamchatka. But travel just 4,000 feet vertically, and the world transforms
November 01, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
Tips for Women Traveling in Turkey
One tourist says Turkey may be the friendliest nation she's experienced. Another was called a "witchy woman." What's your experience?
October 20, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
The Long and Bumpy Road to Cappadocia
Of all the bizarre landscapes created by water, wind and time, Cappadocia is among the strangest
October 13, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
What to Eat and Drink in Turkey
Just about my favorite place in any large town is the central fruit bazaar, where all this goodness is crammed together into a circus of fragrant, colorful mayhem
October 11, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
Istanbul: The Maddest City in Europe
“That’s the fattest stray dog I’ve ever seen.” A lot has changed here since Mark Twain wrote about the city, but there's still plenty of mayhem
September 27, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
Where to Go when Greece Says No: Turkey
That evening a man walked into my bush camp with a gun, marched straight at me as I gaped in shock and sprawled out beside me on my tarp
September 23, 2011 |
By Alastair Bland
Inside the Great Pyramid
No structure in the world is more mysterious than the Great Pyramid. But who first broke into its well-guarded interior, and when? And what did they find there?
September 01, 2011 |
By Mike Dash
Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Resolving the dispute over authorship of the ancient manuscripts could have far-reaching implications for Christianity and Judaism
January 2010 |
By Andrew Lawler
The Dying of the Dead Sea
The ancient salt sea is the site of a looming environmental catastrophe
October 2005 |
By Joshua Hammer
