travel to unusual places

[fizzysci]

What is the most unusual place you have been to? The kind of place that people are surprised you've been too.

Mine was Svalbard - most people haven't got a clue where it is.

I bet there's people reading this who actually live in Orkney and Shetland. People think you're exotic, apparently This thread really is bonkers.

My SIL has been to svalbard! She used to be really well travelled but now doesn't even own a passport.

For me it's probably Novosibirsk in Siberia. We travel a lot and on unusual holidays (we like taking our own vehicle to remote bits of countries) but don't think the actual countries would be considered exotic.

@tectonicplates no one said they were special it’s a thread on the strangest place you think you have been. It’s all perspectives really don’t you think?? No need to be rude 🙄

My most unusual would be Tanzania. Beautiful country, we travelled from Kilimanjaro to Dar Es Salaam on a public bus after missing our flight because we took too long to descend Kili.
12 hours of Nollywood films and awesome grape Fanta bought up and down the bus.

My mum worked for an Aid agency and lived in Sierra Leone for a few months just before Ebola broke out. I remember the updates she was getting from people who lived in the village where she stayed. She's planning to go back.

She also lived in El Salvador and Nicaragua for around 6 months. She's quite intrepid my mum!

I've just read the whole thread to check if anyone has been to my 'unusual' place, but sort of knew no one would have done, because it's inaccessible and no one goes and it's hit and miss whether you can land by boat because of changeable weather.

It's the most remote inhabited island in the world (population 250). Tristan da Cunha. No planes fly there, it takes minimum 7 days to sail there from Cape Town or more to South America.

It's a British island, it's volcanic, they use the pound but the islanders hadn't seen the new £1 coin and were v excited when I gave them some. Red english postboxes, english speaking with a unique dialect, there are just 9 surnames on the island.
It was an experience I'll never ever forget, I feel privileged to have been.

South London.

Milton Keynes

I went to the Hardangervidda plateau in Norway.

We were retracing the steps of the heroes of telemark with Ray Mears. We paid the ridiculous costs for then Mears to 'fall ill' right at the last minute The expedition was led by some random old guy instead

I was in Luang Prabang last summer and it was (sadly) full of obnoxious and disrespectful backpackers.

Heh. I was there last year. Backpacking

It was the hordes of Chinese tour groups that were more of an issue, both in Laos and Cambodia. So loud and seemingly obsessed with taking selfies rather than actually looking the the sights they'd come to see.
#Notjudgmentalatall

Torytop - stopped at Pitcairn while sailing across the Pacific with my husband in our catamaran. Criminals are behind bars, on the island and the island ‘weirdness’ is similar to many islands we have visited on our travels.

I am very aware of how 'challenging' groups of Chinese tourists can be and if you don't post a selfie on wechat it didn't happen - hence selfie mania!
I was in luang Prabang in 2010 and really noticed a change last year and frequently witnessed backpackers swearing at tuk tuk drivers and generally being quite rude (both in behaviour and attitude towards locals) in what is, as you say, a beautiful and peaceful location.

I bet there's people reading this who actually live in Orkney and Shetland. People think you're exotic, apparently

To be fair to my friend who came to our wedding she thought it was bonkers (she's also Scottish). She said it was the number of flights from London and size of planes that freaked her workmates out, they were more used to flights across to New York for a meeting.

stopped at Pitcairn while sailing across the Pacific with my husband in our catamaran. Criminals are behind bars, on the island and the island ‘weirdness’ is similar to many islands we have visited on our travels.

Ocean, that's not always been the case, though. Just under half the adult male population was accused of sexual abuse and rape of underage girls in 2004, and I think six were eventually imprisoned, but had to be let out at intervals because otherwise there weren't enough men to crew the longboats. Or are you saying that rape of minors is a normal on many islands?

Friends were traveling the world and we made plans for me to meet them for a couple of weeks. On the dates I could join them they were going to be in Patagonia. I made enthusiastic noises down the phone but as soon as I hung up I had to get out an atlas to find out where Patagonia was. I had heard the word before but vaguely thought it was a mythical place like Valhalla or Atlantis. I realise this probably says more about my ignorance than it does about the ‘unusualness’ or otherwise of Patagonia.

It isn’t mythical but it is beautiful and I am so glad I went. It set off a midlife interest in travel that might otherwise have never have happened. This years destinations include India, Thailand and Alaska. Can’t wait.

I spent a couple of months in Madagascar doing conservation work which was amazing

Did something similar in the Phillipines on a privately owned island so very few people have visited there

I've been to visit some Dogon villages in Mali too. Travelled down through Algeria about 30 years ago shipping up in a town called Tammanrasset and down to villages on the Niger, but not Timbuktu. Also some pretty remote villages on the river in what was at the time Zaire.

Does Kosovo count? Had an amazing holiday there with a few days in Albania - completely bonkers but also brilliant. Definitely not touristy, people didn’t believe we were on holiday!

Syria in 2009; Aleppo and Damascus.

Roussette I'd love to go to Tristan de Cunha, it looks fascinating! I believe you have to apply to go there? I sometimes 'visit' on Google maps but end up giggling at the reviews on there and similar on TripAdvisor

There’s always someone misinterpret what one says. By weirdness I mean the isolation and fact some people don’t want to live on small island etc

Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Mongolia.

Tectonic plates

The OP said unusual. I would say that most places mentioned were unusual when the majority of Brits go to France, Spain, USA etc. How many Brits have been to the Orkney's? I wouldn't say it's exotic but it's unusual.
I don't think anyone is saying they are special. What a strange thing to say.

Easter Island Chile.

Bhutan

Galapagos Islands- Darwin, Isabella etc