Lee Abbamonte is on a global quest to visit all of the world's countries and furthermore complete this task before the age of 37 years, 9 months, 17 days. In doing so, Lee would be the youngest person on the planet to have visited all the countries in the world. We recently had a chance to ask him about his globe trotting exploits as well as his unique advice. Q. You are quickly becoming one of the world's most traveled individuals, … [Read more...]
Tony Wheeler: Founder of Lonely Planet
Recently we had the opportunity to sit down with Tony Wheeler, the founder of Lonely Planet, in San Francisco. He was on a whirlwind tour in the United States promoting his new book, Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil. We spent about an hour in the interview. Immediately following his book promotion tour he was off to attempt a climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa 5,895 meters (19,340 feet). We asked him a series of questions - this is … [Read more...]
Bad Lands
Bad Lands by Tony Wheeler Join Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler as he explores some of the "badlands" in the world. He visited the following nine countries because of their human-rights abuses: Afghanistan, Albania, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. … [Read more...]
Iran; the most misunderstood country of the world!
Over the years when talking to a foreign tourist who has come to my motherland for the very first time I've gotten used to hearing expressions such as "wow! I see you have restaurants in Iran!", or "Believe me Iran was not what I'd thought", "I never thought you had such a beautiful country" and so on. For the global public opinions and the mass majority who do not have any particular way of knowing a distant land rather than relying on the … [Read more...]
Lawrence of Arabia Came this Way
To him, like to a number of other Jordanians to whom I had spoken, Lawrence and his Seven Pillars of Wisdom were still alive. His desert exploits, during the First World War, seemingly had not been erased from their minds. After visiting the fabulous rose-red ruins of Petra, we had picked up Ali on a tourist road, encircling this once lost Nabataean city. It gave us one last fantastic view of the breath-taking mountains cradling the … [Read more...]
Death Valley, CA
Death Valley is a very unique and fascinating park. It is a land of stark contrasts and great natural extremes. It is the largest national park in the lower 48 states and as a national park, only dates from 1994. Synonymous with California - a small part of the park is actually in the state of Nevada. Death Valley National Park is 3.4 million acres - as a result visitors need at least 3-4 days to get a "feel" for the park and to visit and … [Read more...]
Palm Springs, CA – Dates
Date Palms can be found in many locations in the Coachella Valley. Dates are among the oldest of the cultivated fruit in the world. Many of the dates in the Coachella Valley come from the Middle East including many varieties from Iraq. Three of Dave's favorite places to purchase dates are Hadley's Date Gardens, Shields Date Gardens & Oasis Date Gardens. The three listings below are retail outlets and all will ship dates via the mail. Visit … [Read more...]