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Receiving a Syrian Visa at Border and then Overstaying Experience
This story comes from a reader named Marc Davies and documents his experience of trying to enter Syria without a pre-arranged visa, being awarded a transit visa at the border, overstaying it, and then...
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Iraq Border Crossing
Iraq Border Crossing – Getting there and away This page is a collection of information, stories, questions and answers about crossing the Iraqi border. Did you ever cross a land border into or out of...
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Turkey Travel Guide
Turkey is a country that is uniquely located in both Europe and Asia. It is bordered by Greece and Bulgaria to the west, Georgia to the northeast, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran to the east and Iraq and...
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Good places to Travel in Yemen
Recommended Travel Destinations in Yemen This is a collection of recommended cities, towns, villages, and other locations to travel to in Yemen, as well as suggested attractions and activities. Sana’a...
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Göbekli Tepe: the Rise of Agriculture, the Fall of the Nomad
The human was born a traveling animal. For over 100,000 years we walked across the great Savannas, made way through the jungles, camped in Arctic tundra, and hunted and foraged in the forests of this...
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Cheap Accommodation Hotels Hostels in Jordan
There are a number of cheap hostels in Amman and Wadi Musa, right outside Petra. Travelers should take recommendations from trusted sources and walk around the city themselves to try to find cheap...
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Food in Syria
Syrian food takes its influences from Mediterranean cuisine, Turkish influences and Middle Eastern spices. Many Syrians eat a light breakfast, with a heartier lunch and dinner. If there is a...
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Meerschaum Pipe Carving: Another Art Fading into History
Cardboard box sat upon cardboard box in stacks that rose up from the floor to nearly the ceiling of a meerschaum pipe workshop in Eskisehir, Turkey. They had been sitting there for what may as well...
View ArticleNews Politics Current Events in Qatar
Qatar is a small but rich country in the Middle East. Before traveling to Qatar we suggest that travelers find out as much as they can about current events in the country and how these might affect...
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Study Abroad in Jordan
Jordan is an increasingly popular study abroad destination. It is regarded as one of the safest and most stable places in the Middle East, making it a good place to study the area. It is also centrally...
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News Politics Current Events in Oman
Oman is a country located in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is an absolute monarchy and is acknowledged as one of the most stable and developed countries in the Middle East. If you are...
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Exploring The Syria Crisis: Two Years In And No End In Sight
If tuning in to Al Jazeera or BBC to learn about the crisis in Syria, one would get an image of that: a crisis. The country has fallen into chaos. Syria’s “Arab Spring” that started over two years ago...
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On Being Dead In Ürgüp, or How I Survived Abroad Without Money
Once upon a time, a time when credit cards and ever generous spending limits fell freely from the sky, I was a pampered traveller. I thought, then, that I was well-travelled, trundling from one...
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Another Reason to Travel: Places Get Destroyed
I never would have thought that a place as old and worn and textured as Aleppo could be destroyed. The last time I was there was in the spring of 2009, long before the recent revolutions and civil...
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The Iranian Women’s Dragon Boat Racing Team
At the end of last year I went to a dragon boat racing event that was held on a reservoir in Penang. Teams from all over the world streamed in to race, but one team in particular caught my attention:...
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The Road Ahead: Bulgaria, Oman
RHODES, Greece- I believe I’ve written before that my travel paths resemble the jagged mouth of a jack-o-lantern. They’re all messed up — going here, going there, going backwards, forward, backwards...
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Getting An Oman eVisa Took Three Minutes
RHODES, Greece- I responded to a question on our YouTube channel about getting travel visas, saying how incredibly easy it has become: “You just get on their web page, fill out a form, make a payment,...
View ArticleA Surprising Question On The Way To Dumq
RHODES, Greece- I was invited to Oman to attend the launch of the Dumq free economic zone. This is a new SEZ / port / new city project that’s going up in Oman — one of a handful of such endeavors that...
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Travel To Oman
TRANSIT ZONE, Sofia- I sat down at the breakfast table and quickly looked down at what was in front of me. It looked like yogurt with a bed of muesli beneath it. So far, so normal. Then I sunk in my...
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A Night At The Transit Zone Hotel, Dubai Style.
TRANSIT ZONE, Dubai- On the flight over from Sofia it hit me: I’m not going to get any sleep tonight. I have a ten hour layover in Dubai and Dubai airport sucks. Or at least the Fly Dubai part of it....
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I Arrive In Oman
MUSCAT, Oman- The two ladies sitting next to me on the flight from Dubai to Muscat were from Uganda. The plane was conspicuously loaded with them but they didn’t seem to be traveling as part of a...
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Oman Summit
MUSCAT, Oman- “I strategically positioned myself in the back of the room,” a British banker joked to an older white dude who was sitting to his right. I got the joke. We watched a promotional video...
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Travel To Duqm
MUSCAT, Oman- I’d never been in an airport departure lounge like this before. It was ornate. It was like the lobby of a ballroom. There was marble and tile and gold. Mirrors and well-dressed people. I...
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Day One In Duqm – A New City In The Desert Of Oman
This is a blog post. It’s not meant to be an exhaustive analysis but rather a short nonfiction narrative. I will get into this story more in-depth in the articles that are to come. What follows is...
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The Easy Way
MUSCAT, Oman- Furkan Duzgun — I don’t know if that’s his real name — decided that he wanted to study at the famous film school of Roman Polanski in Lodz, Poland. But in order to study at this school...
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Day Two In Duqm – New City In The Desert Of Oman
DUQM, Oman- I woke up in a work camp in the middle of the desert. What was I going to do? It was Friday — a day off in the Islamic world — and I wouldn’t be able to schedule any formal interviews....
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Of Desert Towns And New Cities
DUQM, Oman- I woke up on my final day in Duqm with the realization that there were two things that I was missing: 1) a visit to the Chinese section, and 2) a visit to the old town of Duqm. I wasn’t...
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Bedouin Don’t Want To Live In No Middle Class Houses
DUQM, Oman- A giant white village arose out of the desert on the horizon, glimmering in the evening sun. “What is that place?” I asked the Omani guy who was driving me to the airport. “That’s a new...
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Arriving At Muscat’s New Airport Five Hours Early
MUSCAT, Oman- Ever since that woeful event a few years ago on a flight from Urumqi to Almaty I’ve been a little paranoid about getting ill on airplanes. It’s to the point where I try to sanitize my...
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Return To Muscat
MUSCAT, Oman- I’m now back in Muscat. I got what I was after out in Duqm and now I can put together a nice little story about the place. I’m now just sitting at a beach cafe — a pavilion, really,...
View ArticleLeaving Oman
TRANSIT ZONE, Muscat- I’m back in no-man’s-land. The transit zone. There are no bars in this one, but there is a group of young Rwandan woman. They are wearing extremely colorful robes. One is all...
View ArticleOman Bars
MUSCAT, Oman- Bars in Muscat tend to be in basements, which really lends a literal interpretation of the term “underground.” Oman is a Muslim country, though it is one that doesn’t get too bent out of...
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Truck Fishing In Oman
MUSCAT, Oman- Truck fishing. That’s the only name for it that I can come up with. It’s pretty much what it is. After stumbling out of the bar at the Hyatt I went for another walk down the beach. Oman...
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Ugandan Maids In Oman
TRANSIT ZONE, Dubai- The flight to Oman was full of young Ugandan women. They were on the way to begin their tenures as domestic servants, working in the homes of Muscat’s wealthy and wealthy-ish. I...
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Running Back To The USA
TRANSIT ZONE, Doha- The currency exchange booth at the Sofia airport was closed and I’m now sitting in the transit zone in Qatar with pockets bulging with hundreds of dollars worth of useless...
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‘Five Years Ago There Was Nothing’ My Duqm Feature On The Guardian
My feature about Duqm was published today on The Guardian. If you’d like, you can check it out here: ‘Five years ago there was nothing’: inside Duqm, the city rising from the sand You can find my...
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Travels In Muscat Vlog
I just published a video about what I did in Muscat when I went to Oman in May to do a project about Duqm. I was in Oman around three months ago or so but I’m still processing the content that I...
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Truck Fishing In Oman Vlog
I’m making my way to the end of my Oman project — only one more video and one doc-short to go. Here’s a video about something interesting that I found on the beach of Muscat: truck fishing.
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What Being In A New City Rising From The Desert Is Like
My Duqm doc is up: Filming conditions out there were intense. Bright sun, constant wind, dust. Mix this into the fact that this was all run and gun filming — nothing except the interview with Moni was...
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Israelis Travel in Hostile World
Israelis Travel Through a Hostile World Israeli culture is one part Arab (basically) one part European Jew (basically). Within the past century Jews from North Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the...
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What is the Weather Like in Israel in Winter
Q: What is the weather like in Israel in the winter? What clothing should I bring? A: As for weather in Israel in January, think autumn. Expect temperatures between 5 and 20 degrees Celsius, 40 to 70...
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Israel Border Crossing
Crossing the border to and from Israel This page is to provide information about crossing the Israel border, both coming into the country from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan and exiting as well. Did...
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Cheap Accommodation in Israel – Backpacker Hostels, Camping, and Volunteering
Cheap Places to Sleep in Israel Accommodation in Israel is EXPENSIVE! It is a country where a dorm bed can go for $20 to over $50 per night! So when the extreme budget traveler is faced with such a...
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Israel Travel Guide
Introduction Israel is a small country of a little more than 22,000 square kilometers located in the Middle East. Following the Second World War, the British withdrew from Palestine and partitioned the...
View ArticleBeirut Airport Touch Prepaid SIM Card Scam
BEIRUT, Lebanon- I’m laughing as I write this as I think about what I would have done if this happened ten years ago. Ten years ago I would have freaked out, reported people to the police, did a series...
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Beirut, Lebanon Travel Notes
BEIRUT, Lebanon- Unfortunately, I didn’t keep up with blogging when in Beirut. This has all too often been the case when in interesting places where I’m engaged in interesting projects — the best...
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Street Scuffle With Scumbags (Or Cops) In Beirut
BEIRUT, Lebanon- I’m going to tell this story because this has happened before. While something happening two times in nineteen years isn’t really much cause for concern or even a high enough...
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Beirut Cultural Short Films: The Dancer
I went around Beirut and made a series of short films about the people I met and the things they do. Basically, I pulled out my camera, sat back, and just watched what happened. I may go back to...
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Next Month The World’s Oldest Place Will Be Destroyed
We say that we value culture and heritage and history, but we don’t. We value highways and ports and gigawatts. The fakers at UNESCO simply divert our gaze from the destruction that happens each day...
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Escape To Mexico: The Final Frontier For Covid Travels?
2020 has been one helluva year. After having to isolate in Skopje, I headed for Turkey, simply because Turkey was ‘open for business.’ This is part of the #NewNormal. You go where you can, not always...
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