What are the most interesting places you've ever been?
 

What places have you visited that you found the most interesting, enlightening or educational and why?

I've been to over 50 countries and all 50 states, and of all these places, the most interesting 3 were:

1. Soviet Union, April 1981 (Year after Olympic boycott). I went on a 8 day tour, 4 days Leningrad, 4 days Moscow. It gave me a clear view of what Soviet communism was all about. Dreary but highly educational.

2. Israel - 2 week vacation, Christmas/New Years 1983. Jerusalem is a mind-blowing place. Its sense of history overwhelms any other place I've been.

3. Kenya - 2 week photo safari, early 1980's. Seeing all the Wild Kingdom stuff up close and personal. Visits to Masai tribal villages was a trip too.

4. Runner Up - Istanbul. Beyond the fantastic sights (Topkapi Palace and Blue Mosque are incredible), the people are the most kind, gracious people I've ever met.

I've been to Arkansas and the county fair.

I liked Arkansas better.

Chas

Funnel cakes got you down?

It was showing hogs that soured me.

Ever give a hog a bath?

Chas

Kuala Lumpur
 

1971 Kuala Lumpur. Went for three weeks to try to untangle a mess (failed) and ended up staying 3 months, mostly driving old ex British Army trucks for the Red Cross during the floods. Nope, I didn't know how to drive a truck; it's a steep learning curve trying to drive the thing full of supplies down a flooded causeway accompanied by a map reader who couldn't speak English. We soon had some words in common, "Oh Shit" being two of them.

I havent been anywhere noteworthy.
Ive been to France, Spain, Italy, Wales, Scotland (possibly), Germany (possibly), Switzerland, Crete and Cyprus. So, I have never really been out of Europe.

I am so jealous. What was your impression? Did any of your views get changed or challenged while you were there or were your views simply confirmed? Why did you decide to go in the first place? How much did you enjoy it there? Was there anything particulary weird about the place that stood out to you?

Sounds to me like you've been around.

Chas

I spent about 18 months in Hinesville, Ga. back in the early 70s.:)

Damn JJ, sounds like you get around too!!!

Chas

After 18 months there you've seen it all!;)

I had been in Germany for about 3 years at the time and had been most everywhere within driving distance and wanted to experience something completely different. I was living in Fulda, the likely focal point of any Russian invasion of Western Europe, and wanted to see what the "enemy" was all about.

The visit largely confirmed what I thought to be true, having been across East Germany and into East Berlin a few times. The biggest impression was the scarcity of common foodstuffs. A grocery store we went into in Moscow had stacks of bread and dried fish and not much else. Also, the accounting for/spying on western visitors was palpable within the hotels and on any formal tours/outings. We were left alone though as we wandered on our own through Leningrad and Moscow.

I remember the feeling of intense relief when our plane touched down in Vienna after our visit. It was like a burden had been lifted and we'd only been there 8 days.

Been to every province in Canada except Newfoundland, Flown into or driven through about 25 of the fifty states. England, The Netherlands, France, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Israel. Guess that covers it

Didcha bring back any vodkey???

Chas

I did. And I'm not much of a liquor drinker, more just beer and wine. I still have a liter bottle of Stolichnaya that I bought there that has about 1/4 remaining. It's now over 30 years old and has "Made in the Soviet Union" on the bottle.

We drank a lot of the Crimean champagne while we were there. Krimsekt, as it was called in Germany, was always a big hit with the honeys in Germany. We were on a 50 person tour and at least half of them were DoD school teachers looking to party. We got pretty stupid on a nightly basis.

Now I can see where visiting Hinesville should be on everyone's short list of places to see...but brother, it can't hold a candle to Calumet, Oklahoma.

Back in the early 70's they had a big pile of dirt.

Chas

For those that aren't as well traveled as Charles and I, Hinesville, Ga. is just outside the main gate of Ft. Stewart, Ga. Ft. Stewart was made famous by the Beetle Bailey comic strip. It was called "Camp Swampy"in the strip, as well it should. 250,000 acres of Georgia swamp complete with 'skeeters, bobcats, wild boar, alligators, etc. Hinesville had its share of the usual "entertainment" for the troops.;)

Hey, no teachin' us nothin'!

:) I liked DC and Colonial Williamsburg (I think DC is the most visitor friendly place I've ever been), but spending time in Hartlepool as a kid I probably got the biggest (although unrealised) history lessons. Playing on the ww2 gun emplacements, touring old castles, cathedrals, legends told by townsfolk, heck the very stones in the town wall screamed age and secrets lost. I've got to remember to thank my dad again for that (mom has passed on).

Now I do my journeys and time travel (both ways :)) via books. Although I do visit the deep, dark, mystical hood occasionally lol.

Pete

One of the real beauties of the place is that nearly all of the essential tourist attractions are free. I'm reminded of this in other cities when they charge $10-15 to get into a museum or a noteworthy historical attraction.

Once in London while visiting the Tower we stopped in the little church at the road leading down to thhe Tower, St. Marrtin's in the field if memory serves (no not the one off Trafalger Square).

The cornerston had a date of 600 something AD - old stones? You betcha. The oddest thing was that its patron was head of the TOC-H society, a group that my Dad had neen a member of - spooky.

A London site that Pete would go nuts over is the Churchill War Rooms. Very cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_War_Rooms

Agreed about DC being free, I sound like a big enough cheapskate without mentioning it! Lol.

I've visited the war rooms :) Heck I was dragged all over the place there. The single neatest ww2 site I saw was the underground Nazi hospital on Jersey though, at least through a kids' eyes.

Rob, what is the TOC-H society? Yuo could be a legacy :)

Pete

Close enough to the Kamchatka Peninsula to see it on the horizon, and the Soviet ships and aircraft that had come to chase us off.

Dave

The TOC-H was the name given to a soldier's house in Belgium during WW I, just type it into Google, Wikipedia goes into considerable detail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toc_H

And I got the name of the church wrong, it is All Hallows by the Tower, and that makes a deal of sense.

Yep, been out that way too (on the island of Shemya, AK). If you like isolation, it might be for you. Otherwise, I don't recommend it.

http://web.apigroupinc.com/headlines...shemya-map.jpg

That's really neat Rob. Have you ever been in contact with them?

See Blue, you've got something in common with Palin! Lmao!

Pete

I haven't been around half as much as many here but I could probably lay claim to visiting or traveling to ( for work) around 40 or so of our states. Not much of a world traveler but I could add Canada, Mexico and Norway to that mix. Also California if you view it as another country as I do ;)

As crazy as it sounds, one of the places with in a place I have found most fascinating for me was the Wal-Mart in Cancun Mexico believe it or not.

We ended up cabbing out there to pick up some supplies for a condo we were staying in a couple of years back.

I wouldn't say it was close to being the highlight of that trip but I remain fascinated by the experience to this day.

I'd love to visit such a place. Its just too bad that I was born a couple of years after the Soviet Union collapsed :rolleyes: I do plan to visit North Korea at some point in my life, though. :)

I go to London once every week. Jealous? :p

We've been blessed to have traveled a lot, but I have to say watching the sunrise from 10,000 feet above sea level feet atop Haleakala (Maui) is the one that jumps out.

At first blush it wouldn't appear to be more than a touristy thing to do.

But as you wait. . . bleary-eyed in the darkness, in freezing temperatures, huddled under a blaket or whatever you could find because you didn't think to brink a parka to Hawaii . . . you begins to sense the hundreds of others up there on that giant, rocky, dormant volcano.

It's a very quiet atmosphere, almost reverent. You hear low murmers in the twilight, but nothing too distinct. If you focus though, you begin to notice accents; Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Canadian, native Hawaiian, English, etc., etc.. but it's a common cause, waiting for that first ray of sunlight, that transcends political boundaries.

And when the sun appears the scene explodes into a multi-lingual cacaphony of celebration. Cheers and prayers erupt, the temperature immediately rises and a feeling of elation seems to overwhelm the crowd. It's an awesome experience, like Karma where every good thing you've ever done comes back to you.



Then, everyone stampedes to their cars, RV's, busses and bicycles (trampling children, the elderly and infirm) to begin racing down the twisty 2-lane road leading down to Kula as they curse and blindly pass, nearly killing every car, bike and pedestrian leaving the mountain. The wise linger a bit and check out the visitor center.

Did a condo salesman help you bag your groceries?

Chas

Glad to see your head is still attached.

It was a friends timeshare deal. Very, very nice but a little too rich for our blood.


No, we shook her well before we ever got to Wally World. It was epic salesperson vs. salesperson and she was as persistent as a woodpecker thats for certain. When it was all said and done, I put her down for the count before the bell late in the fourth round.

I did the rope a dope for a round or three then had to step up my game. I lulled her into thinking that he almost had me so she would call in the "closer" early. It worked and that gave me the opportunity to unleash a of flurry haymakers followed by a " I'll be on my way now. You can keep the complementary spa visits. They are only of interest to my wife and if you haven't noticed, she excused herself to use the ladies room an hour ago and hasn't returned. I think she is on the beach already". She knew that a "one-legger" sale was never going to happen and that was that.

We got nabbed by one in the checkout lane...hell, I thought he worked there. In one way, I guess he did.

He went so far as to push our cart out of the store, all the time offering us free tickets to take the Fast Cat down to Cozumel so we could spend the nite in his condos.

I try to be polite to everyone, but I finally had to tell this guy that I wasn't going to buy a condo from him or anyone else, he was wasting his time, and to just go away.

When we were leaving, a guy ran up and picked up our suitcases while I was telling him not to, carried them 15 feet to the bench we were going to sit on, then stuck out his paw. I wound up giving him a 100 peso note as it was the smallest thing I had.

I hope my wife never wants to go back down there, but I know better.

Chas

We were much closer to Petropovlosk. The Soviets had a sub base there, back in the early eighties. They were not happy that we came to visit.

But, you know what? We were all just young men, sent by our respective governments to do a job.

So, I take it Shemya wasn't exactly a place to party hard and pick up babes?

Dave

At least you made it out into the world before being accosted. We had to go through it before we were handed the keys to our suite. What started out as a tour of the place quickly turned into a sales pitch. It was smooth sailing once I put that to rest early on.

Even though I never went in as a potential buyer, I figured that I would give this gal a bit of time to try and earn. It was more a professional courtesy initially but got annoying fast.

I did pretty much the same with the tipping on the way out of there. Not wanting to do an exchange with all the monopoly money I had in my pocket, I was handing out cash like a madman on the way back to the airport. I'm not sure but in my excitement to get the hell out of there, I think I gave one guy the equivalent of $10 US for moving our bags from the cab to a cart :D

Nope, the only babes wore Air Force blue and there were very few of them. Shemya is owned by the Air Force where it maintained facilities for spying on Soviet missile launches from the Kamchatka peninsula. As you might surmise, it was a very high security place. It was cold, foggy and windy year round. I've been their twice for 3-4 at at time. One of the prettiest sights in the world is seeing the airplane land that you're taking out of that place.

Not a well traveled person here. However, one of the more meaningful places I have visited in my trips to NYC is the John Street Church. It is the first Methodist church in the nation. It's location in the midst of the financial district in the city adds to its meaningfulness for me. The quiet little church building and its congregation have endured despite the monuments to wealth that surround it. I always feel a strong sense of peace when I visit it. The only other place where I have felt a similar sense of reverence is the Baseball HOF in Cooperstown.

Regards,

D-Ray

One of the prettiest sights I've ever seen was the hood ornament on the truck I was driving whenever we left Calumet, OK.

That, and the '62 Chevy the drunk who picked us up was driving whenever we finally quit and were hitching our way out of Winner, SD.

Pretty much everything else that I saw between the two all looked the same through the windshield of a Massy 410.

Chas

The Baseball HOF and Cooperstown are great. The HOF is outstanding and the surrounding area is simply beautiful. My youngest son played in a baseball tournament there for a week and had a great time.

One day we were on this road traveling and we came across an abandoned Prison!!

The gate was open and everything was open,it was really bizarre......The Guard Tower was OPEN so we climbed the stairs to the top..... What an amazing view from the tower!!

They must have recently shut this prison down as the power was still on.......

There was not as cat walks between the towers which would have been nice to walk down....

An interesting day indeed...