Eritrea
Pictured: Taking a local boat out to the “Green Island” in Massawa
What to say about Eritrea? Uniquely positioned on the Red Sea coast, there is a lot of potential for the country - meanwhile it seems that they are perfectly content without credit cards, any kind of digital banking (they keep their bank account registry on a piece of paper), AOL dial-up speed “wi-fi”. Plainly put, technology is their last concern - and the well behaved children and respectful adults are a product of it.
Saudi Arabia
Pictured: Hegra
Saudi is working feverishly to make tourism a bigger contributor to their economy. Our favorite stop in Saudi Arabia was definitely AlUla, a short flight from Riyadh. Our last stop in the Middle East before returning home was a relaxing one in the desert with the highlight as touring Hegra.
Oman
Pictured: Magic Camp Desert in Wahiba Sands
Oman is such a quiet country, we visited three different parts of the surrounding Muscat area: the mountains, the ocean, and the luxurious Jumeirah Bay. Like Saudi, Oman is still working to develop their tourism industry - and you can see why they haven’t had to as you drive by miles and miles of oilfields and pipelines.
Yemen
Pictured: Posing with the Yemeni-famous Dragons Blood Trees on the outskirts of the Hajhir Mountains.
Yemen (or Socotra Island) was our absolute favorite landscape visits in all of the Middle East. Their scenery and natural beauty is unlike anything we’d seen before and is almost incomparable to any other place. The diversity of the landscape, mountains, trees, beaches, sand dunes, and rain forest like climate seems almost impossible to all fit on a small island that you can drive around in 5 hours.
Lebanon
Pictured: Fishermen’s boats taking a break in the Biblos mini-marina
We drove across the border from Syria to Lebanon; from Damascus to Beirut. The contrast between the two was stark - Lebanon, although not without their share of conflict, has been given the opportunity to rebuild and construct a beautiful and vibrant main city. The food in Lebanon was THE best in the Middle East (but I do believe all the chefs are Syrian).
Syria
Pictured: With the few standing remains at Palmyra - just 3hours outside of Damascus.
Syria will probably go down as my favorite country in the Middle East. The historic sites we visited were breathtaking, unimaginable that they are still standing, confusing that we’d never seen or heard of them before. Aleppo and Damascus are two absolutely brilliant cities. The constant conflict they endure keeps them from being able to build their country to the way it could be. Given the chance - Syria would be unstoppable.
Iraq
Pictured: Standing at the “gates” of Babylon, just 2 hours outside of Baghdad
Our tour through Iraq was history filled and surprising at every corner. Babylon, Baghdad, searching for the “Garden of Eden”, the Tigris, the Euphrates, finding the roots of Mesopotamia, a local and authentic speed canoe ride through the Chibayish marshland, and some ridiculously amazing food.
Afghanistan
Pictured: Standing outside a mosque on the other side of the hill from Kabul’s main center.
Afghanistan challenged us in many ways. The people were so kind and friendly, we felt very welcome. The Taliban “securing” the country kept us on the edges of our seats a little bit. The topography of Bamyian Valley loosely reminded us of Napa Valley and we’d love to go back to see more of the Afghani countryside including the Herat area.
Pakistan
Pictured: Taking a photo with the Pakistani military men at the lowering of the flag ceremony at the Wagah India Pakistan Border.
Pakistan was action packed from start to finish. The Pakistani’s are hard workers (when they need to), and there’s always business to be made somewhere. Our craziest day was in Peshawar where we saw many things that we wouldn’t dare film and wouldn’t dare write about in a blog :)
Qatar
Pictured: Standing outside the main government building during their camel procession that takes place two times a day, every day.
Doha is the main city we visited and we took an entire day to tour all around the burgeoning young city. Visits to the souks, national museums, ports of old dhow boats, the “worlds nicest fish market”, the falcon market and falcon hospital - the culture of Qatar is very much developing.
Mongolia
Pictured: Taking an obligatory camel photo with Max’s camel after taking a jaunt through the Gobi Desert.
Mongolia was so beautiful every step of the way, from radiant glowing sunrises to no light pollution star gazing at night. We must have experienced every season of weather while we were there. It snowed, it was warm, it was cloudy, it was bone chilling cold, it was dry, mountainous, and flat.
Timor Leste
Pictured: The main attraction in this area of Timor Leste, Cristo Rei of Dili
We had 1 night in Timor Leste and we did our best to explore as much as possible with only a short time there. While walking around we saw many people out and about, training for sport, a wedding at a church, people selling food & a group of mischievous kids seemingly putting a smartphone back together.
Papua New Guinea
Pictured: Across the fjord from Tufi we visited a village whose leader took us on a tour and showed us all of their traditional ways; including: dress, song, dance, building, craftwork and more.
Papua New Guinea is breathtakingly beautiful, peaceful and serene. We spent our entire stay in Tufi, a 30 minute plane ride directly east from Port Moresby. Tufi and the surrounding areas stunned with their fjords and crystal clear blue water. The childrens laughter and the birds chirping echoed through the village and through the canyons of the fjords.
Tonga
Pictured: On the boat to go see humpback whales! Bucket list!
In total we saw 16 whales in 1 day, and we were told that was a VERY good day. We weren’t prepared for how physically strenuous it is to swim up to the whales as well as keep up with them, but every part of the experience was worth it. I only wish we had more days in Tonga! What an incredible and sacred feeling place.
Tuvalu
Pictured: Taking a scooter out to the far end of the island, past where they dump the trash and where there are even less people
We spent 3 nights in Tuvalu and mostly spent our time walking around both sides of the island, and undoubtedly walking to the airstrip every night to see how the locals enjoy their community time together. It was there that we were met with many smiles, laughs, waves and nods. Tuvaluans are very friendly people.
Samoa
Pictured: Walking around our resort, Taumeasina
We had a short but great stay in Samoa. It reminded us of Hawaii. We relaxed at the hotel, walked around the resort and the nearby neighborhoods, walked to an incredible italian dinner spot, watched locals prepare to play rugby, play rugby, then walk home from playing rugby. We even got trained by a Samoan rugby pro in the hotel gym.
Solomon Islands
Pictured: Walking through the market on Friday afternoon
We stayed 2 nights in the Solomon Islands on the main island in the city of Honiara. The Solomon Islands takes government assistance from a number of countries, and it’s easy to tell that they are a developing country. There were a lot of WW2 ship wrecks that we could have dove to, but there were not many dive shops still in business on the island.