Nan Madol is one of the most intriguing archaeological sites on the planet, and one of the least known. At least, I spent most of my life not knowing about it. It’s a series of...

We were rambling through a temple in Ubud when we came across a platoon of Balinese making complicated constructions out of flowers. The queen had died back in the spring and her funeral was going...

Partway up a mountain in the far west of Uganda is the lodge Diane Fosse slept in when she wanted human company, although that’s not much of an endorsement. Of all the things that woman...

In western Uganda between the Mountains of the Moon and Lake Albert, you come to the Kibale Forest . . . where people will take you to see chimpanzees. Guaranteed. “The forest is full of chimps,” they...

Heading west through the Kalahari the country becomes ever more parched. The thorn bushes give out and so does the pavement, until you’re in the Namib, one of the driest places on Earth: packed dirt,...

The bar at the northern end of the world is in Pyramiden, a failed Soviet model city on Spitzbergen Island in the Arctic Ocean. It’s situated at almost 80 degrees North, which puts it closer...

The bar at the end of the world . . . at least the southern end of the world . . . is at Vernadsky Station in the Antarctic. It used to be called Faraday Station...

Citizens of almost any place in the world can pick up a visa upon arrival at the airport in Tehran. Those of us who live in Britain, Canada or the Great Satan can’t even apply...

Despite what you might have heard, it’s not true that our embassy in Iran is no longer open for business, it’s just that the people working at the embassy are no longer accredited by the...