The sandy humps extended in waves, reaching houses far away. They looked like an abandoned construction site, as if someone had driven a small bulldozer here and heaped dirt into thousands of mounds for some future purpose that never materialized. Traffic sounds from the nearby road passed through the dry air. People going about their daily lives.

Suburbia among the sepulchers

A field of graves. Not hundreds. Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands just in this residential neighborhood in Madinat Hamad in Bahrain. Over my hotel breakfast, I’d read that most archaeologists estimate somewhere between 80,000 and 172,000 burial mounds scatter across the island’s thirty-mile length. No one seems to have an exact number because some “mounds” are iffy after a couple thousand years. Plus, development has crushed thousands. Even the low estimate makes this one of the largest prehistoric cemeteries in the world. I had expected official infrastructure—parking, pathways, explanatory materials, the things you see at a state park exhibit. Instead: a low rock wall surrounded by houses on three sides. No signs. I’d parked behind someone’s house on the dirt because there was no designated parking area.

What shocked me wasn’t only the scale. It was how completely everyday life had absorbed the mounds. Bahrain’s authorities protected and highlighted them in some parts but mostly left them to their own devices in places like this.

The mounds stood about four to five feet tall. Sandy beige earth peppered with large white rocks. Some of those rocks had an unusual shape, a rougher texture, and were too long. I picked one up. Could bone petrify like this after thousands of years? I’m not an archaeologist. I couldn’t tell. But once I saw what I thought was a bone, I couldn’t unsee it. (I’ve since learned they are limestone fragments from the internal burial chambers. Still can’t unsee it. )

Far across the field, maybe two football fields away, a man walked his dog. A small dog, breed indistinguishable at that distance. He moved at a casual pace between the mounds, following what was clearly a regular route. He seemed entirely matter-of-fact about his walk, the way you’d walk a dog in any neighborhood park.

Plastic bags hung in the thorny bushes. Small blue convenience store bags, the kind that litter the world. They caught near the bottom of the spiky plants, along with paper trash and plastic bottles. Some looked as if they had blown in during heavy weather. Some felt like the remnants of teenage boys hanging out, the way teenage boys hang out in empty lots everywhere.

I climbed one mound to get a high point for a photograph. The surface was slippery—rocky and sandy, like trying to climb the side of a steep dune. When I reached the top, guilt settled over me. There’s a person under here. How deep is the body? Are some of these white rocks actually bones? Will someone come tell me to get down? No one came. It was hard to feel triumphant standing on someone’s grave. I took the photo and climbed down.

Later, at the Bahrain National Museum, I dove deeper into who these people were. The dead beneath my feet belonged to Dilmun, a civilization that flourished here for three thousand years, from around 3200 BC until foreign conquest ended it in the sixth century BC. The museum’s exhibits explained the mythology: in Sumerian texts, Dilmun was the Land of the Living, the place where the sun rises, the terrestrial paradise where disease and aging did not exist. Ancient tablets describe it as pure and virginal, a place where “the wolf snatches not the lamb.” When Utnapishtim—the Sumerian Noah—survived the great flood, the gods granted him eternal life and sent him to live in Dilmun. The museum placard proposed that the Sumerian accounts of Dilmun’s paradise could be the inspiration for the biblical Garden of Eden.

The inhabitants of Dilmun apparently saw their island as the entrance to eternity. Behind glass, the museum displayed what they buried with their dead: ceramic urns, shell and bead jewelry, copper and bronze tools, and the remains of fish and sheep. Provisions for the journey. The massive Royal Mounds at A’ali, some reaching 40-50 feet high, held stone vessels inscribed with the names of kings in Akkadian cuneiform. When archaeologists excavated these mounds in 2017, they identified Kings Yagli-El and Rimum, rulers from around 1780 BC. These names had only appeared in foreign texts up to this point. The glass cases held circular stamp seals found throughout the mounds—distinctive to Dilmun, different from the cylindrical seals of Mesopotamia.

Exhibits explained why Dilmun could support such an elaborate civilization. Surrounded by the barren Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain had springs where fresh water bubbled up from beneath the saltwater seabed. Accounts from 1489 describe divers submerging into the sea with a skin, filling it with fresh water from underwater springs. The island’s name—Bahrain—means “two seas,” the mingling of salt and fresh. This abundance allowed for lush vegetation, agriculture, dates, and grains. It made the island sacred in Mesopotamian mythology, the site where Creation occurred.

The well runs dry

These springs are no more. The shrine of Nabi Saleh, where families once gathered at a freshwater spring, is now a dry hole surrounded by car parks where orchards used to grow. Artesian wells have dried up because of climatic changes and over-extraction. The principal aquifer suffers from severe salinization. What made Bahrain sacred—the thing that separated it from its neighbors, that allowed a great civilization to flourish here—has vanished.

But other things flow through Bahrain now. Between 2000 and 1600 BC, Dilmun functioned as the commercial middleman between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, controlling the Persian Gulf trade routes. Circular stamp seals had shown up in India, Kuwait, and throughout Mesopotamia. Physical proof of a long-distance network that moved copper from Oman, timber and ivory from the Indus, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. Dilmun merchants exported pearls (“fish eyes”) highly prized in Mesopotamia.

The new middlemen

The island has always been a crossroads. What crosses it has changed. At breakfast the next morning, the servers at my hotel—the Intercontinental in central Manama—were Bangladeshi. Jewel had been in Bahrain for five years. He goes home every other year for at least a month for family gatherings like weddings. The higher wages he earns here more than make up for any homesickness, he said. His colleague Monir showed me on my phone where he lived near Chittagong. They were both enthusiastic and perky despite running around frantically. When I mentioned I’d been to many places in Bangladesh, they lit up with pride.

Jewel is one of over half a million foreign workers in Bahrain—more than half the population now, a threshold crossed in 2010. They also make up 70-78% of the workforce. Indians are the largest group, over half from Kerala. The rest from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Philippines. They make up seventy percent of the workforce, concentrated in manual labor and construction. This tradition started with oil in 1932—Bahrain didn’t have enough people to fill positions in the oil industry, so they imported workers and built the company town of Awali near the oil fields to house them. Instead of copper and pearls flowing through the island, now it’s labor.

Throughout Manama, Filipinos worked as hosts and in in front-desk roles. Rwandans worked at my hotel’s front desk. Men from South Asia in shops, wearing casual western dress when not in uniform. Bahraini women wore hijab. Men wore western clothes or Gulf dress. The visual contrast was constant.

Manama itself felt less brash than Doha or Dubai. It developed earlier, and the buildings show a greater range of age. Modern showy skyscrapers sit near simple four- or five-story glass and concrete boxes with utilitarian purposes. The high-rises are on the periphery of the old city. The pace of life during the day is quiet. Weekends are different.

Weekend at Dilmun’s

Thursday night marks the start of the weekend in the Gulf. Trying to get back to my hotel, I inched forward in traffic then sat still for ten minutes, inched forward, sat still. King Fahd Highway packed solid. Modern Toyotas, Nissans, Mitsubishis. Some American makes. Horns—not the constant blaring of Dhaka or Mumbai, but enough to puncture the night. On a street corner in the old town, young girls in hijabs stood ready to cross, shooting phone photos of each other against the building facades—blues and purples and reds washing over them from the LED lights. The traffic crept forward.

Bahrain is where Saudis come for the weekend—a forty-five minute drive over the water for movies, concerts, dining, nightlife. Although Saudi Arabia is changing rapidly, Bahrain is still more relaxed about alcohol, dress codes, and mixing between men and women. For years, Saudis could only see movies in Bahrain. Old habits die hard. They still come.

The second burial site I visited had more infrastructure. Saar Archaeological Site—2050 to 1750 BC, excavated in the 1990s by a British-Bahraini team—had explanatory signs. One warned that any extraction of sand, excavation, or garbage disposal is prohibited and punishable under the Law Concerning the Protection of Antiquities, 1995. I was hoping for a different explanatory sign. I frowned we needed this in the first place at one of the country’s most important archeological sites.

Saar was more of a full city with burial mounds included. The settlement: eighty-four well-preserved houses built in blocks, organized by two main streets and several alleys. A temple, a circular water well, and a kiln. The burial grounds featured an uncommon design—interlocked graves with central chambers surrounded by semi-circular walls, connected like beehive cells. The honeycomb cemetery.

I had the place to myself. No watchman until I was leaving. Two hours walking the entire grounds. There were signs of life. A butterfly appeared in the middle of all this desert, then a beetle. The honeycomb graves became redundant—the pattern repeated, impressive but repetitive.

What struck me most was the ordinariness. Not the scale, not the lack of protection, but the way these mounds just exist in the landscape like any other feature. In the nineteenth century, some scholars believed the island was solely a giant necropolis for mainland Mesopotamia because the density of graves seemed impossible for a local population. Modern archaeology confirmed these are Dilmun’s own dead, their prosperity funding such elaborate customs.

The government has made some efforts at protection. In 2019, the Dilmun Burial Mounds became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The government oversees excavations, managing the tradeoffs between urban development and heritage conservation on an island of roughly 760 square kilometers with one of the world’s highest population densities. International teams from Denmark, France, and Bahrain continue researching. The 2017 discoveries at the Royal Mounds made headlines. The National Museum displays pottery, jewelry, and seals from excavations.

Paradise, paved

But modern development has flattened many mounds. No one tracks an exact count, but the losses are substantial. Both the ancient burial mounds and the modern population concentrate in the northern part of the main island. As towns like A’ali and Hamad Town expanded to house growing populations, they inevitably encroached on the vast fields of graves. Selective protection saved the high-value clusters--the Royal Mounds, sites like Saar. The rest sit in residential neighborhoods, unremarkable, absorbed into daily life.

At the first site in Madinat Hamad, I’d felt sad realizing there were no rules, no infrastructure. Such an important place, once home to a great civilization, and now many people could walk by without knowing what it is. By the time I left Saar, that feeling had shifted a little. Not quite acceptance, but recognition. On a densely populated island where housing demand is constant, preserving every one of tens of thousands of mounds is impossible. The question becomes which ones to protect and how.

Dilmun built this elaborate landscape of death because they believed their island was the gateway to eternity, the Land of the Living where immortals dwelled. They set up their dead for a journey to a paradise that, in their cosmology, existed right here—in Bahrain itself, where fresh and salt waters met, where disease did not exist, where the sun rose each morning over sacred ground.

I can’t prove the loss of those springs is why the mounds feel ordinary now--why a man walks his dog through graves the way you’d walk through any park, why plastic bags catch in the thornbushes. The myth depended on water. Modern Bahrain no longer has those springs, but has oil instead.

The sacred has become ordinary in places. Bahrain remains a crossroads, but for different travelers now—Bangladeshi workers sending money home, Saudi families cruising the causeway for weekend movies, foreign laborers building the infrastructure of modern life. The ancient dead rest beneath it all, mostly forgotten, occasionally studied, their elaborate arrangements for eternity lying in darkness under neighborhoods where children play and satellite dishes pepper the rooftops. The Land of the Living, where everyone now just lives.

Country Statistics

• Population (2024) - 5.3 million; 56.4% citizens

• Population Growth Rate (2024) - 4.5%

• Size - 309,500 k2 (119,499 sq mi) - a little bit smaller than the state of New Mexico or a bit bigger than Italy

• GDP (nominal 2024) - $107.14 billion

• GDP per capita (nominal 2024) - $20,285.20

• GDP per capita PPP - $41,740

• Inflation rate (2024) - 0.6%

• Biggest export - petroleum products. 64% of all export revenue, 45% of government income, 50% of GDP

• Median age (2025) - 27.5 years

• Life expectancy (female/male) - 82/78

• Murder rate (2023) - 0/100K

• Ethnicity - Arab, Baluchi, South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi), African

• Religion - Muslim 85.9%, Christian 6.4%, Hindu 5.7%, other and unaffiliated 2% (2020 est.). Omani citizens are 95% Muslim - 45% Ibadhi, 45% Sunni, 5% Shia, 5% Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist.

• Corruption Perceptions Index - Rank #50/180

• Index of Economic Freedom - Rank #58/184

Omani citizens represent approximately 56.4% of the population and are overwhelming Muslim (Ibadhi and Sunni sects each constitute about 45% and Shia about 5%); Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists account for roughly 5% of Omani citizens

The map and statistics format comes from Matt Lakeman.

Getting My Goat

I saw just a couple of goats at first. I was too focused on keeping my rental Chinese sedan from spinning out on the canyon floor, the rocky, dusty path threading between walls of rust-colored rock that shot straight up on either side. Then one lifted its head from a shrub—long-haired, unhurried—and I realized dozens of them were scattered along the route, lying in the winter sun as if they owned the place. They moved aside only when my front bumper got close enough to inconvenience them.

I’d stumbled into this canyon behind Wadi Tanuf by accident, curious why other cars kept driving up the dirt road past the wadi, then turning around. No signs. No markers. Just worn tire tracks disappearing into the rock. The wadi itself had been dry when I arrived, so I followed the path in, wheels kicking up soft sand and loose stones. When they spun out the second time, I thought: this is how you get yourself into a fix. No other cars. 3G cell service, maybe. Just me, a two-wheel-drive sedan, and goats that clearly belonged to someone I never saw.

Low Key, With Cap

I’d come to Oman for a week after visiting family in Addis Ababa, covering the stretch from Muscat to Nizwa and the surrounding areas. I’d expected—though I tried not to have expectations—something harder to navigate, more opaque. Instead, I found a place that felt remarkably open, low-key in a way that the rest of the Gulf mostly isn’t.

The architecture tells you this immediately. Driving from the airport through Muscat, you don’t see forests of skyscrapers competing for height. Buildings stay low to the ground, Arab in style, white or beige against the mountains. The emphasis seems to be on development that serves people rather than statements—roads that work, neighborhoods that breathe, a city that hasn’t erased what came before it.

And the men wear dishdashas. Not some of them. Not on special occasions. Nearly every Omani man I saw wore the traditional white, collarless gown with an embroidered kummah cap. This wasn’t heritage dress hauled out for tourists—it was Tuesday afternoon at a gas station, Thursday morning at the souq. Traditional culture as a daily fact, not a museum exhibit.

Dawn of a New Era

The easiest way to understand modern Oman is to know that fifty-five years ago, there were ten kilometers of paved roads in the entire country. Ten. The Sultan banned radios, eyeglasses, and umbrellas. He viewed schools as incubators for dangerous ideas—there were three primary schools serving nine hundred boys, zero girls. Life expectancy hovered around forty-nine. Slavery was legal. If you’d visited in 1969, you would have arrived in a medieval state called “Muscat and Oman,” a bifurcated territory where people needed permission to travel between towns.

On July 23, 1970, a twenty-nine-year-old named Qaboos bin Said overthrew his father in a British-supported palace coup and declared: “Yesterday, Oman was in darkness... But tomorrow, a new dawn will rise for Oman and its people.” They call it the Nahda—the Renaissance. Everything you see now was built since then. The roads. The hospitals. The schools. Women in government positions. The opera house. The fact that life expectancy is now seventy-six instead of forty-nine.

I thought about this while standing inside the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, which opens to non-Muslims each morning before the Dhuhr prayer. I’ve seen ornate mosques—the tile work in Qatar, the mosaics in Istanbul—but what distinguished this one was how the elements worked together: the enormous blue rug stretching across the prayer hall, the contemporary Islamic styling of the arches, the way the color scheme of the interior dome played against rich wood panels. Around the exterior, niches paid homage to other Islamic art traditions—Persian, Turkish, Moroccan—without mimicking them. It felt less like a monument to wealth than a carefully considered space that honored both tradition and the present moment.

Feast in the East (Middle, that is)

That night I ate at Ramssa, a traditional Omani restaurant where I sat on carpeted floor cushions in a booth while staff laid down plastic sheeting to protect the rugs. The starters came first: hummus, baba ghanouj, muhammara thick with roasted red peppers and walnuts, arugula salad scattered with pomegranate seeds. Then the mains: camel miqlay cooked with spices and served with honey and local bread; chicken mandi over biryani rice; lamb shiwa—marinated meat slow-roasted for days, traditionally in underground ovens—with qaboli rice studded with raisins and chickpeas; fish bablo, a stew flavored with dried lime and turmeric; shrimp mishkak grilled on skewers and served in tangy tamarind sauce. For dessert, luqaimat—crunchy fried dough balls crisp on the outside, soft within, drizzled with date molasses—and milk pudding topped with sweetened vermicelli. The meal ended with Omani coffee, kahwa, cardamom and saffron-scented, served in small cups.

Welcome to Our Home

Getting around had been simpler than I’d expected. I rented a car cheaply at the airport, used Google Maps to navigate, and found that Omanis drive much like Westerners—lane discipline, reasonable speeds, none of the chaos I’d braced for. Food was easy to find: Arab, Indian, and Western options scattered throughout. The weather held at pleasant and sunny, cool enough at night that could put on a light jacket if you wanted to.

What struck me most was how comfortable I felt as a visitor. Every Omani I met welcomed me to their country with genuine pride—the people eating next to me at restaurants, the police at the airport, and people I met just walking around. Most conversations were same-sex given cultural norms, and since I was traveling alone, my interactions stayed surface-level, but the hospitality was real, not performed.

Oman’s distinctiveness comes from what it isn’t as much as what it is. It’s the only Gulf state—the only country, period—dominated by the Ibadi sect of Islam, neither Sunni nor Shia. This gives it a sectarian neutrality that functions like diplomatic armor. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE have engaged in military interventions across the region, Oman has maintained a policy of “friend to all, enemy to none.” It didn’t join the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. It didn’t take part in the 2017 blockade of Qatar. Instead, it serves as the back channel, the interlocutor—it facilitated the secret talks between the United States and Iran that led to the 2015 nuclear deal.

Unlike its wealthier neighbors, Oman has smaller oil reserves and higher extraction costs. Experts estimate the reserves could be depleted within twenty years, forcing a post-oil reckoning sooner than Qatar or the UAE will face. The government has responded with aggressive “Omanization,” replacing expatriate workers with locals in over two hundred job categories, and Vision 2040, a diversification plan focused on tourism, logistics, and manufacturing.

But Oman also has something its Gulf neighbors lack: the memory of empire. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Omani Empire stretched from the Strait of Hormuz down the East African coast to Zanzibar. This gives the country an Indian Ocean identity, a historical self-confidence rooted in something older than oil money and glass towers.

I didn’t go as far as I wanted—my rental wasn’t built for it, and after the wheels spun out twice in soft sand, I decided not to test my luck. But I drove far enough to feel the canyon walls closing in on either side, far enough to be alone with the goats and the silence and the realization that in Oman, you don’t need to be particularly adventurous to find yourself somewhere that feels out of the way.

A week wasn’t enough. I needed ten days or more. I would have gone south to the desert, hiked deep into the wadis, spent more time in the mountains. The pace in Oman is slow, without spectacle or rush. The country doesn’t demand you be impressed. It simply exists, confident in what it is, built carefully over fifty-five years from almost nothing into a country that feels both modern and rooted, comfortable and distinct.

As I drove back to Muscat on modern highways that didn’t exist until 1975, I thought about those ten kilometers of paved road in 1970. The goats in the canyon. The dishdashas and kummah caps. The Grand Mosque’s blue rug. The way the Omanis I met said “welcome to our country” like they meant it, excited to introduce you to what they had.

A Land Remaking Itself

I’d come to the Danakil Depression because the earth here was tearing itself apart, and I wanted to see what that looked like. This corner of Ethiopia sits at the junction of three tectonic plates pulling in different directions, and the last year had been violent. Hayli Gubbi erupted in November 2025 for the first time in recorded history, sending ash so high it grounded flights in India. Erta Ale, the lava lake that glowed red for decades, had exploded in July and gone dark. The land remade itself in real time.

Descent from the Highlands

But there was another rift here too, one that had ended in name only. We started in the Tigrayan highlands at 7,400 feet, where women in white habesha libs walked along the roadside, their hair braided in tight, intricate rows. Our white Land Cruiser—the kind you see in every conflict zone—had a large sticker of a crossed-out rifle on the door. In a region still raw from the 2020-2022 war, that sticker mattered.

The highway down into the Afar lowlands carved through the side of the escarpment in tight switchbacks. The altitude fell toward sea level, and the Orthodox churches disappeared. In their place: minarets. The white cotton dresses gave way to neon—fuchsia, electric yellow, acid green—the Afar women moving through the desert like tropical birds in a landscape drained of color.

Bordering on Resentment

The tension was evident close to Abaala, the border town. Tigrayan forces had pushed through here during the fighting, and the resentment hadn’t dissipated. We stopped at multiple checkpoints where guards with rifles scanned our vehicle, looking for insurgents or weapons. I saw only the surface - the suspicious glances and curt conversation. The actual stories behind the rifles and roadblocks passed by, and our car sped on.

Life in the Dust

After the towns, the landscape opened into an emptiness that surprised me. The Afar have lived here for millennia, nomadic herders moving with their livestock across a terrain that looks like it should be uninhabitable. Their homes—ari—are portable domes made from lashed branches, which in better years get covered in woven palm mats. But the drought has gone on so long that now most of the ari I saw were clad in white plastic sheeting or patched together from woven plastic fodder bags, flapping and snapping in the hot wind. The women build these structures, and when the water vanishes, they dismantle them and load them onto camels to move somewhere just as unforgiving.

The salt defines this place. We stopped at Lake Afrera, 112 meters below sea level, which sat there like a wound in the earth—deep emerald green, fed by scalding hot springs. I swam for a few minutes in warm water four times saltier than the ocean, slick against my skin like oil. In the center of the lake sat the lowest-lying island on the planet, a tiny speck of rock in a basin of brine.

But the volcanoes were what I’d come for. We drove north along a volcanic range past Hayli Gubbi, which spent November 2025 throwing ash into the stratosphere. The lava flows swallowed grazing land and left behind fields of black glass that crunched underfoot. Nothing would grow there for generations.

Erta Ale was stranger. For decades, people trekked here to stare into a persistent lake of molten rock—the “Gateway to Hell” they called it. But the massive July explosion reshaped everything. When I reached the rim after a 30-minute walk across sharp basalt in the dark, there was no red glow. The lava lake either retreated deep underground or hid beneath tons of fresh debris. What remained was vog—thick volcanic smog that burned the back of my throat and turned the moon into a pale, smoky orange disc.

The Laws of Heat

Dallol was the ultimate stop, the lowest and hottest place in Ethiopia. We wound through salt canyons where erosion carved the earth into towering fluted pillars, beige and white like church organ pipes.

Then Dallol itself: a hydrothermal field of neon yellows, electric greens, rust reds. Boiling water vented through pillars of salt and sulfur. There were no railings, no signs, no shade. The smell of rotten eggs hung in the air, and the earth hissed. It was a landscape of pure chemistry—beautiful and hostile. It was beautiful and horrific, smelling like death and danger. Standing there, the geopolitics of the highlands seemed like something from another planet. Here, the only laws were heat and the slow, inevitable movement of tectonic plates. Geology doesn’t take sides. The land shifts because it has to. The people, maybe, don’t.

On the climb back toward the Tigrayan mountains, leaving the white salt pans of Lake Karum behind, the wounds on my legs burned. The Danakil doesn’t let you leave without a mark.

The first time you travel to Germany, you stroll through a picturesque old town and run across a beautiful medieval church. You feel surrounded by history. If you are an American, you are blown away at the age of everything in Europe; in your country, “old” might mean a one hundred years. But then you read the plaque. It tells you that Allied bombing destroyed the church in World War II and the city rebuilt it in recent decades.

This keeps happening in place after place in Germany, and then it becomes clear. You grasp the sheer scale of the destruction that occurred here and how much history and culture was erased.

Was there an alternative? I don’t know, and I won’t second-guess the people who made those decisions during the war. City centers and villages evolve organically; new buildings arise, old ones are torn down, and heritage boards decide what’s historically significant. But beyond the architecture, I think of the family losses—the personal memories, the photos, the heirlooms that vanished in the inferno.

This brings us to a hard question: How do we handle what was lost? Reconstruction can be a powerful tool for memory, but it walks a fine line. It risks creating a comfortable, nostalgic version of the past that ignores what happened afterward.

Nowhere is this tension more real than in Frankfurt am Main.

The Lost Heart of the City

Frankfurt ought to be a place of major historical importance. It was the site of the election of every Holy Roman Emperor of the German state since 1356. Celebrations of the empire took place at the Römer and the Frankfurt Cathedral. In the 1800s, even as Frankfurt became an industrial city, the Altstadt stayed a living museum of the Holy Roman Empire.

But that medieval core was obliterated. The British Royal Air Force acted on a directive of “de-housing” and demoralizing German workers, operating under the strategic belief that destroying the fabric of daily life would break the country’s will and end the war faster. German historic centers, with their timber-framed structures, were vulnerable to this tactic. Although the Allies had policies regarding cultural preservation, historical records show these were consistently subordinated to “military necessity.”

On March 22, 1944, the old city died. Frankfurt was home to the largest half-timbered old town in Germany, but in a single night, nearly 2,000 medieval buildings were obliterated. The tight, winding medieval blocks were gone. The Daily Express labeled Frankfurt “the most bombed city in the world”.

A Modern Identity Crisis

When the war ended, German cities grappled with how to move forward. While often framed as a binary choice—faithful reconstruction versus radical modernization—reality offered many more possibilities. Cities could try a layered approach: restoring key monuments while filling the gaps with contemporary architecture, preserving the medieval street grid while changing the skyline, or even leaving ruins as “honest” markers of the devastation. In Frankfurt, however, the debate was polarized from the start.

There was immediate tension between the modernizers and the rebuilders. For decades, the modernizers mostly won. Some sites like the Römer and the Paulskirche were rebuilt in a simplified style; most were not reconstructed. Germans in Frankfurt had a desire to break from the past and opt for radical modernization. The large area between the cathedral and the Römer was a parking lot for almost thirty years. In the early 1970s, the city built a massive concrete city hall in the space that effectively erased the original layout of the old town.

However, in 2007, the Frankfurt city council pivoted, based on public dislike of the concrete buildings and desire to tap into the city’s history. They underwent a significant rebuilding of the Altstadt using the street grid of the late Middle Ages. In 2010, they tore down the city hall and other Brutalist buildings from the 1970s. The construction of fifteen historic buildings was completed in 2018 with original plans. But they have also added twenty new buildings in the space. They have resurrected history, but curated and adjudicated it simultaneously.

This is the “New Old Town” (Dom-Römer-Viertel). The buildings look old, yet the stone is only ten years old.

Museum, Disneyland, or…

Walking through these streets raises tough questions. Critics argue that this is the “museumification” of a city center—an architectural Disneyland that prioritizes tourism over authenticity. There is also the question of selective memory: by rebuilding the charming medieval center, are we glossing over the darker chapters of history that led to its destruction?

These are legitimate concerns. Prioritizing looks over facts could cause us to lose sight of the city’s actual history. Even the concrete buildings tell the story of post-war Frankfurt

However, I see immense value in these efforts, provided they are handled with transparency. The New Old Town isn’t the medieval Altstadt, and we shouldn’t pretend it is. But it can be a faithful map of it.

I don’t have a problem with historic reconstructions; in my travels, I have found that even replicas can teach us a great deal about a culture—how people lived, how they built, and what they valued. But accuracy is key. This means not just copying the facade, but being honest about the materials, the context, and the gap in time.

I have seen questionable (in my mind) reconstructions around the world - in Addis Ababa where a modernizing government has torn down and reconfigured the Piazza; the Globe Theater in London is a 1997 reconstruction; and the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona contains facades attached to the fronts of plain residential buildings.

Countries need to move forward, but they must also give their citizens the opportunity to have a tangible sense of where they came from. Balancing the needs of a modern city with the memory of its origins is a delicate task. Frankfurt’s New Old Town is one city’s carefully considered attempt to bridge that gap.

Scrolling through your social media feeds, you sense you’re about to lose it. Political polarization, homelessness, traffic gridlock, drugs, worn-out infrastructure. You feel like your country’s best days are behind you. As your stress builds, a well-dressed, debonair Asian man appears out of nowhere. He offers you a deal.

He promises you a life on a tropical island with no garbage, no crime, no homelessness, and no traffic. Beautiful, well-dressed people will surround you, and you’ll eat fabulous food every day. You will be wealthier than most people on Earth—GDP per capita here hovers around $90,000, dwarfing the neighbors. You will reside in a high-rise apartment in a city that is half the size of London but holds the wealth of an empire.

“What’s the catch?” you ask.

The man explains there’s no catch, just rules. To ensure harmony, you can debate politely, but you cannot criticize loudly. There are no polemics here—no Charlie Kirks, no Jon Stewarts. He will tell you where you can live to ensure the island meets racial quotas. If you perceive a social injustice, you cannot protest; at best, you may register to speak on a modest patch of grass in one specific park. But cross the line—peddle drugs or fire a gun—and you face the gallows.

“Oh, and don’t eat smelly fruit on the city trains,” he adds. “Otherwise, your life will be wonderful.”

You accept the deal. Welcome to Singapore.

Overview

• Population (2025) - 6.1 million

• Population Growth Rate (2024) - 2.0%

• Size - 735.7 k2 (284.1 sq mi) - about half the size of London or a fifth the size of Rhode Island

• GDP (nominal 2024) - $547.4 billion

• GDP per capita nominal 2024 - $90,674.10

• GDP per capita PPP - $150,689.30

• Inflation rate (2024) - 2.4%

• Biggest export - electrical and electronic equipment

• Median age (2025) - 43.2 years

• Life expectancy (female/male) - 89.5/84

• Murder rate (2020) - 0/100K

• Founded - 1965

• Ethnicity - 74.3% Chinese, 13.5% Malays, 9% Indians, 3.2% others

• Religion - 31.1% Buddhist, 20.0% No Religion, 18.9% Christian, 15.6% Muslim, 8.8% Taoist, 5% Hindu, 0.6% other

• Corruption Perceptions Index - Rank #3/180 (the third least corrupt country in the world)

• Index of Economic Freedom - Rank #1/184 (the freest economy in the world)

The Shock of Order

I landed in Singapore to observe this bargain firsthand, flying in after 15 days in Bangladesh. The two countries share three traits: they are nations, they are humid, and humans live there. The similarities end there.

I traveled from the Dhaka Airport—where I paid an “assistant” 50 Taka to cut through crowds and negotiate a chaotic system—to Changi Airport, a facility with indoor gardens, a butterfly enclosure, and a 40-meter indoor waterfall. Robotic chairs navigated the terminal by themselves, and transport vehicles chirped a stern “Excuse me! Thank you!” to passersby. Immigration involved waving my passport at a turnstile; it felt less like a border crossing and more like entering a subway.

The public transport system feels like cheating to anyone used to American infrastructure. Between the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) trains—clean, electric, frequent—and a bus system that fills every gap, you never need a car. You can cross the nation in under an hour. It is seamless, integrated, and cashless.

But the silence is deafening. Singapore is a “soft-authoritarian” state, run by the People’s Action Party (PAP) since 1959. They have delivered steady growth through a top-down approach that has been called “Disneyland with the death penalty.”

I didn’t notice people acting differently than they do in the US, but I noticed the signs. They are everywhere, oddly specific, and carry heavy price tags:

• No littering: $300 fine.

• No eating or drinking on trains: $500 fine.

• No smoking: $1,000 fine.

• No urinating: $5,000 fine.

• Do not feed the monkeys: $10,000 fine.

• Voyeurism: caning and up to two years in jail.

It is a city of “don’ts.” Yet, oddly, I barely noticed the enforcers. I saw no police. The closest I came to authority was an immigration officer standing bored near the turnstiles. Singaporeans have internalized the rules.

The Memory of Filth

Why do Singaporeans—who are rich, educated, and mobile—accept this? Why submit to the “Air-Conditioned Nation”?

The answer lies at the Chinatown Heritage Museum. It is a historical recreation of Singapore’s past, and it explains the national obsession with order. It wasn’t always shining towers; it was once a place of cramped shop-house cubicles and coolie dorms. Families of ten packed into single rooms to sleep, study, and play. Prostitution was rampant, and “baby farms” raised girls for brothels.

Sanitation was a bucket under a hole in a bench. Every day, a man collected these waste buckets, carrying them through the crowded apartments. Disease was everywhere. Families or officials isolated the dying in “death houses” to expire alone, preventing disease spread or home curses.

When you see where they came from, the bargain makes sense. The government’s decision to demolish slums and rehouse residents in high-rise HDB flats was not merely urban planning; it was a moral mission. Singaporeans have an obsessive compulsion never to return to those days.

The Garden City

If you comply, you’ll get a city that feels both futuristic and joined to nature. Eighty percent of the population lives in government-built high-rises, yet the city is lush.

Seeking balance from the city, I hiked the MacRitchie Nature Trail. It’s a reminder: Singapore’s tropical jungle roots lie under the concrete. Clouded monitors dig in the leaf litter on the forest floor. I saw a Purple Heron, motionless like in a painting, and macaques grooming on rocks.

In the city center, the Botanic Gardens (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Gardens by the Bay offer a manicured version of this nature. I watched the light show at the “Supertrees”—massive vertical gardens that light up to Broadway tunes from the likes of Chicago and A Chorus Line. Spectacular and wholly artificial, it was like a futuristic Disneyland:

The Verdict

The food, perhaps, is the truest expression of the nation’s soul. In the hawker centers, class distinctions dissolve. At the Toa Payoh Lorong 8 Market, I sat outside in the humid night, drinking calamansi juice and eating Singapore Hokkien Mee. It was amazing, clean, and inexpensive. In Little India, I ate a tiffin platter at Madura’s that made me wonder why Indian food in America can’t be this good.

Singapore works. It is the freest economy in the world, the third least corrupt, and arguably the safest.

But as I left, I questioned whether I could live in Singapore.

My hesitation is the same problem Aristotle and Voltaire had with benevolent dictatorships. Absolute rule by the benevolent is great—as long as they remain benign. The system thrives under the PAP, but what happens if the successor is wicked? There are no checks, no balances, no loud political loudmouths to sound the alarm.

In Singapore, you have safety. You have wealth. You have a butterfly enclosure at your airport. However, you’re an associate within an efficient company, not a citizen inside an untidy democracy.

The man at the crossroads delivered on his promise. Life is wonderful, as long as you don’t eat smelly fruit on the train.

I spent 15 days in Bangladesh, visiting the cities of Dhaka, Saidpur, Sylhet, Rangpur, Khulna, Barisal, Cox’s Bazar, and lots of sites and towns in the surrounding areas.

Before traveling, I didn’t research as I would have liked, so I was going into it blind. My only point of reference was the extended period I’d spent in 1989-1990 traveling throughout India.

To understand my observations over those fifteen days, I found it helpful to first step back and view Bangladesh in the abstract: the numbers, the rankings, the basic facts that define the place from afar.

Overview

• Population (2024) - 173.6 million

• Population Growth Rate (2024) - 1.2%

• Size - 148,460 k2 (57,320 sq mi) - about the size of the state of Illinois or a bit bigger than Nepal

• GDP (nominal 2024) - $432.7 billion

• GDP per capita (nominal 2024) - $2,527.50

• GDP per capita PPP - $10,260

• Inflation rate (2024) - 10.5%

• Biggest export - readymade garments (2nd largest in the world)

• Median age (2024) - 29.6 years

• Life expectancy (female/male) - 76.7/73.3

• Murder rate (2020) - 2.3/100K

• Founded - 1971

• Ethnicity - 99% Bengali, 1% other indigenous ethnic groups

• Religion - 91% Muslim, 8% Hindu, 1% other

• Corruption Perceptions Index - Rank #151/180

• Index of Economic Freedom - Rank #122/184

The Geography of Water

Those numbers only relay part of the story. To understand Bangladesh, you have to start with its physical reality: water, and a lot of it.

Bangladesh is the spot on earth where the world’s largest mountains drain into the sea. It is a flat, humid delta dominated by the Ganges and Brahmaputra river systems.

This geography has often positioned the region as an imperial outpost rather than a dominant center of power. India completely envelopes it, save for a small, volatile strip bordering Myanmar in the southeast.

The border itself is symbolic of the chaos in the country. Drawn hastily during the 1947 Partition by the British (who prioritized leaving quickly over settling the issue), the line zigzags over 2,500 miles. For decades, this resulted in some of the most complex border arrangements in modern history: the enclaves.

There were islands of India inside Bangladesh, and islands of Bangladesh inside India—and even islands inside the islands. With little care for land titles, they became de facto “no man’s lands.” Residents had no citizenship, no police, no schools, and no hospitals. It wasn’t until a land swap in 2015 that both countries mostly resolved this cartographic madness.

The Bloody Birth

The Short Version:

• Partition (1947): The British divide India. Bengal is split. East Bengal became “East Pakistan.” The Hindu elite (zamindars), who owned 75% of the land, mostly fled to India.

• The Void: West Pakistanis filled the administrative vacuum, treating the Bengalis as second-class citizens, suppressing their language, and exploiting their jute exports to fund development in the country’s west.

• The Breaking Point (1971): The Awami League (East) won the national election. West Pakistan refused to accept the results and launched “Operation Searchlight,” an attempt to snuff out Bengali nationalism.

The resulting 1971 Liberation War was horrific. Estimates of the dead range from 300,000 to 3 million. Pakistani forces systematically used rape as a weapon of war (200,000–400,000 victims) and targeted intellectuals and Hindus to decapitate the society.

This trauma continues to shape politics today. The Awami League (led recently by Sheikh Hasina) monopolized the “Liberation” narrative, using the power of the state to equate the party with the country’s independence and labeling all opposition as “anti-liberation” traitors. The method proved successful initially, yet Hasina’s regime turned dictatorial—silencing the media, imprisoning opponents, and controlling the judiciary—leading to mass protests that ousted her in 2024.

When I visited, the country was in the tenuous air of a “reset,” currently under the caretaker government of Muhammad Yunus.

The Economy

Out of that violence and political upheaval emerged a fragile, crowded state that still had to answer a basic question: how do 170-plus million people make a living on this wet, overworked patch of earth?

• Garments: If you are wearing H&M, Zara, or Uniqlo, your clothes were likely stitched here. It is the second-largest garment exporter in the world.

• Remittances: Millions of young men work construction in the Gulf or service jobs in Southeast Asia, sending cash home.

• The Fish Pivot: This is a fascinating microeconomic shift. Rice farming used to be the only game in town (Bangladeshis eat ~400 lbs of rice a year). But recently, farmers realized that digging a hole in the rice paddy to grow catfish, carp, and tilapia could yield 5x the profit of rice and provide a richer diet. The countryside is now a patchwork of netted ponds providing cheap protein to the masses.

We visited a workshop where they were making saris by hand. I was amazed at how the workers had the patterns in their heads, despite how intricate they were. My second observation was that the strong machines were near each other, always moving, and extraordinarily powerful. I could imagine someone’s single mistake ending badly, like in a Sinclair Lewis book.

Impressions: The Chaos

That economic story sounds abstract until you hit the streets of Dhaka, where the country’s survival strategies show up as sound, motion, and sheer density.

Arriving in Dhaka, all my senses were struck at once - horns blaring from cars, buses, and rickshaws stuck in endless traffic. Humidity and heat sapped my energy, vibrantly painted and decorated rickshaws competing against double-decker buses that seemed 50% repair compound. Trash is everywhere, but I struggled to find a trash can. One of the few I discovered had a massive hole in the bottom where the trash continued through to the ground.

Above you, the electrical infrastructure hangs in terrifying, chaotic knots ten feet off the ground—a mess that the internet age has only compounded. “Double-decker” buses weave through streets, resembling DIY projects, and avoid ornate rickshaws.

Religion and “Embracing the Orange”

Once you look past the tangled wires and honking buses, what starts to stand out isn’t just the traffic—it’s the call to prayer, the mosques tucked into neighborhoods, and the small religious details coloring daily life.

Bangladesh is 91% Muslim, and purportedly has become increasingly orthodox. However, the flavor of Islam here is distinct from that in the Middle East.

• Architecture: In the Gulf, mosques are projections of state power—massive stone edifices. In Bangladesh, stone is rare. Everything is clay. Thus, the historic mosques are terracotta. They are squat, intimate, community-level buildings designed to survive the monsoon, not to intimidate.

• The Vibe: The mosques I visited were all welcoming. Imams were friendly, gave us impromptu tours of the grounds, and made conversation. In Saidpur, locals woke up an imam at night just to unlock a mosque for my group to see. He seemed happy to do so and allowed us to climb the towers and walk around unsupervised.

• The Visual Marker: You will see older men everywhere with bright orange beards. This is henna. It’s a specific Hadith interpretation common in South Asia: the Prophet encouraged dyeing hair to distinguish Muslims from Christians and Jews, and henna was the approved method. In the Gulf, men ignore this and dye their beards jet black; here, they embrace the orange.

  

The Rohingya

In the southeast, near Cox’s Bazar, lies one of the world’s current great messes.

Over one million Rohingya refugees live here, fleeing war in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. It is the world’s largest refugee camp, a sprawling city of bamboo and tarp. The Bangladeshi government, hostile to their presence, has laws in place that ban employment, education, and permanent structures hoping to get the Rohingya to return.

The geopolitical situation here is bleak. The Rohingya are stuck between the military of Myanmar and the Arakan Army. Bangladesh wants them out. The US and UN provide aid (though funding is chronically short), but the political will to solve the root cause in Myanmar has been largely absent.

Minorities and Identity

Standing in those camps, it’s easy to see identity as something contested at the borders. But the same struggle over religion, language, and belonging also plays out within Bangladesh’s own borders.

Though Bangladesh was created with linguistic nationalism (Bengali) and secularism in mind, it’s now more religiously exclusive.

The Hindu population has plummeted from nearly 30% at Partition to 8% today. The wealthy Hindu zamindars are long gone, leaving mostly lower-caste Namashudras. Hindus are often targeted during political instability, including events like the 1971 war and the 2024 revolution.

There is an ongoing debate since the formation of the country: Are we Bengali (an ethnic identity shared with India’s West Bengal) or Bangladeshi (a distinct Muslim national identity)? At this point in history, the emphasis on a distinct Muslim national identity dominates official discourse and policy.

Food

I seemed to eat a lot of Indian food while I was there. Even biryanis on the menu were dishes like Hyderabad biryani. The blurring on the plate reflects a larger cultural overlap, a shared Bengali world.

Fish and rice are the staples of the diet. The national dish is Ilish (Hilsa), a fish from the Padma River. The Bangladeshis are very proud of it. I’m not a big fish eater, but I tried it one night, and it was good. The waiter warned me about the bones, but they didn’t bother me.

Otherwise, if I was eating Bengali food, it was a mutton biryani, usually.

Conclusion

I arrived in Bangladesh with little preparation, carrying a three-decade-old mental map of India and not much else. What I found was a country that overlaps with India in language, food, and history, but is also its own dense, crowded, improvisational world built on water and trauma.

Rivers explain a lot: the constant threat of floods, the patchwork of fish ponds and rice fields, the sense that everything is temporary and must be rebuilt again and again. The politics explain a lot too: a nation established in conflict, still arguing over who gets to speak for its “liberation,” and what it means to be Bengali or Bangladeshi. The economy feels like a survival strategy more than a grand design—garment factories, remittances, and fish farms all trying to stretch limited land and capital across 170-plus million lives.

On the street, that all collapses into a single sensory experience: the honking, the heat, the chaos of traffic, the trash that has nowhere obvious to go, the terrifying electrical knots overhead. And yet, within that mess are people who kept opening doors—imams waking up in the middle of the night to show us a mosque, workers weaving impossibly intricate saris, strangers who were curious, proud, and often eager to talk and snap photos with me.

The contradictions are there. A welcoming, overwhelmingly Muslim society that periodically closes in on minorities. A country hosting one of the world’s largest refugee populations while struggling to provide for its own. A place where the state often feels distant or predatory, but where community and religious life remain strong and local.

It goes without saying: fifteen days isn’t long enough to claim understanding of a place this complicated. But it was long enough to shake loose my old comparisons and force me to see Bangladesh on its own terms: not as India’s poorer cousinbut as a specific, battered, scrappy delta where history, water, and sheer human density collide.

My travels really start the second I decide I MUST go somewhere. For me, planning itself is part of the trip; I derive tremendous pleasure from the planning and subsequent anticipation of my travels. I acknowledge there are many approaches to planning travel. The tourist enjoying cruise ships, package tours, or all-inclusive resorts may not wish to spend hours perusing maps, flight timetables, and guidebooks. Likewise, a hiker could spend a backcountry camping trip with a plan to arrive and just take in the surroundings.

But that’s not me. I comb through Google Flights, adjusting dates and locations, like a mad scientist turning knobs and pulling levers to help his creature come to life. A wonderful destination to me today is any corner of the planet I haven’t touched. I find a small midwestern town as fascinating as a tropical island.

How is the weather? North Dakota in January? It will have to wait. How big is the area? I cannot cover the entire state of Florida on a four-day weekend. How are Vancouver flights so reasonably priced? Vancouver it is!

Destination in sight, I probe deeper into the place, seeding the days of my adventure with museums, historical sites, neighborhood walks, parks, gardens, and wilderness areas. I will dip into my trip a little every day, whenever I need a break from the mundane. Finishing lunch at my computer, I will sift through the Lonely Planet guide or look at the NomadMania lists to come up with a rough schedule. I’ll then map it all out on Google Maps so I don’t waste a precious second backtracking.

I’m not much of a foodie, so I skip the renowned restaurants in favor of good, cheap food from a restaurant in a local immigrant neighborhood. I’ve had Vietnamese food in Boise, Idaho and Ethiopian food in Omaha, Nebraska. 

I arrive at my destination with a daily program. I have never accomplished it during any trip I’ve taken. Instead, I stick around a little longer in some places, and spend less time at places where I thought I’d linger. Planning doesn’t mean sticking to the plan. To me, it means greater freedom and flexibility in my exploration because I spend less time on transportation or discovering the park service has closed the trail I’ve been dying to walk. Real spontaneity better rewards trips with protracted stretches in a place.

In the end, the destination I chose, though, wasn’t where I ended up. I planned to go to one destination in my mind, but where I return from is the place I saw. Henry Miller wrote, “one’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” The question I should ask is not “how do I decide where to go?” Instead, back home where the journey started, I ask myself, “how do I decide where I went?”

The Value of Being Thoughtful While Traveling

Those of us who have a strong desire to explore the world can easily become susceptible to the vices Callard discusses. However, by being thoughtful, aware, and conscientious, we can avoid falling into these traps. My journey through India in 1989 and 1990 stands testament to this. I was young and had traveled a lot through Mexico with my family , but had never been away for an extended period in a culture so different. Because of my budget and the time away, immersion was my only choice - shopping for groceries, cooking, riding public transportation. I studied Hindi deeply to help make my way through northern India. I traversing the subcontinent by rail and bus, often with no other foreigners in sight. I did not come home the same person and learned lessons that impact every aspect of my life today. I discovered a world different from my own. This experience underscored the value of actively engaging with the world and striving to appreciate its diversity.

Sustainable and Ethical Approaches to Travel

Local communities are greatly affected by the choices we make when we travel. The rise of AirBnBs has brought attention to the fragile relationship between tourism and neighborhood well-being. The rise of tourists staying in short-term rentals has caused housing costs to soar and local life to be disrupted in many cities across the globe. Acknowledging this, I've started being more careful about my travel arrangements, choosing options that I hope contribute to the welfare of the destinations I visit.

Engaging and Supporting Locals

Engaging with local cultures and communities is key to ensuring travel is both enriching and respectful. Hiring a local guide not only supports the local economy, but also adds depth and authenticity to your travel experience. This strategy encourages a give-and-take dynamic between travelers and hosts, resulting in benefits for both parties involved.

She’s not talking about me, right?

Callard's critique may resonate with those of us who see travel as essential to our lives. It challenges us to reflect on our wanderlust. It's important to note that the critique doesn't condemn travel itself, but urges us to approach it with more awareness. Approaching travel with intentionality can result in personal transformation, cultural appreciation, and global understanding.

Conclusion

Travel allows us to delve into the diverse ways of life across the globe. Callard highlights consumerism and superficiality, but engaging in thoughtful and ethical travel can lead to transformative experiences. When we adopt these practices, we enhance our lives and make positive contributions to the communities and cultures we experience.

Most of Jeddah feels like an industrial town, namely because of its centuries as a shipping port. Unlike some of its Gulf neighbors, the city has undergone a steady evolution. Jeddah isn’t dominated by a city skyline; instead it is a sprawl of beige, brown and pink buildings filled with Saudis and employees from friendly Muslim countries. Some of the diverse population stems from Jeddah’s position as the gateway for pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina, the Islamic holy cities.

Modernization may have developed more slowly than in other Gulf cities, but the population has grown with Saudi economic growth. Jeddah suffers from traffic jams and a derth of sidewalks. Traffic congestion has worsened because of urban sprawl, with new developments far from city centers and public services.

The Saudis are pressing Jeddah into the global community with the Vision 2030 plan. The proposal for Jeddah includes major infrastructure projects and investments in tourism, entertainment, and culture, to turn it into a worldwide center for business and recreation. There are hints of future Jeddah along the Corniche at the coastline with many luxury hotels under construction.

Thoughts? Additional questions? Please leave a comment!

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The Jeddah Corniche

The Jeddah Corniche, or Jeddah Waterfront, extends for approximately 18 miles along the Red Sea. This place has gained popularity as a tourist attraction and is loved by locals for leisurely walks, particularly in the cooler evenings.

Development of the Jeddah Corniche began in the late 1970s and continued through the 1980s. Fountains, lights, and green spaces were added to the expanding waterfront area. During the 1990s, the government expanded by including restaurants and shopping areas.

During the early 2000s, the Corniche saw significant changes with the construction of the world’s tallest fountain, the King Fahd Fountain, and the Al-Rahmah Mosque, capable of holding around 2,000 worshippers. The Jeddah Corniche Circuit, which now hosts Formula One racing, has been recently added.

The Jeddah Corniche plays a vital role in Saudi Vision 2030, promoting economic diversification and enhancing tourism and recreational sectors.

I strolled along the seafront at both the far southern and northern ends of the Corniche. You can find plenty of places to sit and enjoy a coffee or snack while taking in the Red Sea, even in a place without a strong beach culture. The area comes alive in the evenings as locals come out to stroll, dine, and socialize with family and friends. It’s a location that truly captures the essence of family-oriented Saudi Arabia.

The Floating Mosque

The Al-Rahmah Mosque in Jeddah is a stunning sight at night. Built in 1985, the mosque sits on a platform over the Red Sea in the middle of the bustling Corniche ocean boardwalk. When the tide is high, it looks like it's floating on the water. That's why people often call it the Floating Mosque.

I arrived after dark, too late to catch the sunset. The Corniche was crowded with families out for an evening stroll. Kids were running around while teenagers chatted. The mosque was beautifully lit, a mix of old and new that fit right in with the flashy Yacht Club and glittering buildings nearby.

But even with all the noise and activity, the mosque felt peaceful. The sound of the waves and the smell of the sea were soothing. The architecture was striking against the night sky.

It's a great place to end a busy day in Jeddah. You can enjoy the sea breeze, the view, and the impressive building all at once. The Al-Rahmah Mosque manages to be part of the lively Corniche scene while still being a calm refuge from the hustle and bustle.

Al Balad: The Historic Town and Gate to Mecca

For centuries, Al Balad, the ancient historical district of Jeddah, has served as the entry point for pilgrims heading to Mecca. Al Balad buildings are marked by the presence of rawasheen, ornate wooden latticework that had practical as well as aesthetic uses. The window coverings and balconies offered protection from the sweltering desert sun while enabling refreshing breezes to flow. The rawasheen displayed the affluence of Jeddah’s merchants, who brought in lavish materials such as teak and mahogany for home decoration.

Due to Jeddah’s expansion, there was not enough space left within the walls of Al Balad. As the population grew, buildings were constructed taller and with more floors, some even reaching heights of eight or nine stories. The Nassif House, now a museum, is renowned for its wide staircase that could accommodate a camel carrying water to the upper levels.

Jeddah became the official port for pilgrims traveling to Mecca in the 7th century, increasing Al Balad’s importance. This decision turned the district into a cultural melting pot with influences from Africa, Asia, and other regions.

Through Al Balad’s narrow alleys, I wandered past old mosques and the last vestiges of the ancient city walls. The area is humming with coffee shops and traditional markets selling dates, clothes, housewares, jewelry, and more.

The preservation and restoration of Al Balad’s historic buildings has been ongoing for several years. In 2014, UNESCO recognized the cultural and historical significance of the area by designating it a World Heritage site. The objective of the restoration process is to preserve the district’s authentic charm, boost the local economy, and attract tourists.

Hashi Kabsa

Saudi Arabian cuisine is well-known for its beloved rice dish called Hashi Kabsa. This dish is considered a national delicacy in Saudi Arabia. When guests visit Saudi homes or during special occasions like celebrations and festivals, Hashi Kabsa is a dish of great importance.

“Hashi” refers to using young camel meat in the dish. The meat comes from camels that are 6 months to 1 year old. Young camel meat is known for its tenderness and deliciousness. The term "Kabsa" describes the process of cooking rice by steaming it in a flavorful broth. You can make kabsa with chicken or lamb if baby camel isn’t calling out to you.

To prepare Hashi Kabsa, young camel meat is slowly cooked the broth with spices such as cardamom, saffron, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The spices may differ depending on the region or family. The rice is then cooked in the same spiced broth so it absorbs all the flavors.

Often, raisins, almonds or pine nuts are added on top. This gives a sweet and crunchy contrast to the savory meat and rice.

When served, the rice is placed on an enormous platter first. Then the cooked camel meat is arranged on top of the rice. This presentation invites everyone to share the dish together from the same platter.

I dined on my hashi kabsa at Hashi Basha. My Bangladeshi Uber driver had warned me off of it, but I thought it was wonderful and had a beef texture and flavor.

Knafeh: A Popular Sweet Cheese Pastry from the Middle East

Many people adore knafeh, a traditional dessert from the Middle East. The combination of different textures and flavors in this sweet treat is a reflection of the rich cultural influences on Middle Eastern cuisine over centuries.

The precise beginnings of knafeh are uncertain, but it probably originated in medieval Arab cities such as Damascus or Nablus. Knafeh-like recipes have been around since the 10th century, making it a dessert with a history of over 1,000 years. As the Ottoman Empire reigned from the 1300s to the early 1900s, knafeh became popular throughout their vast territories, resulting in the emergence of regional variations.

Knafeh consists of crispy, baked thin pastry strands or shredded phyllo dough. These layers are made with a soft, stretchy cheese similar to Nabulsi or akawi cheese from Palestine. Once baked, the pastry is drenched in a sugary syrup infused with orange blossom or rose water.

What makes knafeh great is the contrast between its crunchy pastry, gooey cheese, and sugary syrup. Adding ground pistachios, cream, or thickened cream (ashta) enhances the flavor and texture.

Although the core ingredients remain consistent, knafeh is prepared uniquely in various Middle Eastern regions. After eating it in Saudi Arabia, I now have to experiment with it in other places to note the distinctions.

Month of Visit

January 2024

Weather

• Daytime: Pleasant, in the 80s (Fahrenheit)

• Evenings: Cooler, in the 70s with a gentle ocean breeze

• Humidity: Moderate, with mild sweating while walking

• Sun: Low intensity due to winter, minimal UV concerns

Dress Code

• Men: Similar to Western attire; less traditional than in places like Qatar

• Women: Predominantly conservative; abayas and niqabs or hijabs common

• Note for Female Visitors: While not mandatory, conservative clothing can make travel easier

Cultural Experiences

• Saudi locals are known for their kindness and hospitality, especially towards Western visitors

• Interaction: Locals are helpful and engaging, creating a welcoming environment

• Unique Opportunity: With few Western tourists, Jeddah offers a less commercialized experience

Language

• English: Widely spoken, suitable for most interactions

• Helpful Tools: Google Translate for local restaurants and rideshare drivers

• Key Phrases: the standard for all countries; Learning 'thank you' and 'hello' goes very far

Transportation

• Rideshares: Uber and Careem (local service) widely available; Uber cars generally nicer

• Taxis: Abundant but less convenient due to fare negotiation and cash payment

• Note: Limited public transportation options

Safety

• General: No significant concerns over crime

• Pedestrian Safety: Caution advised, as Jeddah is not pedestrian-friendly with heavy traffic

Cuisine Recommendations

• Avoiding Fast Food: Many American fast food options available, but local Arab restaurants offer a more authentic experience

• Local Restaurants: Al Saddah (lamb mandi)

• Must-Try Dishes: Mandi (meat and rice cooked in a tandoor)

Discovering the world usually entails exploring iconic religious sites, museums, and archaeological sites. Initially, the paintings, tile work, ceilings, and tapestries captivate you. You're determined to read every placard, absorbing everything you can. After three days of your trip, every Buddha statue blends together. You may suspect that the same Italian Renaissance painting of baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary is following your travels across Europe. It can transform into an experience that is repetitive and less enjoyable. This sensation is real. There are several factors that lead to this fatigue, including information overload, physical exhaustion, sensory overload, and cognitive overload. However, there are strategies to conquer it and enhance your trip's significance and enjoyment.

What has caused you to have this reaction?

There's a reason for the tiredness you experience upon entering the Louvre. You are going numb due to several ongoing processes.

• Information Overload. The Louvre displays around 38,000 objects from its collection, an immense amount of artifacts and information. It’s common to feel overwhelmed because it's unrealistic to absorb everything. If you arrived at the Louvre at opening, looked at each work for one minute until closing, it would take you over 2 months to see everything.   

• Physical Exhaustion. The Louvre collection covers over 782,910 sq ft. If you're exhausted from jetlag and hours of walking in Paris, you might zone out before even entering the building. 

• Sensory Overload The visual richness of museums can lead to sensory overload, where continuous visual stimuli overwhelm the brain.

• Cognitive Load. We have limited capacity for processing information. In a museum, there's so much to see that it can be overwhelming and exhausting.

Strategies to Overcome Your Edifice Complex

Don’t give up. There are actions you can take to address this problem.

• Focused Visits. Cover the accepted highlights of a place first, then explore a niche interest afterwards. I understand it may seem touristy or shallow, but it's impossible to experience everything at once. Keep in mind that you have the option to approach things differently on your next visit. Rick Steves, the GOAT of Europe Travel, has put together a self-guided Louvre tour featuring the museum's "greatest hits," as have other top travel guides. A focus on specific interests can simplify and lighten cognitive load. Don't waste time exploring the entire floor, prioritize seeing the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. This method applies to places that are not as famous as the Louvre. In visiting the Idaho State Museum in Boise on a recent trip, I first covered the exhibits that were to the locations I’d visited in Southern Idaho, since I’ve yet to explore the northern part of the state. 

• Pre-visit Preparation. Learning basic information about the history, art, and architecture of the places you plan to visit beforehand can lessen the fatigue of absorbing new information on the spot. Instead of attempting to understand and absorb all the fresh knowledge immediately, you can simply enjoy and experience the site, considering you already have a foundational understanding.

• Guided Tours and Audio Guides. Opting for guided tours or using audio guides can provide structured and coherent information, making it easier to process than reading disconnected facts. The Louvre offers an audio guide on Nintendo 3DSs for just €5. You can also download an audio guide to the Louvre from the Rick Steves website. Audio tours have their advantages. They let you go at your own pace. However, a study on Canadian historical sites discovered that participants on live guided tours experienced less fatigue and had better memory retention compared to those on audio tours.

• Taking Breaks and Limiting Daily Activities. Regular breaks and balancing demanding activities with more relaxing ones prevent cognitive overload. If you plan to spend more than a few hours in the Louvre, consider breaking it up with a visit to one ’s cafes or restaurants. When you're done exploring the museum, consider choosing an outdoor activity instead of visiting yet another museum after the Louvre. Visit the Tuileries Garden, for example, to reset and help process everything you took in.
  

  

• Tailoring to Your Interests. Engaging with content that fascinates you can reduce burnout and help you enjoy and learn from what you’re experiencing. You could just explore textiles, tool and instruments, or the works of Reubens in Salle 855.

• Plan online. reduce all the logistics stress by using technology to get tickets, guides, tours, and anything else before you go. Use the e-book application on your phone, like Amazon Kindle, to download your guidebook to your device.

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Embrace a Balanced Approach

It’s crucial not to be overwhelmed by guilt when not seeing everything. Remember, you can’t view every painting in the Louvre. It’s more important to enjoy and retain what you see. Balancing your day, both in terms of physical and cognitive activities, is key to a fulfilling travel experience. By implementing these strategies, you can transform your visits from a checklist of sights to a more meaningful and enjoyable exploration of culture and history.

Trip Prep

I frequently get asked how I determine which places to visit in destinations like Southern Idaho, where tourist spots may not be apparent. I use my Kindle Unlimited subscription on Amazon to access Lonely Planet guides as a first step. Afterwards, I’ll cross-reference that information with state tourism board websites and recommendations on the NomadMania region page. A pattern of highlights will become apparent among these three sources. Next, I’ll make a Guide on Apple Maps for convenient CarPlay navigation with a rental car.

First Impressions

I imagined fields of farmland stretching infinitely with potatoes scattered throughout. The potato theme is prevalent in Idaho, evident in the airport's potato jokes and t-shirts. I was surprised by the desert landscape of southern Idaho, which was much less green than I anticipated. The downtown district of Boise was clean and well-kept, demonstrating the city's commitment to maintaining its center. The greenbelt and river flowing through the center of Boise enhanced the overall feeling of serenity and safety. The State Capitol Building and surrounding gardens were calming.

Going to Jail

Open to the public, the Old Idaho Penitentiary serves as a historic site showcasing the state’s penal history from 1872 to 1973. Using sandstone sourced from local quarries, convicts built the penitentiary, which served as the dwelling for over 13,000 inmates, including 215 women, over the course of 101 years. Within the compound, you’ll find assorted buildings including cell blocks, death row, the gallows, factories, and a dining hall that was designed by an inmate.

During its initial years, the penitentiary faced challenges in the American West, as vigilante groups and temporary territorial prisons sought to keep things under control. Prison officials chose tts location for easy access to high-grade quarry stone, and the prison extensively used convict labor during its construction.

Although tourism in a prison may be macabre, it was significant for me to witness that facet of the society I inhabit.

The Idaho State Historical Society’s preservation of the site guarantees public access to this significant part of Idaho’s history.

Boise River Greenbelt

The Greenbelt is a 25+ mile stretch along the Boise River, connecting different parts of the city and providing scenic river and nature views. To maximize my time exploring the Boise River Greenbelt, I rented an electric scooter.

The Greenbelt concept originated in the 1960s due to the polluted and junk-filled river. City leaders wanted to clean it up and create a space for people to enjoy. They began buying land along the river in 1969 and construction started in the 1970s.

The Greenbelt is open from sunrise to sunset every day. During my ride on the electric scooter, I took several breaks to spend time by the river and admire the wildlife. The Greenbelt offers excellent opportunities for walking, biking, and birdwatching. In addition, there are restaurants and coffee shops to enjoy while you’re on your way. Special mile markers called “DOTS” help people know where they are on the path.

While most of the Greenbelt is paved and open to everyone, some small sections are unpaved or closed off. One part west of Glenwood Street has caused some controversy because it goes through a neighborhood and has been closed even though the land was supposed to be used for the Greenbelt.

Lots of river cities have greenbelts - though they “de-wild” some areas, they open up the outdoors for more people and draw people to congregate outside. The Boise River Greenbelt allows people to enjoy nature, get exercise, and explore their community.

Adventures in and around Twin Falls

Shoshone Falls: The Niagara of the West

Twin Falls in South-central Idaho is home to Shoshone Falls, an awe-inspiring natural wonder also referred to as the Great Falls of the Snake River. Shoshone Falls exceeds Niagara Falls in height, with a vertical drop of 212 feet and a flow comparable to the most magnificent waterfalls globally. Shoshone Falls features a steep canyon along the Snake River, formed roughly 14,500 years ago when the ancient Lake Bonneville flooded and eroded the river’s course, creating a series of chasms. Despite numerous explorers and immigrants traveling through the region in the early 1800s, only a few paid attention to the falls until 1847. That year, Catholic bishop Augustine Blanchet documented the it in his journal, referring to it as the Canadian Waterfall. The Mounted Riflemen renamed it Shoshone Falls and compared its grandeur to that of Niagara in 1849.

The significance and appeal of Shoshone Falls centered around its “sublime” nature. During the 19th century, the term “sublime” described awe-inspiring landscapes, including canyons, volcanoes, and waterfalls like Niagara and Shoshone Falls. People were interested in these sites because of their potential to evoke sensations and emotions in viewers. In the 1850s, when other exceptional American landscapes were being explored and appreciated, being described as grand or distinctive as Niagara was the utmost recognition they could receive.

Shoshone Falls, although magnificent, never achieved the same fame as Niagara. Despite being considered for national-park status, it ended up becoming a symbol of progress rather than a revered national landmark. Presently, the Snake River’s water is primarily channeled through turbines or used for agriculture, leaving only a few streams to flow over the lava cliffs. Shoshone Falls’ history reflects the intricate link between appreciating landscapes, conserving the environment, and industrial progress in America, reminding us of missed opportunities.

• Perrine Bridge: Ranking as the 8th highest bridge in the US, this structure stretches over the Snake River. At 486 feet above the river, it’s a global hotspot for BASE jumpers. It’s perhaps the only man-made structure in the U.S. where BASE jumping is allowed year-round without a special permit.

Balanced Rock in Buhl was a detour that proved to be worth it. During the drive, I got a glimpse of rural Idaho's high desert landscapes, rolling hills, deep canyons, and sagebrush. The Balanced Rock is an impressive feat of nature, standing at 48 feet tall with a base of only 3 feet by 17 inches.

Other Noteworthy Stops

A Moon-like World in Idaho

In the heart of Idaho’s vast desert lies an otherworldly landscape that looks like it could be straight off the surface of the moon. It’s called the Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, and this remarkable place offered me a half-day meditation on the volcanic forces that have shaped our planet over eons.

A meteor strike did not create Craters of the Moon, despite its craters and barren appearance. Instead, thousands of years of volcanic eruptions built it, oozing molten lava across the Snake River Plain. As that lava cooled and hardened, it left behind a rugged sprawl of cinder cones, deep fissures, lava tubes and vast lava fields stretching for miles. It’s not something an outsider would expect in Iowa.

This bizarre volcanic landscape looks so much like the pockmarked surface of the moon that NASA trained Apollo astronauts on it in the 1960s. They practiced geological fieldwork and simulated moonwalks while tramping across the crunchy lava flows in their bulky spacesuits.

At first glance, Craters seems like a lifeless place. The ground can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. But, looking closer, you'll discover indications of sturdy plant and animal species that have adjusted to thrive in this unforgiving volcanic ecosystem. Twisted limber pines, prickly rabbit bushes and aromatic sagebrush somehow eke out an existence.

Because of its unique geology and delicate ecology, the federal government has protected Craters of the Moon as a National Monument and Preserve. The lava fields are home to a network of hiking trails that allow you to explore the park while minimizing impacts.

I spent a good half day marveling at the jagged cinder cones, climbing through lava tube caves, and crunching across the twisted, ropy textures of ancient lava flows. It’s wonderfully uncrowded and worth a visit. In fact, it’s one of the New York Times’ recommended places to visit in 2024.

Over the years, I’ve sought medical treatment in Mexico, Ethiopia, India, and the United States while traveling. I’ve been fortunate enough that the treatment abroad was affordable and adequate medical care was available where I was. But I now know enough to know that’s a risk I no longer want to take. You need medical travel insurance, no matter what, especially coverage for medical evacuations. Outside a major city in a less-developed country, if you are sick or injured, “evacuation” gets you to the place that’s able to treat you.

I don’t have independent travel insurance right now. My plan is my primary employer-provided medical insurance plus the medical insurance benefits that come with my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. Since we all have different primary health insurance options, I’ll talk about the benefits that come with the CSR.

Emergency evacuation and transportation

This benefit provides emergency evacuation and transportation. If you or immediate family members are injured or become ill during your trip and it results in a necessary emergency evacuation, the insurance will cover the evacuation and transportation costs up to $100K.

Evacuation in this case means transporting you from where you’re injured or ill to the nearest hospital that can treat you. It also means getting you from that hospital to back home to recover or get additional treatment. The transportation can be air ambulance, land ambulance or even a private car if needed.

Insurance can pay for a relative or friend to come to you if you’re in the hospital for over 8 days. It will also reimburse you for an economy ticket home if you can’t use your original ticket anymore.

You can’t make the arrangements yourself, then ask the insurance to reimburse you; the Benefit Administrator must make the actual medical transportation arrangements for you. The benefit administrator will check with a licensed doctor who verifies than you need evacuation.

Your travel medical benefits are only valid during a covered trip. You must charge some or all of the cost of the trip to your CSR. Your trip has to be at least 100 miles from home and at least five days long and no more than 60 days long.

You first have to submit your expenses to your medical insurance company. Your travel insurance will cover whatever isn’t paid through your primary insurance.

Certain risky activities aren’t covered, like scuba diving, rock climbing, or accidents that happen because you were intoxicated.

It doesn’t cover you in countries the US views as unsafe to travel in, which I assume would be a Travel Advisory Level 4. Today, that includes Myanmar, Somalia, Libya, Russia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and others.

So, if you’re traveling and have an emergency, call the BA. They will send a claim form to you.

Emergency Medical and Dental

The insurance also covers any medical or dental emergencies that occur on a trip. Like the evacuation benefit, it’s secondary insurance to whatever your health plan would pay. It has to be recommended by a licensed doctor and treatment is covered only during the trip, not after.

This benefit is for $2,500 for you or immediate family members. It covers all licensed care givers, hospitals, x-ray, anesthesia, labs, ambulance, drugs, therapies, and medical devices.

Hotel Convalescence

If you’re hospitalized on your trip, but then need to recover in a hotel until you’re ready to go home, the insurance pays $75 for up to five days in a hotel.

For emergency medical or dental insurance you should try to call the BA, but must notify the Benefit Administrator within ninety (90) days from the occurrence.

Summary

• Call the BA first. start the process with the travel insurance company

• Call your employer health insurance

• Pay your bills - use a credit card if you can and save all your receipts.

• When you get home, call the number on the back of your member ID card and ask for a claim form.

• Fill out the claim form and submit it with your receipts to the address on the claim form. (The amount submitted must be in American dollars).

I've visited Kansas City and Albuquerque for pleasure in recent months. A lot of individuals appear confused. Why would you choose to go to that place?

Sometimes, I prefer these destinations. Travel to “ordinary” cities and towns within the United States provides cultural insight into America. Every state and city has its own culture, past, and traditions. I usually visit these places too short a time to grasp a genuine sense of them, but I catch hints of it. In Albuquerque, you see the influence of native peoples in the area, something often invisible in Southern California. In downtown Kansas City, you see the optimism and confidence in the art déco architecture and the jazz history. I’m reassured knowing punk rock, immigrants, and Thai restaurants are everywhere, not just on the coasts.

They are often cost-effective, too. I can book an inexpensive flight and a local Hyatt for a 3-4 day trip for very little using my travel credit card strategies.

Areas rarely traveled are less congested. I was one of maybe 5 people at the top of Sandia Peak at 10,000 feet overlooking New Mexico in two directions. Contrast that with the lines, crowds and costs to visit the top of the Space Needle in Seattle or the Empire State Building in New York. You should visit both places once, if you can, but Sandia Peak was free and memorable.

You sometimes get to have more authentic experiences, too. They built the economy of the French Quarter of New Orleans around tourism. 90% of those in your midst are visitors. The shops on Bourbon Street have changed over time to cater to visitor wants. Downtown Kansas City gets visitors, too, of course, but many around you are Missourians who live and work in KC. You have a better chance of talking to or meeting a local.

Learning experiences are a little different, too. I visited a Kansas City museum housing the artifacts from the Arabia, a steamboat that sank in the Missouri River in 1856. A lot of the objects in the ship were bound for general stores along the Missouri River. The vast inventory of imported goods was surprising. Coffee beans from South America, buttons, pens, and perfume from France, dishes from England, machinery from Austria. I learned in Albuquerque the Zuni speak a language unrelated to any other known language in the world, despite being one of 19 Pueblo tribes. Learning like this nudges my perspective, so I see other experiences in a new light.

Traveling to less-common places outside the United States matters, too. I met many people who tried to cultivate an experience of India full of what they wanted India to be - an exotic land of yogis and ancient wisdom. They avoided places like Bangalore, where software engineers in jeans and t-shirts talk on their iPhones. I try to see places from as many angles as possible.

Getting to Albuquerque

Getting to Albuquerque was straightforward. I hopped on a 2-hour flight from Burbank on Southwest Airlines. Burbank Airport is closer to my home than LAX is, and I find it much easier to get in and out of. If you fly Southwest, I've compiled some handy tips to maximize your experience.

💡Burbank Airport Tip: At Burbank Airport, my preferred parking is now Lot C. For $15 per day, it's located conveniently across the street from the airport. In my recent experiences, it's proved faster and more efficient than valet parking. Inside the airport,

I've never encountered a long TSA Precheck line, making the process even more streamlined.

💡Tip: As an added perk, my Global Entry status includes TSA Precheck, and Chase Sapphire Preferred reimburses $100 for the Global Entry fee.

Getting Around Albuquerque

You need a car in Albuquerque. Things to see, do, and eat are spread out across the city. Upon arriving in Albuquerque, I picked up a car from Thrifty Car Rental, paid with Ultimate Rewards points. A side note: the Chase Sapphire Reserve offers impressive car rental insurance, which can come in handy during your travels.

Where I Stayed

I stayed at the Hyatt Place Albuquerque Airport for this trip. My only requirements were cleanliness and convenience as I planned to spend most of my waking hours exploring. The room was great, and I paid with points transferred from Chase. Moreover, breakfast was free, which helps get me on the road a little faster.

Things to do in Albuquerque

My first stop was Old Town Albuquerque and I was a little underwhelmed. I found a lot of tourist shops, but there were a few unique things to do. The San Felipe de Neri Church provided a picturesque backdrop for a quinceañera photo session I happened upon. And, the American International Rattlesnake Museum, which feels more like a large snake pet shop, does have an impressive collection of mostly live rattlesnakes, but also other snakes from around the world.

I drove to the far west of the I hiked a 2-mile loop at the Petroglyph National Monument. The black rocks scattered across the landscape are adorned with petroglyphs etched over centuries by Pueblo Indians and Spanish ranchers. I was mostly alone during the windy, cool hike in the desert. Seeing Albuquerque in the distance, I did have a few Walter White moments, although at no point did I strip down to my underwear for a photo op.

Having a good four hours of sunlight left after my hike, I decided to drive to the top of Sandia Peak on the other side of the city. In planning the trip, I’d wanted to take the Sandia aerial tram, but it closed for maintenance just days before my planned visit. The drive was still a great idea, as I got to drive through some small towns on the back of the mountain and see the changes in the environment as I drove up the 10,000 foot mountain. The peak was still blanketed in snow and the temperature lingered in the 30s. The views from up there are amazing in both directions, looking down on Albuquerque on one side and toward small towns and Santa Fe on the other side.

The other highlight of Albuquerque for me was the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. I love museums and I learned a lot about the history and culture of the pueblo Indians of New Mexico and watched the Zuni Kallestewa Dance Group.

Where I ate in Albuquerque

As for food, the highlight was La Guelaguetza Mexican. This is just a simple casual place with amazing food and good service.

Tip: A lot of the best food is at small local restaurants, some of which are cash-only. Have some cash on you before you go, just in case.

Of course, there’s so much more to see and I couldn’t hit it all. Visit Albuquerque is the official site for planning your travel there. It can give you the lowdown on Albuquerque events while you’re there.

But then again, modern touches attempt to recapture the present and future. It looks like it’s still being worked on.

To understand why, look at the man who poured the city’s foundation: Tom Pendergast.

The Double Engine

In the 1920s and 30s, Kansas City was the “Paris of the Plains.” Despite the Great Depression, its population and economy surged, fueled by two powerful forces. On the legitimate side, it was a global trade hub. The Arabia Steamboat Museum shows KC’s significance, keeping the artifacts from that era—a time when the Missouri River was key to American expansion. This trade moved to the rails, turning the city into a cattle choke point. Union Station was one of the largest rail hubs in the US and exudes that confidence. The famous Kansas City BBQ is an homage to the cattle wealth that helped build the city.

Amidst all this lived the political boss Pendergast, who controlled the city. He ignored Prohibition laws, and Kansas City became a magnet for jazz, gambling, and nightlife. The city was the Las Vegas of its day and generated great wealth. He ensured the city’s wealth was set in stone — his stone.

The Concrete Monopoly

Pendergast owned the Ready-Mixed Concrete Company. The art deco architecture you witness today stands as a monument to his power. He obsessed over grand, modern style and pushed through a $50 million “Ten-Year Plan” to build the massive City Hall and the First National Bank Building (now a beautiful public library). These weren’t just buildings; they were a way for the Pendergast to tax every cubic yard of concrete poured. And because he made the concrete, buildings tended to overscale and use higher-quality materials than a Midwestern city may have warranted.

The Era of Disrepair

But the city became a victim of its own expansion. Post-WWII, urban planners carved a massive freeway loop through the heart of town, isolating downtown and mowing down historic buildings. Suburbanization emptied the city’s population while its physical footprint doubled. Beautiful structures fell into neglect; the Land Bank Building stood largely vacant and deteriorating—a piece of the city’s “distressed” portfolio waiting for a second chance.

A Pull to the Present

The city, like many in the US and Europe, invests billions to fix mid-century damage. The Kansas City Power and Light District replaces empty blocks with nightlife, while the Crossroads Arts District converts old warehouses into galleries and boutiques.

The Bartle Hall Pylons, with their futuristic sculptures, and the shimmering steel shells of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts signal the city’s reconnection with the present.

Ensuring Safe Travel in Ethiopia's Capital: Addis Ababa

I have visited Ethiopia several times over the past twenty years without incident, even during times of some social unrest. Ethiopians are friendly and welcoming to guests, including visitors to their country. Addis Ababa, the bustling capital city of Ethiopia, is often considered safer than many other heavily travelled cities globally. Violent crime against tourists is almost non-existent. Like any urban space, however, you can find a modest level of crime, such as pickpockets, scams, and theft from parked vehicles.

High-traffic areas, such as Bole Road and the Piazza, are frequent hotspots for such activities. It's important to stay alert at the airport, too, particularly after long flights when exhaustion might make you an easy target. As you leave immigration, make sure your bags are zipped up and with you. Make sure your phone is in a secure location. If it’s just in your pocket or in the front zip pocket of your bag, it’s at risk of disappearing. This has happened in my family more than once.

I feel safe traveling in Addis by taxi, ride share or bus from early morning into the midnight hour. Tourist sites and areas are well-populated and well-guarded.

Evaluating the Internal Political Tensions and Border Situations

Understanding the geopolitical landscape is crucial while visiting any country, Ethiopia included. Political tensions in Ethiopia remain high right now. While traveling in Ethiopia, adopt a neutral political stance on local issues and do not post any political content to social media or elsewhere. Assume all incoming and outgoing messages from your phone are not private.

The situation in the northern border regions of Afar and Tigray make travel unsafe, if not prohibited, at the moment.

Exercising Extra Vigilance in High-Risk Areas

Certain areas within Ethiopia warrant increased vigilance. The Danakil Desert and Erta Ale volcano, for example, have seen a few isolated incidents of tourist attacks.

Border regions adjacent to Somalia and Sudan also carry a heightened risk due to ongoing military operations against insurgent groups. Such regions are prone to cross-border violence and host armed groups hostile to the Ethiopian government. Yet, these high-risk areas are generally far removed from usual tourist destinations.

Today, if you’re visiting outside the Addis Ababa area, you may want to consider hiring a reputable local tour guide ahead of time to facilitate your trip. A local guide is aware of the situation in your area, can navigate any cultural or language understanding, and fend off any potential scammers and nuisances.

Navigating Potential Demonstrations and Disruptions

The Amhara and Oromia regions frequently have political demonstrations. While these are typically peaceful, there's always a possibility of them escalating into violence. As a visitor, it's prudent to avoid such areas when demonstrations are ongoing.

Moreover, in the aftermath of any disturbances, local authorities may impose curfews or temporary restrictions. It's also not uncommon for these areas to experience internet and cellular data outages. Staying informed and adapting to these potential disruptions can help ensure a smooth journey.

Ethiopia: A Generally Safe and Rewarding Destination

The Ethiopia Travel Advisory from the US State Department lists Ethiopia as a Level 3, “Reconsider Travel.” For perspective, other destinations currently at Level 3 include Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Hong Kong, and Jamaica. Despite the travel warning, Ethiopia remains a vibrant, rewarding destination steeped in rich history. The issues mentioned are not ubiquitous across the country and are less likely to affect vigilant travelers. Hiring reputable local guides, particularly outside Addis Ababa, can help you navigate potential complexities, enriching your journey through this wonderful country.

Travel is one of life's greatest pleasures, offering not just relaxation and recreation but also an opportunity to expand our perspectives and connect with diverse cultures. The essence of meaningful travel lies in intentionality – in designing each journey to be rich in experiences that are meaningful to you. This beginner's guide to intentional, purposeful travel will provide you with tips and strategies to help you plan your travels more thoughtfully, creating more fulfilling experiences.

Plan with Purpose: The Advantage of Intentional Travel

"Spontaneity is the spice of life," says someone, somewhere. And while that can be true, there's something incredibly satisfying about crafting a well-planned, thoroughly researched itinerary. That's not to say you can't leave room for impromptu detours and surprises – it's more about ensuring you have a clear idea of what you want from your trip, which can actually make your journey even more enjoyable. In fact, planning your trip and having goals in mind can actually free up your mind and schedule, allowing for more spontaneous experiences than if you’d been aimlessly wandering.

Money-Saving Magic: The Financial Perks of Preplanning

Believe it or not, being an intentional traveler can also have financial benefits. With some forethought and proactive planning, you can snap up early bird discounts, promotional deals, and special online offers. Popular platforms like TripAdvisor and Groupon are treasure troves for discounts on excursions, tours, and local experiences. TripAdvisor and Groupon excursions can often be stacked with Chase Offers and Rakuten for extra savings.

In addition, many museums and attractions offer reduced rates for tickets purchased in advance. Travel passes, often providing unlimited travel within a certain area or timeframe, can also be more affordable when purchased ahead of time.

Time Management Mastery: Making the Most of Your Travel Time

By planning your travel itinerary ahead, you can maximize your time, fitting in more experiences and reducing the risk of missed opportunities. Rather than spending precious holiday time googling 'best sights in XYZ', you'll have a pre-arranged list of 'must-sees' and 'must-dos' right at your fingertips.

Family Fun: Planning Ahead to Keep Everyone Happy

Travelling with your family can be a wonderful bonding experience, but it can also be a potential source of conflict if everyone has different expectations. The key to ensuring a smooth, enjoyable trip is to involve everyone in the planning process.

Create a shared list (apps like Evernote are great for this) and ask each family member to add what they're most interested in seeing and doing. This way, everyone has a stake in the vacation and you'll all be more likely to enjoy the journey together.

Conclusion: Embracing Intentional Travel

In conclusion, intentional travel is about more than just dotting your i's and crossing your t's before you embark on your journey. It's about crafting an experience that aligns with your interests and desires, and that of your travel companions. With some forethought and planning, you can save money, make the most of your time, and ensure a smoother, more fulfilling journey. Now that's something to pack your bags for!

Remember, the goal is not to schedule every minute, but to ensure that your journey is full of experiences that bring you joy and enrich your understanding of the world. So, why not give intentional travel a try for your next adventure?