Your most exotic places and any plans to visit others ?

Bahrain, Sri Lankha
Jordan,
Cape Town
Zambia. All very beautiful and so happy was able to visit.
Nothing more exotic for me though. Haven't seen all I want to see on our wonderful Islands.

"FWIW it's been illegal in India for trains to have holes in the floor as toilets since 2022 and if you book the right class of seat you have a guaranteed seat, just don't go "general unreserved" as you get what you pay for, which is very little except an interesting experience."

The above is courtesy of a young friend who has travelled widely in India (and most other countries!)

I too am obsessed with Venice and have visited 5 times.

Places I would love to visit again but never will due to safety/mobility issues

Isfahan (Iran)
Damascus
Afghanistan
Hong Kong
Malaysia
Bali
Singapore
Siena
Las Vegas (lived there for a year)

The once place I would love to visit is the Galapagos Islands

I’ve not been further than Europe and not even much of that. I loved the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland. I avoid the sun which rules out many places. I’d like to see the Norwegian fjords, more of eastern Europe, and Canada has always been on my wish list. But I don’t think I’ll be leaving the UK now. I’m not flying and I don’t think I have the stamina for long coach or train journeys.

The most exotic place I have been to - and it no longer exists was a beach in Kuantan on the eastern coast of Malaysia.

We were an army family and were stationed in Malaya (now Malaysia). A new road had just been built from east to west across the penninsula from Kuala Lumpur to Kuantan - and we went on holiday.

Kuantan today is a busy tourist resort, but when we went there, it had no hotels, just a government rest house, and beyond it the most beautiful beach I have ever seen, a sweeping curve about a mile long, fringed with palm leaves. The beach was entirely empty the whole time we were there, except for us. We went there three times over three days and saw no one, just the wind in the palms, the sound of the sea, and silence.

As I said, Kuantan is now a holiday destination and there are people and noise and. The past is another country.

Hey did stay at a really good hotel witzend.
She said it was more the fact public transportation was mobbed.
One train had a hole in floor to use as a toilet.
Also, she couldn’t believe some people just went to the loo on the side of the pavement, including doing a number two 😳 just wouldn’t be a holiday for us

MT62

I fancied India, until my friend & her husband went for two weeks.
They said it was hell on earth.
Really filthy & smelly.
Both picked up viruses.
They haven’t touched a curry since.

I loved India* and in fact felt very much at home there. We had spent many years in Middle Eastern countries where so much of the general workforce was Indian. Most of my colleagues when I worked at the airport were Indian, if they weren’t Brits or the odd American.

we did stay generally at least 4 hotels, though. I have been extremely ill with gyppy tummy abroad (in Greece!) and would not care to do India on the cheap, though I have to say both dds have done so and have been fine.

What a shameMT62 many of my friends have visited India and had a really wonderful experience but visitors do need to follow basic rules about what is suitable to eat and what to avoid. I've just got back from Morocco. I like to experience different cultures, really enjoyed the food and I found the people very friendly and helpful. I went with my daughter and we felt safe even walking through dark areas at night. Interestingly we both said we had felt unsafe in the US on previous visits, me in Los Angeles in the 80's and she in San Francisco in the 2020's! Foreign travel is not for anyone who likes it sanitised but I don't want to be in a country where I don't feel safe.

I fancied India, until my friend & her husband went for two weeks.
They said it was hell on earth.
Really filthy & smelly.
Both picked up viruses.
They haven’t touched a curry since.

That should be Santa Barbara. I did preview it, too!

We were lucky enough to spend our honeymoon in LA in the early 80s, as my late brother was living there at the time. Flew Laker Airways, and saw some great places, including Santa's Barbara. We loved our trips to Australia and NZ and Singapore and glad that we made them when we did. Since OH was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimers, long haul flights are out, so we have become 'Saga Louts' instead, and are sticking to Europe. Still many places to visit on the list. Would have like to have visited Canada, but it won't happen now.

Been all over the world except Australia. Researched a trip there during covid which could have worked for a fortnight (I don't like to be away for longer). I don't think I can face the long flights now and unfortunately DH is not the most delightful companion.

I lived in the rain forest of Trinidad in 1963. It was pretty exotic with lots of snakes, centipedes and giant lizards.

Hong Kong was wonderful but I haven’t been there since the Chinese took over - I wonder if it has changed much ?

I believe the only "exotic" travel destinations we were in are Japan & Hong Kong.

My favourite European travel destination would be Venezia where we have been several times.

Other enchanting travel destinations we had enjoyed have been: The Bósforo - Estambul, Santorini, Roma, San Sebastian - Spain, Paris and La Rioja, Spain.

Having travelled widely in Africa, India, Australasia lots of really good experiences, the best and most exotic for me is Galapagos, Isabella island, walk along the beach to the hotel, watch Pelicans, Penguins and Sealions on the shoreline from your hammock.

Not likely to return but I was so lucky

To be fair, Singapore was always ordered, safe and relatively clean, even in the sixties. Hygiene standards for hawkers of street food and restaurants were closely monitored though there were a few who slipped through the net, like the little man with a barrow, charcoal burner, a wok and a very dirty vest who used to lure DH out of the front door like a Bisto Kid! He never succumbed to anything, miraculously.

There were some very ‘colourful’ and exciting places to spend an evening then if you wanted to go “off piste”😏. It is very sanitized now. DS was there last year and said it was fabulous but there is very little of the old Singapore left. What there is has museum status. They deserve their success. You can’t live in the past.

Wow some of you are really well traveled.
I think my most exotic place was Mauritius. We had a private driver and he took us all over the island . Seeing mango trees in peoples gardens was amazing.
My most interesting trip was South Africa, we went on safari in the Kruger and drove down the garden route to Capetown , such an interesting country. The second most interesting country was Cuba .
We’re done numerous road trips in the US , the most recent was Boston and New England in the fall .
Another exotic place was Thailand , one of my oldest friends lives there , so we get to go to places tourists don’t go to.
Australia, New Zealand and South America are on our bucket lists.

Allira

nanna8

Singapore is expensive these days. We used to go there and buy cheap things but now it is more expensive than Australia. Very clean and very safe, though and they could teach our mob a thing or two about not having hideous graffiti in the central city areas.

We shared a taxi with an Australian woman the first time we were there.
She had been touring the Far East and said she didn't like Singapore because it was too civilised, clean and ordered.

Yes, I can see that!
It was decades ago now, but a BiL married a Singaporean, so the wedding was there. Dds were late teens/v early 20s at the time, and it was their first experience of the Far East.

So we added on a few days in Bangkok, at least partly so that dds could see the ‘real’ Far East, not just the sanitised Singaporean version!

Might add that a few decades before that, dh and I had visited Singapore, and had stayed at the Raffles - the old colonial version - before it was tarted up out of all recognition. I still remember all the frangipani flowers scattered around the pool!

It wasn’t at all fashionable then - people asked why on earth we were staying there, but we loved it.

nanna8

Singapore is expensive these days. We used to go there and buy cheap things but now it is more expensive than Australia. Very clean and very safe, though and they could teach our mob a thing or two about not having hideous graffiti in the central city areas.

We shared a taxi with an Australian woman the first time we were there.
She had been touring the Far East and said she didn't like Singapore because it was too civilised, clean and ordered.

Singapore is expensive these days. We used to go there and buy cheap things but now it is more expensive than Australia. Very clean and very safe, though and they could teach our mob a thing or two about not having hideous graffiti in the central city areas.

Singapore is terribly civilised.
But I do like it!

Did enjoy Singapore as a stop off to Australia and NZ . They were both great too. I went to Tunisia in 1972 (honeymoon, first time abroad) very different then and seemed very exotic .

Have done lots of Europe and lived in Holland for a few years . I would still like to get to Italy d Poland which I haven’t managed so far.

I have never wanted to go anywhere in Asia or Africa, they have never appealed to me and I refuse to go to any of the Arab states because of their attitude to women and gay people .

I’ve been to America several times but find long haul harder now because of mobility issues

Having travelled over most of Europe and parts of Africa the strangest place I have visited is Grand Marais on the North shore of Lake Superior. Nobody there had met anyone from England before.

India, but not the Golden Triangle. Calcutta, where I was born when my Dad was working out there, Darjeeling where they used to go in the summer heat, and wonderful Sikkim. Highlight was seeing Kanchenjunga, a painting of which always hung in my childhood home. It seemed to be visible on every stage of our journey.