Comments on: What’s the wildest place you’ve been?

By: Stew

Stew — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:10:31 +0000

Haleakala crater on the Island of Maui. Definitely an otherworldly place. Not very remote, or unvisited.

By: Will

Will — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:23:39 +0000

I spent a month on Mt Kenya, but the wildest part was after a night camping at Simba Tarn (above 15,000 feet) we woke up to a snow storm. Here we were in Africa, practically on the equator and we were getting snowed on. It was wild to say the least.

By: Doc

Doc — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:37:48 +0000

Reconsidered…

One of the strangest places I’ve ever been (thanks, greenstrawberries) was playing a gig at Camp Boniface near the DMZ on 4 July 1996 (it was a MWR tour) and being given a tour of the border. They have a 1-hole 3-par golf course there where if you hit your ball out of bounds there is a no-penalty free drop, ‘cuz the area is so heavily mined that if you go looking for your ball in the rough you could lose important body parts.

It was also interesting to think I was playing for US & Korean soldiers who were dialed in by the North Koreans so closely that there were 4 artillery shells for every 1 meter of real estate… and 20 N. Korean armored Divisions within a half-hour drive to the north. All they have for defence is a couple of M-60s and their personal arms. Not much use against tanks.

It wasn’t until the bus ride back to Seoul that I realized I’d just helped people celebrate Independance Day under the gunsights of folks we were (are) still technically at war. Scary. My roomie commented the following morning that I’d been having dreams – said it sounded like I was back in the jungle. I have not (recently) been so glad to see a country disappear behind my aircraft as I was that July afternoon when we cleared Korean airspace.

Other #1 strange things – Burning Man. Haven’t been since 2000, probably won’t go back. Too full of frat boys and lookie-loos these days. Used to be fun, tho.

By: greenstrawberries

greenstrawberries — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:17:33 +0000

Let’s see… The craziest place I ever went to was the DMZ between North and South Korea. I went with the USO (the US Army tour) because I wanted a good tour, and I don’t like being shot at. It was amazing. I’ve never been anywhere more surreal, there were North Korean guards staring at us through binoculars, there was the MASSIVE North Korean flag just beyond the DMZ… the whole thing was ridiculously amazing. The flag I mentioned was too heavy to actually flap in the wind, and required several men to hoist it up and down the flag pole. And it “flew” over the pretend village on the Northern side of the DMZ. Apparently, at the “end” of the war, both Koreas wanted the rights to build a town inside the DMZ (why I really don’t know) so to be fair, the agreement was that there would be one town on each side. Well, the South Korean one is a bunch of farmers who are actually quite rich, they pay no taxes, and there are all kinds of crazy rules… The North Korean one isn’t actually inhabited. It’s empty buildings with automatic lights, and the gov’t sends messages about how wonderful North Korea is over a loud speaker all day long. It’s by far the most bizarre place imaginable. Definitely worth a visit.
By the way, Poland is a really cool country to visit, I didn’t like Warsaw as much as Krakow, but Warsaw has some really cool museums and stuff about what happened during WWII. (the Warsaw Uprising Museum is absolutely AMAZING.) I loved Krakow, not too touristy, and it just has a really nice culture and atmosphere to it. Hel is also nice. A bit cold though. (it’s way up in the Baltic) There’s a whole lot of “off the beaten track” in Poland, and it’s all quite beautiful.

By: jamie g

jamie g — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:37:19 +0000

I love looking at photos of the USA at night. It’s so reassuring to see the completely black, unpopulated spots out west.

By: Pointy-Hatted Geek

Pointy-Hatted Geek — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:03:25 +0000

When you’re in Hungary, you have to go to Budapest. It’s a big city, but it’s got some great stuff. I lived in Hungary for eleven months a year or two ago, and it’s one of the best cities I visited. Bratislava is great, too, as is Venice, although that’s a little out of the way. Vienna and Prague are very touristy, though. Vienna, especially, isn’t really worth it.

By: John Brown

John Brown — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 19:37:31 +0000

I went to Honduras,I was actually there when 9/11 happened. We were inthe mountains where people still live in straw huts and cook by fire outside, no windows (glass) etc….It was very relaxing and beautiful because there were no lights and you could view the Milky Way in all its glory. I also had a small scope and saw many things hard to see in america. Oh yea, there were the snakes, scorpions, and tarantulas. You always shake your shoes before putting them on!

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 16:28:45 +0000

I’m with you, Ransom; if it’s in a tourist guide, count me uninterested. I’m all for the backroads and out-of-the-way places that nobody else (including my wife & kids) are interested in. Even the nondescript places have great stories behind them and are filled with character (and real characters), but since they’re not on a somebody’s list, they get forgotten. That’s a shame. The vacation I’d love to go on someday is to hop on a motorcycle and go wherever the front wheel leads; no destination & no schedules, seeing whatever there is to see.

The wildest — as in the furthest from the comforts of US/Western culture — would have to be Cameroon (west Africa). But there are places much closer to home that are truly wild – as in relatively untouched by human influence; the prairies of western South Dakota & Nebraska, the mountains of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, etc… To be in a place where you can see no one, hear nothing but what is nature; that’s the wild I look for.

By: Dolly

Dolly — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:22:56 +0000

Delighted to see the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on Google’s list! My three offspring live on the western edge of the monument (my oldest daughter has a famous restaurant in the tiny town of Boulder, Utah, and the other two work for her), so I get to go there three or four times a year to visit them and the grandchildren, and it is truly wild, absolutely spectacularly beautiful, very remote and uninhabited for the most part. One can truly get a sense of being totally alone in the midst of some of the most pristine and breathtaking scenery on the face of the earth. It’s hard to get to, but completely worth the effort!

By: Doc

Doc — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 14:01:53 +0000

Sorry about mis-spelled words in previous post. Was thinking in Gaelic.

It’s troublesome when one thinks in more than one language simultaneously. Bloody hell when one is thinking in Gaelic, Latin, and Greek at the same time, then typing in English/Anglish/Anglo-Saxon. You have no idea how confused I get when that happens. I’ll try to be more focused in the future.

Doc