By the time Tony co-founded Lonely Planet Publications in 1973, he already had the travel bug. And ever since, travel and discovery have been at the heart of his life and career.
Wow, another presidential travel challenge. I wrote my book Bad Lands, published back in 2007, because George W Bush had proclaimed Iran, Iraq and North Korea as his ‘Axis of Evil’ and, of course, I thought ‘well I want to go there.’ I added Afghanistan, Albania, Cuba, Libya, Myanmar (Burma) and Saudi Arabia to my bad list of nine interesting countries.
Now Donald (aka TACO) Trump has come up with a new travel challenge – 12 countries whose citizens are banned from the USA. Plus seven more ‘discouraged’ if not outright banned. Well I want to go to all of them and I’ve only got one missing from his Worst 12!
1. Afghanistan – banned – wonderful country, shame about how women are treated. Maureen and I drove through Afghanistan on the ‘hippie trail’ in 1972 and I went back in 2006
2. Chad – banned – one of my most interesting visits in recent years, 2022. Wonderful rock and cave art, amazing deserts where the Ukrainians may have learnt from Chad how to kill Russian tanks. Here’s one abandoned in the north of the Ennedi Desert
3. Congo-Brazzaville – banned – not sure why the well-behaved Congo should be banned while the big bad Democratic Republic of Congo doesn’t get a shout? I went to both in 2011.
4. Equatorial Guinea – banned – it’s on my ‘must go’ list
5. Eritrea – banned – poor Eritrea, I wasn’t knocked out when I went there in 2018, but for architecture fans the capital Asmara absolutely should not be missed.
6. Haiti – banned – poor Haiti as well, I went there in 2008 pre and 2012 post-earthquake. For music and art it’s hard to beat and they have the Citadelle, absolutely the most stunning building in the Caribbean.
7. Iran – banned – extremely friendly people, shame about the government, I’ve made multiple visits, most recently driving through on my MGB Silk Rd odyssey in 2017.
◄ the USS Vincennes shooting down an Iranian airliner
8. Libya – banned – the most impressive ancient Roman sites (like Leptis Magna) on the Mediterranean and the desert is wonderful as well. Went there in 2004
9. Myanmar (Burma) – banned – since my first visit in 1974 I’ve been back multiple times. Again shame about the government. Shame about Facebook as well who can shoulder a large part of the blame for the Roningya outrage.
10. Somalia – banned – oops, I’ve been to Somaliland in 2022, that’s the former British bit, but the former Italian slice of Somalia I’ve still not visited.
11. Sudan – banned – wonderful country currently wracked by an appalling civil war. I went there in 2016 and just last year I visited South Sudan as well. These are the Nuri Pyramids in Sudan.
12. Yemen – banned – I’ve been there, well to the amazing island of Socotra in 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic shut all travel down. Otherwise I’ve just made a couple of Yemeni airport stops so the superb mud-skyscraper buildings are still on my wish list.
So I’ve only got one unvisited country – Equatorial Guinea – on TACO Trump’s banned list. I don’t do so well on his merely discouraged list, I fail on four of the seven – Burundi, Sierra Leone, Togo and Venezuela – although I think my daughter Tashi has been to Sierra Leone on a Planet Wheeler project. So the three I have been to:
1. Cuba – merely discouraged – been there a few times, particularly in 2001 when Maureen and I drove all over the country and picked up lots of hitch-hikers.
▲ Maureen in a classic Chevy convertible in Havana on a later trip
2. Laos – merely discouraged – I’ve been there multiple times since Maureen and I first visited in 1974, but sadly for backpackers it’s been in the news in 2024 when six foreign tourists died in Vang Vieng after drinking poisoned bar cocktails. The poor Laotians are still clearing up unexploded US ordnance from the Vietnam War.
3. Turkmenistan – merely discouraged – I went there on my 2017 MGB Silk Road trip and instantly decided that Ashgabat was the whackiest capital city I had visited since Pyongyang in North Korea.
◄ A golden statue of the Turkmenbashi, the country’s former dictator.
Wow, another presidential travel challenge. I wrote my book Bad Lands, published back in 2007, because George W Bush had proclaimed Iran, Iraq and North Korea as his ‘Axis of Evil’ and, of course, I thought ‘well I want to go there.’ I added Afghanistan, Albania, Cuba...
All the airline routes that follow are from FlightRadar24’s wonderful website. I commented recently on Ryanair 4978 from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania doing a little westward jog approaching or departing Vilnius to avoid crossing Belarus airspace. That’s a r...
My recent blog – I’m Not Going There Anymore – soon raised other possibilities for a ‘no go’ list. I should agree immediately that this is a change of attitude for me. For a long time I’ve thought we should go anywhere, it’s important for all sorts of reasons that we ...
Uluru (aka Ayers Rock back in the day) – my multiple visits – I was back to Uluru in April 2025, with a family group, 17 of us, down to newborn baby Molly (definitely her first visit), Veda (aged 6) and assorted others, some on their first visit, some not. For me it w...
Recently I suggested that I hope I never have to go back to Bali. I simply never want to sit through another hour of Balinese gridlock. The traffic is impossible, insufferable, intolerable. When you get to your destination you basically do not want to leave. A quick t...
▲ Southern Ocean Lodge & Hanson Bay Maureen and I spent four luxurious days – and nights – at the remote (and luxurious!) Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island off the Australian state of South Australia over New Year 2008-2009. Eleven years later on 3 Januar...
My recent Bali retreat mainly circled around travel writers and their Bali-related books, including Bill Dalton’s classic Indonesia Handbook and my own South-East Asia on a Shoestring, but other authors also featured. ◄ The Painted Alphabet – A mythical story of Ba...
The boring, too often repeated, questions I field all the time are ‘what’s your favourite place – followed by what’s the most dangerous thing that’s ever happened to you – and then where do you never want to go to again.’ Recently I’ve been hearing from friends who ha...
▲ Liz Trump & Liz Truss All the media has been noting the comparisons. Trump on his knees before the US bond market traders was precisely the same outcome as Britain’s 49-day-prime minister Liz Truss falling out with the UK bond market. I noted the blue plaque ...
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards – that’s the state of Victoria in Australia, capital city Melbourne – is ‘the single most valuable literary award in the country’. The winner takes away A$100,000 as the big prize, plus another A$25,000 because they first have t...
© Tony Wheeler’s Travels 2013