Lonely Planet guidebooks have inevitably become the kind of extra weight I rarely want to put in my backpack anymore. Why? Because they lead a traveler to the same ol’ tired paths everybody else is going to: a kind of one way ticket for jaded travel entertainment made up of bars, guesthouses and a bunch...

Towers of Lalish. Photo by Lucina Kathmann The Middle East has always been one of those areas that intrigued me. I was surprised to read that there is even a nascent tourism industry in Iraq, of all places. Iraqi Kurdistan has been promoting itself as " The Other Iraq ," and with good reason. Kurdistan...

This IHT article narrates the adventures of a U.S. tour group in Iraq . Considering there is still a war raging there, people who decide to travel to Iraq are either really brave or insane, depending on how you look at it. For people who love escaping the tourist masses, that definitely won't be an...