Tristan da Cunha ©2019 Jack Wheeler

All right, I confess.  I am a nesophile.  I’m addicted to nesophilia.  It’s not on any list of psychiatric disorders, however.  The term was invented – a “neologism” – by one of the 20th century’s most eminent philosophers, Sir Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) in 1938 while in Ireland.

When there, he combined the Greek word nesos – island, with philia – love, and declared he was a nesophile – a lover of islands.  That’s me.

I suppose that’s obvious by now – for I’ve lost count of the number of islands I’ve written about on TTP.

And there are so many more to go!  Yet I’ll be writing only about ones that are interesting, not even if they’re famous.  I just got back from Majorca and Ibiza, for example.  Nice enough, pretty enough – but, frankly, boring.  There’s no real there there, as Gertrude Stein said about Oakland, California.

So let’s take a quick look at some islands that would blow Gertrude Stein away – such as the one that has the bed Napoleon died in.

Saranda, Albania. Standing on a hilltop here overlooking the Adriatic arm of the Mediterranean, you can’t help but be mesmerized by the beauty of the scene, the Adriatic coastline, “the wine-dark sea” as Homer so often described it, and off the coast the Greek island of Corfu. Yet you can’t help being puzzled by the small mound of concrete in the foreground. What is that, you ask?

It’s a one-man pillbox bunker with a slit in front for the soldier to fire at Albania’s enemies about to invade during the Cold War. Stalinist madman Enver Hoxha ruled Albania for forty years, from the end of WWII to his death in 1985. During which he built 750,000 of these bunkers in a country barely bigger than Massachusetts (11,000 square miles). He maintained his Fascist-Communist rule of total control by constantly claiming that Albania was surrounded by neighbor enemies – Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy – all of whom were preparing to militarily invade, seize, and destroy Albania at any moment. For forty years.

With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Albania quickly liberated itself from its Communist past. Today it is stunningly gorgeous, a delight to travel through. The mushroom bunkers still litter the countryside, kept as a reminder of how history can go lunatic, and for Albanians to make sure such madness never happens to them ever again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #296, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

National Geographic calls the remote island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen in the Indian Ocean “the most alien-looking place on our planet,” because of its incredibly weird and bizarre plant life like the Dragon’s Blood Tree.

Yet it is safely far away from anarchic Yemen, peaceful and serene in its isolation. And it contains places of mesmerizing beauty – like this natural infinity pool on a cliff edge high above the ocean in full view. Socotra is spectacularly exotic, like nowhere else in our world. It is truly life-memorable to experience it. Wheeler Expeditions was there in the Spring of 2014 – and we’ll be there again soon. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #129 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

There are five Channel Islands in the English Channel. Best known are Guernsey and Jersey. Least visited is Alderney, along with tiny Herm. Most fascinating is Sark, Europe’s only remaining feudal fiefdom. No motor vehicles are allowed, excepting a few farmers’ small tractors. The governor and chief constable is called the Seneschal. He rides to his office on his bicycle.

It’s an ancient office with a tradition of many centuries. When I was there in 2010, it was held by Reginald Guille, a very friendly fellow as all Sarkese are. We rode our bikes around the island, even along La Coupée, the connecting path along the razor sharp high isthmus connecting two parts of the island – it’s pictured above.

There are gorgeous pocket beaches here, and beautiful natural swimming pools. Flower gardens are everywhere, the island could not be safer, cleaner, calmer, and more exquisitely charming. A few days here will do wonders for you. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #131 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The gigantic forest-covered stone pillars of Zhangjiajie in a remote region of Hunan are so famous for being a featured location in the Avatar movie they’ve been renamed the Avatar Mountains. You can take a cable car through them to view them from above. Hard to get to and certainly worth it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #269 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

September 1979 – my Hannibal Expedition took two elephants over the same pass Hannibal used in 218 BC across the Alps to attack Rome. There is only one pass that fits the contemporary descriptions of both Greek historian Polybius and Roman historian Livy: The Col du Clapier on what is now the French-Italian border.

Unrecognized as Hannibal’s Pass in 1979, it is still a roadless trail today crossed only on foot or mountain bike. But since our expedition, there are now signs proclaiming it La Route d’Hannibal, and even a life-size statue of an elephant at the French village of Bramans where the track over the pass begins.

The photo you see is us climbing high above Bramans (I’m the one in front with the red backpack). It took us five days to carefully guide our elephants (from an Italian circus) over Clapier and down to the Italian village of Susa. First time in 2,197 years and never repeated 41 years since.

Hannibal’s crossing the Alps with elephants is one of the most epic events of world history. To retrace it yourself with elephants is to make that famous history a part of your life in the most uniquely powerful way. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #15 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Funchal, Madeira.  On the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean, there is a common expression:  “A home without flowers is like a naked person without clothes.”  Here is an example, one of many thousands.  The Portuguese explorers discovered Madeira in 1419.  It was uninhabited at the time and always had been, no human being had ever been there before.  Over the seven centuries since, an enormous variety of plants from all over the world were brought here and flourished in the eternal spring weather and volcanic soil.  Every fruit, vegetable, tree, bush, flower easily grows here, a botanist’s paradise.  And a paradise for the people who live here, who love to beautify their homes and towns with gorgeous gardens everywhere.  Come with Rebel and me to see for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #298, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Belvoir Beach, Herm, Channel Islands. Could there be a more idyllic lunch—grilled lobster, fresh garden salad, chilled Chardonnay – here on Herm, the smallest of the five main Channel Islands. There’s Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney – and tiny Herm. Less than one square mile, but overflowing with charm and hospitality – from the Victorian White House Hotel to the Mermaid Pub to lobsters at Belvoir Beach. Coming here is a true escape from the worries of the world. At Herm they are a long ways away. Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #177 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Nagas are multi-headed dragons who rise up to protect the former royal capital of Laos, Luang Prabang. The city along the Mekong River has been the center of Lao culture since the 600s. The Kingdom of Laos, “Land of a Million Elephants,” had to struggle for centuries to avoid being absorbed by the empires of Siam and Khmer (Cambodia). It was the French who wrested Laos from Siam (Thailand) in the 1890s, giving it independence in 1953.

For centuries, devout Buddhists have been building beautifully ornate shrines and temples called Wats here in Luang Prabang. Every day at dawn, hundreds of red-robed monks living in the Wats parade through the city streets for donations. Since the Pathet Lao seizure of power in 1975, moving the capital to Vientiane, Luang Prabang is free of politics, preserved as a religious haven and treasure house of Laotian culture.

A few days here is not to be missed. As you enjoy a glass of good French wine at a riverbank café watching the sunset over the Mekong, give thanks to the Nagas who are still protecting this sanctuary city. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #24, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

My skydiving buddy Chris Wentzel and I made this flag jump on Memorial Day years ago to pay tribute to those in our military who gave their lives for America. I’m on the right, Chris on the left. The jump was performed at the Skydive Perris drop zone in Perris, California. It’s only fitting I post this on TTP in honor of those whom we memorialize in gratitude on this Memorial Day weekend. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #303 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

These Mongol nomads in the vast grasslands of central Mongolia milking their goats have a way of life unchanged for centuries. All of our concerns, worries and fears that plague us are totally irrelevant to them. They don’t know about them and wouldn’t care if they did.

Spending time with people such as these gives you an invaluably broader perspective of life on our planet. Our concerns, the issues that dominate our headline news, suddenly seem more parochial and far less important. An evening drinking kumiss (Mongol beer, fermented mare’s milk) in their yurts, telling stories, laughing at jokes – you realize how easy it is to relate to them through the core humanity we all have in our souls.

Exploring Mongolia in this way is a priceless adventure. We’ll be there this June, and again in the summer of 2026. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #9 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

When American explorers came upon this extraordinary cliff dwelling in 1860s Arizona, they dubbed it “Montezuma’s Castle” on a whim. The Aztec ruler had nothing to do with it, of course. The Anasazi people built a number of these marvelous structures in the Southwest, high up on cliffs above a river that seasonally flooded.

For hundreds of years the Anasazi flourished, skilled agriculturalists and brilliant at constructing vast irrigation systems. Yet it all came to naught with a devastating megadrought with no rain for many decades, culminating in the collapse of the Anasazi culture and abandonment of their cliff dwellings by the early 1500s.

Another lesson that it is nature that control’s the Earth’s climate, not us. You’ll find Montezuma’s Castle above Beaver Creek south of Sedona. It’s a marvel not to be missed. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #194 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

First Lady Melania Trump would instantly recognize Lake Bled, for it is considered the most beautiful place in her home country of Slovenia. It’s a glacial lake up in the Julian Alps near the border with Austria. The small lush island you see has been a pilgrimage site for millennia – first to the Temple of Ziva, the Slovene goddess of love and fertility, then until now to the Church of the Mother of God. For all that time, Slovene couples came here to get married.

There are 99 steps from the rowboat landing to the church, and from ancient times to today, the tradition is that for a happy and long-lasting marriage, the groom must carry his bride up all 99 steps while she must remain silent while he does.

Lake Bled is a place of deep serenity and joyous calm. Come here to experience both. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #178 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Carved out of a cliff face of red sandstone on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau over 1,200 years ago by Buddhist monks, the 233 ft-high Leshan Giant Buddha is the largest and tallest stone Buddha statue in the world.

I took this picture from a boat on the river that runs past it. As you can see by Buddhist pilgrims working their way down the stone steps on the side and in front carrying umbrellas, it’s raining. Rain is so frequent here that a sophisticated drainage system was incorporated into the statue when it was built. It is still in working order. Behind the Buddha’s head, between his two ears, and scattered throughout his body, there are several hidden gutters and channels carrying out the rainwater that have kept the inner areas dry and prevented the Buddha from eroding since the 8th century.

Knowing this adds to the wonder of beholding this extraordinary achievement. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #268 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Antarctic island of South Georgia is one of the most extraordinary places on earth. Square miles of king penguin rookeries, thousands of fur seals, hundreds of gigantic elephant seals amidst a backdrop of massive glaciers and snow-capped mountains.

All of the animals here have no fear of you whatever and ignore your presence – except if you make the mistake of getting too close to a bull elephant seal for his comfort. It’s a mistake I made as you can see. Luckily, with several tons of blubber to carry, this fellow can’t move as fast as me, so I hightailed it quickly. That satisfied him, and all was soon back to placidly normal again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #62 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

It looks like a crack in a road, but this is in the Afar Triangle of Djibouti, where a triple junction of tectonic plates is tearing Africa in pieces. Plates spreading apart is called a Rift. I’m standing over where three gigantic rifts – the Red Sea that has split Arabia and northern Africa in two, the Gulf of Aden that will split off Somalia from the rest of Africa, and the Great Rift Valley of East Africa currently ripping Africa itself asunder – originate. Here the once intact Africa Plate began to tear in three directions.

Ironically, here is where humanity did the same. Genetic scientists have determined that some 60,000 years ago a small band of Africans (less than 200) rafted from what is now Djibouti to what is now Yemen in Arabia – and that incredibly, every human on earth today except for those who stayed, is descended from them. That means, e.g., all Europeans, Chinese and Asians, Australian Aborigines, North and South Native Americans, descended from those 200 people long ago.

Two amazing facts from this tiny country. There’s a third – it’s the best place in the world to swim with whale sharks, an unforgettable experience. All in Djibouti! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #238 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Enter “The Old Man of Storr” in Wikipedia, and it wants to talk about the steep rocky face of the mountain in the background called “The Storr.”  Google or Duckduckgo the images and you’ll get all these photos of rocky pinnacles and spires.  So where’s the Old Man?  It’s the most famous feature on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, yet you never see the Old Man himself.  Well, here he is.

Look at the three sections of rocks in the foreground.  They form a man sleeping on his back.  In the first section on the left, you can see in order his forehead, eyebrows, large nose, both lips open snoring, and chin.  In the third section on the right, you see his feet with his toes sticking up.  In the middle section – well, now we know why he’s embarrassingly renowned, for there is the Old Man’s manhood standing tall and proud.

Ask any Scottish friend of yours if he knows why the Old Man of Storr on Skye is so-named.  Then send this to him.  He’ll no doubt say, “Well, laddie, this calls for a wee dram or two for us to properly toast the Old Man!” (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #297, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is Temple IV at the ancient Mayan capital of Tikal, now in northern Guatemala. It was from the top of Temple IV that the shot in the original 1977 Star Wars movie was filmed of the Millennium Falcon landing (at 44 seconds) near jungle temples (Temples II and III) at the Rebel Base on the moon of Yavin 4.

Built in 740 AD, at 230 feet it is the tallest pre-Columbian structure in all the Americas. While Tikal’s earliest buildings date to the 4th century BC, it was from 300 to 800 AD that Tikal flourished as one of the Mayan Empires most powerful kingdoms.

Then decline set in, with drought, deforestation, overpopulation, and constant warfare with rival kingdoms. With Tikal abandoned by the end of the 900s, it remained covered by rainforest jungle for over a thousand years. American archaeologists began excavations in the 1950s. Today with its major temples restored, Tikal is the most impressive example you can visit of Mayan civilization. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #118 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

We are in Famboun, Cameroon, West Africa, capital of the Bamoun people. The ruling Bamoun Dynasty was founded by Sultan Nshare in 1394. The current Sultan resides in the Palace Royale here. Nearby is a thatched structure that houses what you see in the photo above.

This is a Ndiki Drum. It is used by the Sultan of Bamoun to call his subjects to their end-of the-year Nguon festival over which he presides. It can be heard for miles.

The carved wooden forearms and hands propped up at the drum’s end are not the original drumsticks. They are symbolic for what the real drumsticks used to be. Until the British and French put an end to the custom in the 1920s, the Ndiki drumsticks were human arms, amputated at the elbow off captured slaves. Four drummers were needed to properly pound the drum, each requiring two drumsticks: eight amputated human arms in total.

While in Famboun, I met one of the wives of the Sultan. It was she who told me the history of the Ndiki Drum.

The horror of slavery in Africa was ended by Western colonialists. In its place they introduced roads, railroads, electricity, an impartial rule of law instead of law favoring one tribe over another, and other benefits of civilization. They did a lot of stupid damage to African cultures, true.

But that is vastly outweighed by getting rid of slavery – exemplified by how this drum was pounded until less than 100 years ago. If you have a child or grandchild in school with woke teachers, you might have them bring this picture to class, and explain how the benefits of Western Civilization so greatly outweighs its liabilities.

“To Sua” means “giant swimming hole” in Samoan. It’s a collapsed lava tube hole on the south coast of Upolu in Samoa. On top of lava cliffs overlooking the South Pacific, you clamber down the ladder for a memorable swim. To Sua is but one of the attractions of Samoa: gorgeous waterfalls, marvelously friendly people, and the historic home named “Valima,” of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), where he and his wife Fanny spent his last years.

On a hilltop rising above Valima is the gravesite of “Tusitala” – Stevenson’s Samoan name, meaning “Telling of Tales.” Engraved on the side of his tomb is his famous epitaph he wrote himself:

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:

Here he lies where he long'd to be;

Home is the sailor, home from the sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Jack Wheeler is Escape Artist’s World Exploration Expert. He is the founder of Wheeler Expeditions at WheelerExpeditions.com.

I showed this picture to my mother after my latest sojourn with the Afghan Mujahaddin fighting the Soviet Union and she didn’t see anything unusual. She didn’t recognize her own son standing in the middle. Good thing – if I had been caught by the KGB or Spetsnaz, it would have been, ahh… unpleasant. I was there with the “Muj” at least a dozen times until they defeated the Soviet Red Army in early 1989 – which led to the Fall of the Berlin Wall eight months later and the extinction of the Soviet Union itself by the end of 1991. It was one of the most thrilling – and consequential – adventures of modern times. (photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Jack Wheeler is Escape Artist’s World Exploration Expert. He is the founder of Wheeler Expeditions at WheelerExpeditions.com

The world’s most spectacular nature park is the 130-acre Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. In the gigantic greenhouse of the Flower Dome, virtually every rare flower on earth flourishes in abundance, while the Cloud Forest is a wonderland of tropical waterfalls seemingly falling out of the sky high above.

Dominating the park are the 160-foot high Supertrees, towering vertical gardens covered in orchids, ferns, vines, and exotic plants. There are elevated canopies and walkways between them. Exploring the astonishing display of hi-tech botanical artistry and genius that is Gardens by the Bay is absolutely awe-inspiring.

TTPer Cassowary was kind enough to guide me through the park as Singapore is his home. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #102 photo ©Jack Weeler)

The Golden Madrasa or College of Tilla-Kori was built by Samarkand ruler Yalangtush Bakhadur in the 1650s to house and teach the best and brightest students of his realm. It stands at the center of the wondrous Registan public square complex of the Silk Road oasis city of Samarkand, known to the ancient Greeks as Marakanda.

It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.

I was first in Samarkand to stand astonished at the Registan in 1963. Seeing it now, far more impressively preserved than in the Soviet days, made me gasp – especially how Tilla-Kori is once again lavishly decorated with gold. You’ll gasp too should you ever be fortunate enough to come here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #223 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

800 hundred years ago in 1221, Genghis Khan established the capital of the Mongol Empire he created at a place called Karakorum in the grasslands of central Mongolia. It became a city of palaces, temples, and mansions of the Mongol nobility, a place of fabulous wealth that left Marco Polo in awe when he visited in in the 1270s.

When Mongol rule over China ended a hundred years later, the Chinese rulers of the Ming Dynasty ordered Karakorum razed to the ground with all evidence of its existence obliterated. All that was left was this solitary stone turtle lying in mute witness to the glories of what was here once and is no more. Known as the Stone Turtle of Genghis Khan, it’s all there is for you to try and imagine the magnificence of the past amidst what is now an empty wilderness. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #149 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Dar al-Hajar, the Rock Palace, was built by Yemen’s ruler, Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamiddin (1869-1948), atop a rock pinnacle as his summer residence. It lies in a valley about 10 miles outside Yemen’s capital of Sana’a. While an iconic example of Yemeni architecture, it’s impossible to visit now with civil war raging in the country. Someday we’ll be able to safely return to Yemen again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #143 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

This is the wooden Russian Orthodox Church in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan. It was built in the 1890s when Karakol was a garrison town in the furthermost reaches of the Russian Imperial Empire with China just on the other side of Tien Shan Mountains.

In the atheist/communist Soviet Union it was used variously as a school, gymnasium, and warehouse, anything but a church. After Kyrgyzstan gained its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was lovingly restored by the people of Karakol.

All the various ethnicities comprising Karakol are welcome here – Christian Russians and Christian Kyrgyz, Uighur Moslem refugees escaping Chicom China, ethnic Han Chinese Moslems called Dungans escaping for the same reason, Buddhist and pagan Kazakhs. The interior is lavishly decorated with Christian art and paintings of Christian saints – no Islamic or Buddhist or any other religious art, just Christian. Yet all are welcome to pray in this haven of refuge and peace in their own way.

This is a Russian Church very distinct from those controlled by Moscow run by the Kremlin as a propaganda arm of the KGB/FSB. It is a real Russian Christian Church instead. Come here to feel to the spiritual serenity for yourself. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #221 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Everyone who visits Nepal falls in love with Pokhara. One reason is views of the Himalayas like this from Phewa Lake. You’re only at 2,600 feet while soaring far above you are the world’s 7th highest mountain, Dhaulagiri ((26,795’) to the left, the 10th highest, Annapurna (26,545’) in the center, and the unclimbed sacred peak of Machapuchare (match-a-pooch-a-ree, 23,000’) to the right.

The low altitude gives Pokhara (poke-a-rah) delightful spring-like weather most of the year, the town oozes charm and gracious hospitality with wonderfully fun bar-restaurants like the Moondance Café. As Nepal’s adventure capital, there’s whitewater rafting, tandem parasailing and motorized hang-gliding, as well as the launching pad for Nepal’s most famous trek, the Annapurna Circuit.

Or you can simply relax by the lake or be paddled around it in a canoe for birdwatching. We always end our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions here, which we’ll do again this coming October. Hard to imagine a better place to unwind. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #295, photo ©Jack Wheeler)