George Bernard Shaw once said, “I hate feeling at home when I am abroad.” That’s a motto I have adopted all my travelling life.

No disrespect to Europe that I love visiting, and has unique cities like Sarajevo, Mostar, Istanbul, Athens, Tirana & Dubrovnik, but it is further afield that I yearn for to get somewhere truly different from home.

The Arabia of North Africa & the Middle East, the magical Islamic architecture of Central Asia, the wonder of sub-Saharan Africa, the mysteries of ancient Japan, the smell of revolution in Cuba, chaotic yet orderly mega cities, rice terraces, safari, pristine beaches, tango, tropical botanical gardens, long overnight train journeys, Hinduism, Buddhism, Incas, rain forests, kaleidoscope coloured birdlife, colourful people.

To do them all justice is an impossible task but I have chosen one of my favourite images and the odd video from each country I have visited outside Europe to evoke memories & stir the soul towards new horizons.

Israel (1993)

My first foray outside Europe saw a visit to the Holy Land. I took very few photos in these pre-digital days as we toured Jerusalem, Nazareth, Acre, Masada, The Dead Sea, Netanya & Caesarea.

My choice is a blurred picture of me floating in the Dead Sea reading a newspaper. This is where the true adventuring began.

Palestine (1993)

A bus to Bethlehem is as far as we got, using a BT charge card as ID (remember those?). It was all about the birth of our Lord as you would expect.

Egypt (1996)

My first escorted trip, with Explore, a fabulous small group tour taking in Cairo, Giza, Luxor, Aswan, Valley of the Kings & Abu Simbel amongst much more besides. We journeyed down the Nile in a small boat, having a very cold swim in the waters of the great river.

My first (and last actually) camel experience is my choice. I cannot remember exactly where.

Hong Kong, Macau & China (1996)

HK was British back then and Macau Portuguese. My brother Ed & I took a rusty old clinker of a vessel from HK to Guangzhou (Canton) in China.

Whilst in Guangzhou we ate at the snake restaurant made famous by Michael Palin on Around the World in 80 Days. A bit like the Monty Python spam sketch, you could have any meal as long as there’s snake in it!

India (1997)

My second escorted Explore trip taking in the Golden Triangle of Delhi, Jaipur & Agra. I could not possibly look further than the Taj Mahal for my favourite photo.

Indonesia (1997)

Due to the effects of El Niño, Sumatra & Malaysia became Java & Bali. Jakarta to Denpasar via Singapore. So many wonderful memories.

Bogor, Lembang, Bandung, Pangandaran, Yogyakarta, Ubud, Lake Batur, volcano treks, Indian Ocean and my first non-European train journey (Jakarta to Bogor).

Indonesia is the most populous Islamic country on earth but I have chosen a scene at the Hindu shrine of Prambanan on Java as my chosen image.

We watched an outdoor performance of the Hindu legend, the Ramayana, the mythical story of the Monkey King.

Singapore (1997)

My parents married in Singapore in 1956 and mention of the country & the Tropics left me an awe as a kid. No contest for favourite photo. St George’s Church, Tanglin, where my life story effectively began.

Malaysia (1997)

A train side trip to uninspiring Johor Baru just over the border remains my only venture into Malaysian territory. Must put that right.

Vietnam (1998)

In ‘98, the War was still in everybody’s mind. There were no diplomatic relations with the US and Ho Chi Minh’s main museum was named The American War Crimes Museum.

An absolutely spellbinding trip of rice terraces, the Mekong Delta, the Reunification Express, Halong Bay and in Hue, Hoi An, Hà Nội & HCMC, some of the most amazing cities in the world.

That’s why I have chosen a picture of ducks!

A farmer was moving thousands of them from A to B. It is a picture indelibly printed on my mind. We forced our bus to stop for a picture, much to the bewilderment & amusement of the locals.

The image below does not do it justice as many hundreds had already waddled past, and is forever known as ‘the one that got away’.

USA (1999)

A work trip to New York & Miami was my first visit to the States. Since then I have visited a dozen times and only paid my own way once with a Silver Wedding anniversary trip to New York in 2025.

It’s fair to say ‘I Love New York’, a movie set of a city. You have seen the Empire State, Rockefeller Centre, Statue of Liberty, Radio City Music Hall and the like a thousand times so I have chosen a picture of Mrs Wilbur & I on the sofa of Central Perk on the set of the Friends Experience.

Lebanon (2000)

The year I got married I chose a week in the country notorious for civil war & kidnappings. The future Mrs Wilbur was not happy! She had nothing to worry about as we had a fabulous and safe time.

A country roughly the size of Wales is full of magical destinations. It breaks my heart to see the devastation caused by the Hezbollah conflict with Israel. So many innocent lives ruined.

My favourite picture is not Beirut or Byblos or Baalbek, Anjar, Tripoli or Saidon, but me and a taxi driver we had hired to take us on a trip through the Bekaa Valley.

Peru (2001)

Lima, Arequipa, Nazca, Lake Titicaca, Cusco, where do I choose? Has to be from the 3-day hike through the Andes to Machu Piccu.

A bit of a collage again.

Bolivia (2001)

A short hop to La Paz by bus from Puno after crossing Lake Titicaca by boat. I have chosen two pictures – 1 of a cute baby on the boat crossing and the 2nd of the highest international football stadium in the world.

South Africa (2003)

First trip outside Europe with Mrs Wilbur and a visit to Jo’burg, Kruger, Cape Town & the Western Cape. It also became the first time I drove abroad as we hired a fiat to drive the Wine Route and around the Western Cape to Hermanus.

En route we passed by Betty’s Bay and a lesser known colony of jackass penguins. Unlike Boulders Beach, we had these to ourselves.

Morocco (2005)

A road trip from Marrakesh over the Atlas Mountains to Fes & Meknes and then a train back to Marrakesh.

We loved the whole trip but for me Fes was the most authentic with its more devout Islamic culture. Fes is also famous for its tanneries, still rather unhealthily died manually by men & women treading the pelts in vats of coloured dye.

Rather like the old way of treading grapes to make wine, only without the celebratory drink afterwards!

Jordan (2005)

What a jewel of a country – Madaba, Jerash, Petra, Amman, Wadi Rum. Strangely a road takes top billing.

The Desert Highway runs from Amman to Aquaba with a perfect viewpoint showing the road snaking around the hillsides.

Mauritius (2007)

A big birthday for Mrs Wilbur saw us head for the Indian Ocean island most famous for being the home of the extinct dodo (a kind of slow big chicken eaten out of existence by Dutch sailors – dodo & chips in a basket!).

We stayed in Pamplemousse (French for pineapple) in a luxury spa hotel. I enjoyed the rare luxury but for me the wildlife took the biscuit. Pink pigeons & brightly coloured finches in vivid reds & bright yellows were lovely, marlin and dolphins, but the giant tortoises shone through.

Türkiye (2009)

I had visited Istanbul before and set foot in Asia by crossing the Bosphorus by ferry, but this was the first journey eastwards as we made our way to Syria by train.

The iconic and now no longer in use Haydarpasa Train Station where the journey eastwards began is my choice to depict that part of the journey.

As it’s my favourite every train journey encompassing all that is great about them (sleeper compartment, restaurant car, breathtaking scenery) and it became so iconic for my travel buddy Hamish and I due to passport drama in Ankara, I am sneaking in a collage too!

Syria (2009)

Aleppo will never be beaten as my favourite city ever visited. Little did we know that over a decade of turmoil was about to descend on this proud & seemingly friendly country controlled with not exactly an iron fist by Assad back then.

Syria is also home to my favourite every building (the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus), my favourite Roman ruins (Palmyra), favourite castle (Krak des Chevaliers), favourite hotel (The Baron in Aleppo) and favourite monastery (St Simeon’s).

However, it was the people that made Syria so really special. I have often wondered what became of them over the years. An extra special collage celebrating our wonderful hosts.

There is one image in particular that brings tears to my eyes and a smile to my mouth every time I see it again.

A cheeky young schoolgirl travelling with her grandmother by train from Aleppo to Latakia. She was absolutely beautiful and I imagined a wonderful soul with a huge sprinkling of mischief.

She did her homework for much of the journey, only stopping to munch on her lunch, a couple of small cucumbers, and occasionally to turn her head to stare at the only two white people on her train.

I never knew her but will always love her and sincerely hope she became the perfect woman that she deserved to be.

Thailand (2010)

Bangkok is an assault of a city. It’s hard to ignore the seedy side, but the palaces & shrines are second to none.

The Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho Temple is my choice to represent this crazy city.

Laos (2010)

We arrived by overnight train from Bangkok to capital Vientiane and later made our way by train to stunning Luang Prabang, with its wats, temples, monks & multi-coloured markets.

However, my pick is me and an elephant! The photo that I turn to in times of stress to remember that not all Monday mornings have to be the same.

Georgia (2015)

We arrived in the Black Sea city of Batumi after a long train & bus journey from Istanbul via Erzurum in Kurdish Turkey.

We walked across the border and I was quizzed long & hard due to a) our route being a popular way for people from the West to join ISIS & b) I had an Arabic translation in my passport on account of an aborted attempt to get to Libya a few years earlier.

I have been twice now and travelled to monasteries, churches, lakes, mountains, undertaken amazing train trips, drank fabulous Georgian red and clamboured around a unique walled town.

My photo however is from capital Tbilisi, a real gem of a place straddling the Kura River.

Armenia (2015)

We trained it from Batumi to Yerevan, sharing our sleeper compartment with an Armenian mother & daughter and their blind cat!

Despite the splendour of the Armenian capital, stunning wine district, the Caucus Mountains, remote monasteries & majestic Mount Ararat, the cat takes the plaudits for my photo of the trip!

Said cat was revealed when the daughter, in her early sixties, opened up one her pieces of luggage and a head popped out with a relieved meow.

Cambodia (2015)

My big birthday trip with Mrs Wilbur. Phnom Penh was amazing, the countryside scattered with water buffalo & egrets wonderful, all the Khmer temples awesome and the genocide memorials harrowing, but it has to be Angkor Wat at sunrise.

Not the greatest shot, but unbeknownst to me, I was about to become very ill. The episode inspired my first fictional works, Drip by Drip.

Cuba (2017)

A decade after Mrs Wilbur’s previous big birthday trip, another one came along. We went in January just a few weeks after the death of Fidel Castro for a full tour of the Caribbean’s largest nation.

The birthday was celebrated in Trinidad de Cuba, a fascinating colonial town which specialises in handmade cigars.

Havana became one of my top 5 cities visited. Revolution was everywhere with Castro & Che Guevara images particularly prominent.

The changing of the guard at Fidel’s newly created grave wins the imagery award.

Argentina (2018)

Iguacu Falls was simply stunning, but Buenos Aires like Havana shot straight into my top 5 cities.

Tango clubs, the Evita legend, the Colon Theatre, football fever (Internacional match live, Copa Libertadores final between great Argentine rivals River Plate & Boca Juniors on TV in a crazy bar), the Rio Plata delta.

My picture is from La Casa Rosada (the pink house) whose balcony was made famous by Eva Peron as she addressed the adoring crowds below.

Uruguay (2018)

A day trip by fast ferry from BA to Sacramento del Colonia. Colourful & compact, a pleasant sojourn for the day.

Brazil (2018)

Rio de Janeiro is amazing. Sugar Loaf mountain, Christ the Redeemer, Copacabana & Ipanema Beaches, vast shanty towns (flavela), samba & the Maracana Stadium.

However, Iguazu Falls straddling Brazil & Argentina wins the outstanding memory as Mrs Wilbur & I stole a kiss whilst being soaked by the Devil’s Throat.

Here’s a short video of the Falls too.

Turkmenistan (2018)

The capital Ashgabat is a surreal futuristic city where all homes are built from white marble, whose airport building is the shape of a huge pair of falcons and whose train station looks like something from the Thunderbirds.

I have cheated here and include a collage of some of the city’s landmarks.

My main picture however is from the Darvaza Gas Crater in the Karakum Desert. Simply bizarre.

I will also sneak in an out of focus picture of a huge train of camels. Similar to the ducks in Vietnam, I wish I had done better!

Uzbekistan (2018)

We walked across the border from Turkmenistan and had to pass a quick medical from men in white coats to gain entry.

The Islamic architecture here is without parallel. The land of Timur the Great was one of the greatest Silk Road lands with Samarkand at its heart. Along with Bukhara & Khiva it makes up a triumvirate of mesmerising destinations. Tashkent ain’t too shabby either.

I have chosen a picture of the Kolon Mosque & Minaret in Bukhara to depict this absolute jewel of a country.

Azerbaijan (2019)

A long overnight train journey from Tbilisi saw us arrive in the capital Baku on the Caspian Sea. A city of a myriad of futuristic buildings including the iconic Flame Towers. Again I have cheated and present a collage.

Philippines (2023)

What a country. We visited the main island of Luzon where Manilla is situated and toured from north to south, east to west.

As usual I have a thousand worthy pictorial representations, but breakfast from our hostel balcony overlooking the Banaue Rice Terraces brings those amazed feelings flooding back.

South Korea (2023)

Seoul is up there with the greatest, whilst 2nd city Busan is also amazing. However, I have chosen a really childish video from the top of the Busan Tower. It still has me in stitches every time I see it.

Japan (2024)

A country like no other. The land of the rising sun, of geisha, of samurai, of castles, sushi, wagu beef, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, bullet trains, cherry blossom, golden temples, giant bamboo forests, garden sanctuaries.

This shot of Mount Fuji gets my nod. Many visitors never get to see its crown.

Zambia (2024)

Manic Lusaka to chilled Livingstone. I have a very long story about an aborted train journey between the two. I have chosen a picture of the slowest, latest train in the world as my Zambian image.

Zimbabwe (2024)

Victoria Falls and the walk over the Zambezi River Bridge from Zam to Zim is what this visit was all about. Vic Falls is the western name. Locals call it Mosi-oa-Tunya (The Smoke That Thunders).

Botswana (2024)

This was wholly about safari and especially a riverboat safari.

My first sightings ever of hippos is my image and I have sneaked in a video of a family of elephants crossing the Chobe River.

Kenya (2024)

More safaris, Nairobi and a train to Mombasa on the Indian Ocean. In Mombasa you can order a tuk tuk on Uber. What better for my go to image?

Caribbean (Barbados, Antigua & Barbuda, St Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, Dominica, St Kitts & Nevis, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada – 2025)

My first ever cruise was the choice for my 60th birthday celebrations. Most of the destinations kind of merge into one like a James Bond movie ending. Here are Mrs Wilbur & I with our modest cruise ship in the background.

One funny episode was when we visited the cricket stadium in Antigua to pay homage to my favourite ever cricketer, Sir Viv Richards.

I told a local of my admiration for the great batsman who I grew up watching play for Somerset. He claimed to know Sir Viv, pretended to call him to tell him to come to the ground, claimed Viv did not answer and then wanted a tip for his efforts!

Canada (2025)

An Amtrak train from NYC to Montreal, visits by train to Quebec City, Toronto & Niagara Falls, before a train back to NYC.

We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in Montreal with a helicopter ride over the enchanting city on the St Lawrence River. My choice of image is from after we had landed.

Ethiopia (2025)

Addis Ababa. Coffee, colonial buildings, coffee, the most crazy market in the world, coffee and the fossilised remains of the oldest human in the world (Lucy, 3.2 million years old).

We frequented two branches of the oldest coffee shop in Addis, Tomoca, founded in 1928. The first cafe was in the city centre, the second in the building of the former Addis Ababa to Djibouti train station.

A video of us driving through one of Africa’s largest markets speaks a thousand words. Catch it on my YouTube channel.

Watch it here.

Rwanda (2025)

Kigali has transformed itself to a beautiful city as it looks to bury its past. The world cycling championships were taking place there when we visited – the first time ever in Africa.

The Genocide Museum however is my choice. Like the Killing Fields of Cambodia, Yad Vashem in Israel, Auschwitz in Poland and the Hiroshima Memorial Museum, silence is obligatory.

Uganda (2025)

A fabulous country straddling the equator, choc full of wildlife.

A trek to see the golden monkeys was one of the toughest physical things that I have ever done so the video has to go in.

However, I could not leave out the bizarre image of a shoebill stork in the mangrove swamps of Lake Victoria.

Apart from the cruise and trips to Egypt, India, Argentina/Iguacu/Brazil & Cuba, I have arranged all the others independently, saving a small fortune in the process. Even with those I booked extra independent days alongside the organised part.

My companions have either been Mrs Wilbur, aka Rania, or my long time travel buddy Hamish who have known for over forty years.

So where next?

Favourite is shaping up to be an Autumn trip to Kazakhstan & Kyrgyzstan with Hamish. Fly to Astana, train south to Almaty (now called Nur-I-Sultan), some local trains and then on to Bishkek.

I have already started planning, something that I really enjoy doing.

Then there will be Mrs Wilbur’s next big birthday with Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Malaysia & Tanzania all in the reckoning.

Independently of course!

Coming next – Islam & Arabia in Europe, taking in Spain, Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina and more.