Have you ever been to an unpopular part of a foreign country? If so, what was the reason you went there?

   "Yes" ...  Quebec.  I say that because I was warned not to go there.  The people would be unfriendly and rude.  Well, I was there for three days and saw no such thing.  I even had a man offer/take me into Sherbrooke, so I wouldn't get lost, to fuel up my truck.

   The reason I went to Quebec was to pick up a load of Christmas trees.  Kind of exciting to go to a country where the street signs are all written in French and yo no comprendo!

Yes I have.  Way back when in 1989/90, a dear friend of mine and I decided to backpack the Yucatan Peninsula.  I am talking full-on packs and  buses when we were lucky. There were certainly no tour guides or hotels.  We slept in the jungles of Belize and on an island in the Belize River.  This part of the trip started in Belize City.  A place I do not recommend to go.  The good news is they spoke English.  The bad news is, they will rip you off.  The exchange was easy then.  It was .50 to the dollar.  That didn't really help in the long run.  On this part of our trip, we stayed at a youth hostel overnight.  One of the only places we had a bed and a shower.  We got up and had breakfast. were driven by a very nice cab driver named Leslie, who took us exactly where we asked to go.  In the middle of the jungle.  As nice as he was, he did rip us off.  No biggie.  Not by much.

In turn, at this point, we were going into the depths of the jungle led by some guy whom no one would have thought was anybody worthy of knowing what we wanted. There was no trail.  He was swinging his machete as we walked behind this guy, full packs and all.  After a couple miles, a small child came up to us.  He spoke to the child who stared.  He stared at us like he had never seen any creature like us at all.  He hadn't.  He was this man's child.  We soon reached where his people lived.  In the trees.  His family lived in the trees.  He told us to give up our passports and all our money.  That they would be safe with his people but where we were going was going to get more snarly and definitely wet.  He didn't want our money or our passports to go through such an ordeal.  What are you to do?  We gave them up. 

The story goes on but I will say with sincerity, our passports and our monies were safe and sound. They protected them.  They never would have made it where we went.  I thank that man and his family for being honest and helping us have that true cultural experience.

I would like to add, my friend had red hair and very pale skin.  For him to take this trip was huge.  The child had never seen people with such fair skin.  He touched my friend's arm and then his own.  He looked at his dad in disbelief.  I swear.  It was the most amazing expression I've ever seen on a child.  He truly had not ever seen a person with skin so white. 
Priceless. 

It was one of the best trips I've ever taken. 

Does Ohio count? I am not being rude at all, my friend who lives there says it's quite a poor area? Personally my daughter and I loved it.. we got to meet real people./ 

I been to Bermuda a few times when I was in the Canadian Navy.  We didn't like Bermadoo because it was boring for us. Bermuda is a pretty classy place and drunken Canadian low-life sailors were not welcome. 
No 10 dollar hookers no cheap booze or dive bars.

Reason we made a stop there was to deliver some material for the Naval communications base there. This post was edited by Kittigate at July 26, 2018 11:16 AM MDT

I've always loved staying in small towns and the countryside when I visit foreign countries.  Big cities are all the same basically.  You get to meet and hang out with the nicest locals and eat wonderful food outside the big cities.  I like to go into the cities for a day a two for the museums and stuff like that.  I've been to England twice and yet to go to London.

More than I care to list. Nearly two dozen deployments in nine years to nasty places on this earth that evil men have chosen to wage death or the threat of it for power, beliefs, oil, or lies.

I’ll trade any of your nightmares for the nine weeks I spent in the mud in the Central American jungle; or the 50 days in the dust of the Iraqi desert, or a week on the oil fields burning in Kuwait.

I’ve visited the Dachau concentration camp (now a memorial), walked through the ruins of recently destroyed towns, and seen pieces of clothing and human remains hanging in the wire on the old East German border. Not too many places less popular than these.  This post was edited by Don Barzini at July 26, 2018 2:00 PM MDT

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