My driver is speeding beyond 130 km/h through a closed checkpoint on what used to be the most dangerous road in the world, the Baghdad Airport Road. Nevertheless, he manages to light a thin cigarette with a relaxed hand movement, offer me one, and stir up a lot of dust.

Seeing and experiencing animals in their natural habitat is one of those travel experiences that first takes your breath away and then stays with you for the rest of your life.

Steep switchbacks over countless hills lead my travel companion Firas and me to the mountain village of Bejjeh, located in northern Lebanon. The small town offers a view over some mountains to the Mediterranean Sea.

Colossal, dusted white curtains obscure the view out of "my" room. Nevertheless, the morning sun manages to wake me up. I arrived only a few hours ago and still feel significantly weakened, but I am eager to go out, discover and collect impressions of Erbil.

One has two options to travel to Iraq: Lock yourself in a hotel secured by armed soldiers and leave only sporadically with a local guide and armored car. Or you can immerse yourself in the Kurdish culture, stay with locals and try to minimize the risk, depending on the circumstances.

Treetops covered in mist envelop the rainforest around us. It's still early, but the eerie atmosphere, and knowing full well that we are approaching the home of the mountain gorillas, adds fuel to the arrival at the gate of Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in southern Uganda.

Legendary places like Timbuktu, Esfahan, Medina, or Harar make a traveler's heart beat faster. Ever since I first saw pictures of the medieval old city of Harar in Ethiopia, I've been haunted by an almost daily urge to travel there.

As the only tourists far and wide, my travel companion Marco and I get countless stares and more attention than we would like. We are at the Togo-Wujaale border crossing between Ethiopia and Somaliland and enter Somaliland within minutes.

The morning mist still lies delicately over the peaks of the lush green rainforest in Guatemala's hinterland. Near the village of Lanquin, my tour group is on its way to Semuc Champey, which means "where the river disappears into the earth" in the Mayan language.

A light orange morning haze rests over the rooftops of Karachi as Faisal, a young Sindhi - as the inhabitants of Pakistan's Sindh province are called - warmly welcomes me to his country.