by Close Calls-George Boyd has had some, as you would expect from someone who would like to visit places on the government’s NO-GO list.
As in the night, he was confronted by a “crazy guy” in a village of medium -sized NowHhere to take photos. “I thought he would get a gun,” he says. Or the roadside incident in some traffic lights, where I “thought again that they would shoot me up”.
But enough of Boyd’s heroic deeds in rural Ireland and downtown Los Angeles. What about his travels to Syria or Sudan? Certainly there was shots in Yemen, a persistent risk of kidnapping? “Not really,” he says, although the armed guards have probably helped. “I don’t think they were necessary, but it was reassuring.”
George Boyd on the border of one of the countries on the FCDO no-go list
Boyd is part of a niche but growing travel community, the members of which get kicks from the visit. The type of places that advise the foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) against travel – advice that Telegraph Travel asks readers. He spent Easter in Syria, which brought more annual tourists than Australia before the civil war. Despite the fall of Assad, the situation on site remains unpredictable, and the FCDO advised the British to be clear to the British, citing “the threat of terrorist attacks”.
That wasn’t enough to deter Boyd. When he was there, he was greeted by locals as if he were a family. “Your hospitality and generosity are remarkable,” he says. And he had old sites that were once almost for himself with tourists; Centuries -old landmarks such as Al Azem Palace in Damascus, Aleppo’s medieval citadel and the destroyed city of Palmyra. And that is the attraction of such holidays, he says – the lack of crowds, the feeling of exclusivity.
“They go to the pyramids or Stonehenge and there are so many bloody people there,” says Boyd, a Londoner who worked in financial services, but now lives near Valencia, Spain. “It is exceptional to go through places that are so culturally important and are only a few tourists, something that feels very special.”
The accidental tour operator
Like many people who take up such trips, Boyd bays his borders unmayed by the adventure travel agencies, leading people to places that avoid most operators.
“You do research, you have expert people on site and take the risk of it,” he says. “You feel relaxed in these environments.”
Unbelieving borders in the UK, like Michael Palin and the singer Joss Stone (who occur in every country), led through some of the most challenging regions in the world.
“It’s about assessing the risk and setting things to reduce the risk. What do we do when things escalate, how do we get to the border, how do we remove humans from the country?” says James Willcox, the founder of the company. “We don’t go anywhere so that a mid -range NGO would not go.”
Willcox, a serial traveler, accidentally founded unsuitable borders. It was in 2007 and he traveled through Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he met two local fixers, who helped journalists and documentary films during navigation in their nations.
James Willcox (left) leads a tour group of the Shah e Zohak fortress in Bamiyan, Afghanistan
“They wanted to do a little more of this kind of work,” he says. “And Facebook just started, which meant that they could suddenly reach all kinds of people with similar interests, so we set up a page.”
The side blew into the air and revealed a surprising demand to visit difficult to visit places. Unexplained Borders was born. But his mission was increasingly wider than only traveling from the left route: it tries to show a different side as countries that are often in the news for the wrong reasons.
“In many countries in which we work, the lens of violence or as extremism or as failed states are often seen,” he says. “And of course this exists. But there are also many other things. There is beauty, there is culture, history. We want to show that.”
It was this myth-busting ethos, in which Willcox helped in Afghanistan, ski tourism.
“Many people don’t even know that there is snow in Afghanistan,” he says. “So I really like skiing out there because it is a good entry point to discuss that the country is more than people know.”
See you in Somalia
Over the years there have been some incidents, but nothing big. “We had road traffic accidents, we broke the limbs, we threw a woman out of a horse, we were in cities where attacks were given on uprisings,” says Willcox. “We are an adventure trip – there is a risk element.”
Most of the unexperiest customers come from Great Britain, the USA and Northern Europe, but a fifth come from the further. About 40 percent are women; Women like Claire Makin who recently traveled to Dschibuti and Somalia with the company.
Lake Abbe in Dschibuti, where Claire Makin says she was warmly welcomed by locals – Alamy
“It was very interesting,” says the Briton, who lives in rural France. “In Dschibuti there were some breathtaking changes in the landscape; we ran through sandy deserts, climbed up and from stone hill. It is a very bad country [but] We were greeted everywhere. “
Somalia, which recently launched E-Visas to promote tourism, was less fun.
“[In Mogadishu]Soldiers with AK-47 led us everywhere, ”she says.”[The city] is in a time distortion with many Italian buildings in a half -crazy state. People looked tired and misery. “
Often the greatest risk for travelers does not come from armed militias or uprisings, but from nature. Christine Amour-Levar, an entrepreneur-based entrepreneur, used untamed borders to be known to her in a charity event to collect money for female victims of warrior as “the gateway to hell”.
Christine Amour-Levar (center) used untamed boundaries to help her through the Danakil depression in Ethiopia
“Nobody had ever crossed Danakil on mountain bikes and we wanted to be the first,” she says of her purely female team. “The landscape is surreal, with burning salt, sulfuric acid, lava and volcanic rocks. The heat was relentless and the desert ended endlessly in front of us. It was mentally exhausting.”
The expedition enable unknown limits, she says. “You dealt with logistics and security planning, which meant that we could concentrate on cycling.”
Boy in Spain, Boyd is preparing for a roller call of eyebrow destinations: Saudi Arabia, French Guyana, Suriname, Algeria, Libya. And then? “I will come home and work in the garden,” he says.
