Me too. I'm sick of cold Canada. I can't wait to visit Israel and the Levant after graduating.
Well, that's a danger anywhere you travel, but it depends on the nation. There is a link between authoritarian and corruption, but some countries are more corrupt than others and have more crime etc. and so are more dangerous for travellers.

For example I would probably visit Dubai but there's no way I'd visit Syria. Even though both are very unfree places, Dubai seems much safer.
Cuba is very popular with Canadian tourists, and also for American tourists who fly via Canada to avoid the travel ban.

My family is considering a trip there next year. My father already went to the Dominican Republic this year.

Balkans is very much safe to travel. Except Albanian inhabited regions. Ex-Yugoslavia is quite nice, Bosnia in particular. I would like to go live there one day. Yes, there was a war there, but now people want everything but any kind of violence. They have become so non-violent and peace-loving now that Bosnians are even the safest drivers in all of Balkans.

Oh, now I'm starting to understand your love toward the Middle East.

I remember reading in the cultural sketches by the Zompist (I think it was there) that Canadians typically travel to Cuba without problems and later are surprised of the whole political-economical mess with the U.S.

On the human rights issue, I had to do some soul-searching in advance of our trip to China two years ago. Unlike Delodephius, I'm deeply interested in many aspects of Chinese culture and have been for quite a while; finally visiting sites like Wild Goose Pagoda or the Summer Palace was the realisation of a long-deferred dream for me and my partner.

But it really is one of the more odious regimes in existence and there's no avoiding the fact that a substantial proportion of any tourist dollar spent there ends up in government coffers. How do you deal with the fact that you're supporting (however unwillingly) an organisation which does things you find detestable? Well, at the end of the day, it's something every American citizen--no matter what their politics--struggles with on an ongoing basis.

So our compromise was to go, but to avoid occupied territories. This was particularly difficult for my other half, as he's very interested in Tibet. But after hearing a friend relate his experiences at the temples there, I'm glad we avoided it. We also had to write off the Silk Road sites we were interested in because I pointed out that the Uyghurs were as badly done by as the Tibetans--worse, if anything, since not only do they lack a photogenic spokesman abroad, but also the "War on Terrorism" has allowed the PRC to paint them as Islamicist terrorists to the rest of the world.

It was an excellent vacation, but all in all I'll feel better about our mooted trips to Spain, Korea, and Japan. None of these countries is perfect by any means, but there's a fairly large gulf between "imperfectly democratic" and "forces people with HIV to live in secret villages".

Hmm, well I can pretty much say that I have very little interest in going to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, or Northern & Central Asia. You can probably include Australia in the list of places that I'm unlikely to ever visit. And I would include pretty much most of the United States, though I'm hesitant, since out of proximity, it's a good choice for going on vacation.

But in all these regions it's not so much about having political issues or disliking the weather (I can bare the heat or the freezing cold without any problems), it's simply that nothing about them really grasps my attention.

Oh, and I'll openly state that Sobekhotep's list is indeed pretty offensive, since you missed out on the United States of America. Sorry to say, but your country fails on just as many levels as many of the countries you listed therein. Like c'mon, must I mention impeding all over other countries? Multiple cases of torture? Dumping nuclear waste in other countries/waters? Heavy history of racism? Huge amount of censorship? etc... Not to make this a political debate or anything, but a lot of the countries you listed have much better records than your own.

Name six.

While I don't support torture I also think the deaths of 1000's of my countrymen and the destruction of the two WTC buildings is wrong too. (And the 100+ that were killed when a plane crashed into the Pentagon.)

Can you send me a news link about the Nuclear Dumping, my Google search only revealed European waste being dumped in Somalian waters.

A lot of countries have a History of racism. And in the United States racism in most areas isn't alive anymore and shouldn't affect travel plans.

What censorship? I can write Democracy.

P.S.
The only places that interest you to travel are Southern Asia, South America, New Zealand, and Polynesia?

That rules out most of the world then.
You don't think it'd be interesting to be totally immersed in a different culture? Are you from the same multicultural Canada that I am?
Well, I guess it's political now that you said that.

The United States of America, whatever its failings, can't be compared to places like China where its people have zero political representation, little personal freedom and repeated violations of their human rights. China's treatment of the Falun Gong alone makes Guantanamo look like like a day camp.

Censorship? Torture? Start a pro-Tibetan blog and I bet you'll see a lot more of that in Beijing than you would in San Francisco.

It depends on how far back you want to go, some countries barely merit being on that list as they're barely a year old. Within the last 9 years, the following countries have either uphelp an overall better record, or have made more progress in improving Human rights, in regards to both internal and external Human Rights violations and based on their involvement with the United Nations: The Kingdom of Cambodia, Republic of Kosovo, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Kingdom of Swaziland, State of Qatar, and the Republic of Tunisia. The Republic of Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan cannot be compared alone as they're under both American and International control/influence, thus not fully independant nations as long as the war continues.

You can cross check for reference several of the latter countries with Amnesty International and the (American) State Department's 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices; I'm not dismissing that these countries are free of problems either, but rather that these ones have over the last 9 years maintained a relatively better record than the United States. Also, don't let yourself be fooled by the mediatization of each of these countries, nor by the United Nations' list of best and worst countries to live in, which focuses on completely different aspects.

But I also want to point out that although the State Department's report omits the United States itself, it lists a great deal on the majority of the world's countries and violations in regards to Human Rights. It should be clear enough that no country whatsoever fully abides Human Rights.


You need to learn to distinguish between what your own government considers a 'terrorist organization' and a nation. The invasion of Afghanistan has led to a death toll of up to 1.3M, with up to 1.2M deaths in Iraq. Barely a tenth of these deaths are ever reported or documented. I neither agree with what happened in 2001, but I honestly believe that the government's war-frenzy politics that ensued caused more harm to its country and its reputation on an international level.

As for the racism, I'm not merely referring to African-Americans, but also Aboriginals, Mexicans, and people from the Middle East. If racism attains a level of torture and detainment without any rights (e.g. to a fair trial) still today, then the American government must be judged by the same rules as all other nations. If you truly advocate for Human Rights, you must be prepared to point out your own flaws, not just those of others. Canada is also no exception.

And I should have written toxic waste rather than nuclear waste, as I couldn't find any articles any more recent than the eighties. The Somalian one just mentions Western countries in general, and possibly some Asian countries may have been implicated as well. My bad on the terminology though. In regards to toxic waste, here's one, and another.

Also, writing a post is not the same thing as having a country entirely devoid of censorship; simply put, "Freedom of speech, is not a legal absolute" (Bidgoli, 2004). "Censorship in the United States doesn't involve overt, heavy-handed, formal rules of reporting or the killing of new stories by government censors. Instead, (...) it is a subtle system of information suppression in the name of corporate profit and self interest" (Perrucci & Wysong, 2007) And for a third book, I recommend "Sur la télévision", by Pierre Bourdieu, which tackles some of the brouhaha concerning censorship, media, corporations, and governments.

The stated purposes of the Afghanistan War were to Remove Osama bin-Laden, remove the Taliban, and destroy al-Qaeda. I think my nation can tell the difference between the two.


You can't really call past racisms into this since we are discussing the present or else you'd have to consider the Nazis and the USSR genocides. I don't think the US level of racism can be leveled with the current state of Darfur or the mass killings of Rwanda. I must admit though Middle Easterners currently are the target of hate. Lastly, Iin American being "racist" is a social stigma.


The first article is disturbing, it blames capitalism for environmental problems, but using electricity or gas or growing food causes problems. The second article is better, I feel bad for those Haitians.


I must argue it has everything to do with it. In China it is ILLEGAL. Wikipedia and Google block searches on Democracy, various religions, controversies surrounding China, etc. You can't compare this to forms of censorship in the US.

Have you seen the show with that lady with over 15 children. In China they probably would've forced an abortion on the 4th child and ripped out her uterus. You can't compare that to the US. You can't compare genocides, induced famines, and mass censorship to the US.

May I ask what country you are from? Have you ever been to the US?