Wheeler traveled through nine countries--or, if you prefer, bad lands--Afghanistan, Albania, Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia. Some were selected because of their human-rights abuses; Libya because it has done absolutely everything wrong; Afghanistan for harboring terrorists; and Albania simply because it's an example of a little dictatorship that cut itself off from the outside world at considerable cost to its own people. Wheeler posits that his book is not an account of the Most Dangerous Places because he's "careful, cautious, and has a low tolerance for pain." He describes the weather, hotels, restaurants, shops, museums, and the people he meets. The author, Lonely Planet's cofounder, wrote his first guidebook in 1973 and since then has written or contributed to 30 more titles. Readers can join him traveling through some of the most repressive and perilous countries in the world without fear of being attacked. George Cohen

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"...humane, politically astute and very funny..." --Wanderlust Magazine, April/May 2007

...humane, politically astute and very funny...' --Wanderlust Magazine, April/May 2007