RufusMcGaugh

Bngladesh and Calcutta, India for their poverty and wretchedness. Yemen for being the closest thing on earth to owning a time machine and going back into history (architecturally). Antarctica for its pristine beauty.

Just some of my favorites would be Switzerland, Ireland, the fjords of Norway, any back mountain trekking in the Himalayas or California, the canyons of Utah, and Antarctica.

As a kid I collected coins and stamps, then more or less stayed with stamps only. I have brought numerous coins of various sizes and designs home for my kids. I did see the giant round stone coins of the island of Yap. My best story is when I was in a West African country and bought a Coke or something and the street vendor gave me change of 2 coins and one cocoa bean!

Finland comes to mind. For a guy from Michigan--and by the way there is nothing wrong with Michigan or Finland--who was looking for the unique, unusual, and superlative beauty, Finland was not going to cut it.

My screw ups (self-inflicted and through no fault of my own) are well documented in my book. I was arrested and thrown in a prison in Zimbabwe and accused of blowing their Air Force up! I made an unplanned and unexpected flight into Mogadishu, Somalia that included ground fire. I was stranded on the little French island of Wallis out in the middle of the Pacific when my flight departed an hour early. I was stalked by a leopard in Zimbabwe. I broke both of my arms in a bicycle trip I made illegally to Cuba--but I did finish the last 13 kilometers of the ride! And I was a total idiot and enlisted in the Marine Corps during the height of the Vietnam War when I was 19.