I’m an Irishman who was raised in the South of the country. My father who worked as a traveling musician all over Ireland and the UK once described his experience of traveling across the border into Northern Ireland as ‘the tensest place on earth’. It was the 1970’s during the height of the ‘troubles’, and […]

I heard getting a Visa is hard, what should I do? Getting a Visa to Turkmenistan is not exactly hard, but there’s a very specific process, and it doesn’t always work. In order to get a tourist visa to Turkmenistan you must be booked through a tour company that is registered with the Ministry of […]

Most have only heard of Kazakhstan from the movie Borat, poor villages, crazy people and strange accents. The reality of this place couldn’t be further from the truth. I decided to go to Kazakhstan to see the weird and strange place that no one really knows anything about. What I was met with was indeed […]

No one knows what to expect when visiting Chechnya for the first time. So what is it really like? YPT’s Shane runs you through a few of the basics after returning from our first ever tour to this tiny North Caucasus republic. Before I run through a few guidelines, I want to introduce you to […]

When you are on hardcore traveler settings eventually the question will come up of “how many countries have you been to”, people then answer, and the inevitable second question arises “but what do you define as a country”. This is not only a great question, but much like playing pool in a pub, everyone seems […]

Constantly rated as one of the best islands in the world, Palawan, in the South West of the Philippines, has it all. Beaches, snorkeling, island hopping, scuba diving, hiking, and amazing local and international food. Puerto Princesa Most people start in Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan, which is a great spot to head off […]

Fidel Castro enjoyed a long leadership of Cuba, until his health began to deteriorate in 2008. Initially titled prime minister in 1956, his absolute power over the country became fortified in 1976 when the positions of prime minister and president were combined, leaving Castro as both the head of government, and the head of state, […]

So we’ve all heard the phrase “less than a dollar a day”, something that is said to (rightly) portray poverty in a lot of countries. Cuba though is another case entirely. Cuba often gets portrayed as a country where most of the people live in poverty, but in an officially socialist state, does this tell […]

I had been to Cambodia a few times before I moved here in 2016. Cambodia, is well-known for its tourism; places like Angkor Wat and the islands off the south coast draw in hordes of tourists every year. Phnom Penh, the capital of this amazing country, is where I called home. Many people chose to […]

Did you know that Moldova is the least visited country in Europe? The few that do venture here visit the fabulous wineries, which during Soviet times gained Moldova the title of THE wine producer for the whole of the USSR. Even these days, tiny Moldova it’s the 22nd biggest wine exporting nation in the world. […]