World's worst places: Top 10 places you do not want to visit in 2012

World's worst places: Top 10 places you do not want to visit in 2012

I've been in Port-au-Prince, and actually worked in both Harare and Port Moresby, when both places were much more pleasant.

Zimbabwe seemed to be one of Africa's bright hopes in the early 90s, before hyperinflation, corruption and bad policy decisions turned it into the disaster it is today.

I was scared silly in many parts of Papua, New Guinea, but not in Port Moresby, which always seemed like a pleasant place to return to. I guess things change.

Port-au-Prince, on the other hand, has always been a hell-hole. The media pictures of the earthquake damage, which were supposed to be so affective, were simply mystifying to me. I looked at the photos and everything looked just about the same as it did before the earthquakes. That's the great tragedy of Haiti - not that it suffered in a single event, but that its suffering is permanent. Having said that, I would hasten to add that the people of Haiti always treated me great. I'm very white, and a foot taller than the average Haitian, so I couldn't really "blend in," so everyone in the country immediately spotted me and was eager to talk to me. Crowds gathered around me as they might gather here around George Clooney. (Hey, it's not like they have better entertainment options in Haiti.) Despite that lack of privacy, my experiences there were 100% positive.

Back in the day, I got assigned to worse places than those. I liked all three of those places better than my assignments in Cairo or Djakarta or Johannesberg or San Salvador, for example. (I never had any reason to visit the article's "bottom two," Kandahar and Mogadishu, and God willing, I never will.)


Having said some nice things about those three places, I'd add that I have no desire to return to them, even if they could turn back the clock to the way they were when I knew them. I'd much rather go to Butthole, Sweden. (That's a real place. See the link just below this one.)