There are places in this world
that you will probably never see. Sometimes that’s a good thing as they might be
controlled by insane dictators who will detain you just for straying from your tour group. Other
places are so remote that you practically have to swim across an entire ocean to get there. One
island is so hard to reach that the native people who live on it may be one of the last uncontacted
cultures in the entire world. Unfortunately, if you try to visit their island, it’s
very unlikely you will make it off alive. Just as a disclaimer, the passport you hold
determines the degree of difficulty you will face when traveling to different parts of the
world. For example, people with a Japanese or Singaporean passport tend to have a much easier
time securing visas than most other countries. If you are a United States passport holder,
you may have a more difficult time entering some countries like North Korea, Iran, and
Turkmenistan than someone with a Chinese or Russian passport. Sometimes you need
to be invited to certain countries, and other times your own government might
not let you travel to a certain region. Traveling to Russia for a vacation from the U.S.
or any European country right now is all but impossible due to the current conflict. Flights
into Russia from around the world have all but come to a stop because of this war. Surprisingly,
Russia is not the most challenging place to travel to, even in the current political climate. What
could be more difficult than entering a country that is waging war and being boycotted by
nations around the world? Let’s find out. Turkmenistan was formerly a part of the Soviet
Union. Yet, if you try to travel there today, it may seem that the Turkmenistan government missed
the memo that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The hardest part about traveling to this country
is that you require an official government invite. You can’t just decide to travel to Turkmenistan
on a whim. If you get off a plane without an official invite, you will be immediately sent
home, or worse, detained for questioning. On top of the craziness that is required to secure
an official invitation to visit the country, once you are there, you will need to be
accompanied by a State-approved tour guide. The marble architecture of Ashgabat, the capital
of Turkmenistan, is supposed to be stunning. But even if you manage to get into
the country, it’s unlikely you’ll see anything that the government doesn’t
want you to. This makes traveling around Turkmenistan extremely difficult. You get an
eerie feeling that you’re always being watched, which is probably because you are. Although
the Soviet Union may have collapsed, the Turkmenistan government still follows in
its footsteps by ruling with an iron fist. The next country is difficult to travel
to, but for all the right reasons. Bhutan is landlocked between China and India. The
country itself lies in the Himalayan mountains, and the only way travelers can enter is
by taking a terrifying flight through the mountains. In order to land, the
pilot has to quickly drop in altitude as there is not much room to work with. The
airport is over 7,000 feet above sea level, which is nothing compared to the
16,000-foot peaks that surround it. All pilots who fly the route are specially
trained for the flight into Bhutan as it’s unlike anywhere else in the world. Only
a handful of people successfully pass this test and are allowed to fly passengers into
the country. But it’s not the dangerous flight that makes Bhutan so difficult to
travel to; it’s the strict regulations the government places on tourism to protect
the country's pristine environment. You must purchase a pre-paid tour package that the
government has approved to visit the country. The bad news is these tours are not cheap, and the
Bhutan government does not care. Their stance is that they would rather have less tourism coming in
and keep the environment protected than allow more people to visit just to make extra profit. There
is also a fee of around 200 dollars a day to be in the country. This money is used to help pay
for restorations and environmental protections. If the difficulty of getting into the nation
of Bhutan isn’t enough of a challenge, there is a place within the country that
may be one of the hardest places to get to in the entire world. The Tiger’s
Nest, also known as Paro Taktsang, is a Buddhist temple located
10,000 feet above sea level. The only way to get to the temple is
by hiking up treacherous mountain paths and carefully shimmying your way along rock
walls as you look over the edge at a sheer drop of thousands of feet. You must then cross a
rickety bridge over a sacred pool. Once on the other side, more dangerous hiking awaits before
you reach stone steps carved into the mountain that ascend all the way to the temple. Traveling
to the Tiger’s Nest is not for the faint of heart, and anyone who attempts it needs to be in
extremely good shape and proceed with caution. Although Bhutan may be an island in the mountains, there are actual islands so remote that
traveling to them is next to impossible. Tristan da Cunha is the most remote inhabited
island in the Atlantic Ocean. It sits 1,750 miles west of South Africa and 2,000 miles east of South
America. The government does not actively impede people from coming to Tristan da Cunha, but there
just aren’t a lot of travel options to get there. In fact, the country’s official website seems to
want to deter people from visiting as they state: "There are no package tours for
independent travelers, no hotels, no airport, no holiday reps, no night clubs, no
restaurants, no jet skis nor safe sea swimming." And for an island where there is nothing to do, traveling there can be incredibly expensive
and time-consuming. There are no airports, so the only way to reach Tristan da Cunha is
by ship. Unfortunately, there are only around ten sailings to the island every year. If you are
trying to travel to this remote part of the world, you also need to receive clearance from the
Island Council, which can take 40 days or longer. Between getting permissions, finding a ship
going to the island, booking a place on the ship, and then finding a place to stay, traveling
to Tristan da Cunha is next to impossible. The next island may be tropical with white sand
beaches and plenty of ocean activities, but it’s just as isolated as Tristan da Cunha. On the
plus side, there is an airplane that flies to it. Kiribati sits almost directly in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean. Interestingly the 30 atolls that make up this region of Micronesia cover around
1.4 million square miles, an area just over the size of India. Bonriki International Airport is on
the island chain of Tarawa. The only way to get to the island is by flying from Fiji, so this makes
for a very expensive trip. The price tag plus the difficulty of finding flights make Kiribati
one of the hardest tropical islands to reach. Sadly, Tarawa and the rest of Kiribati
might become impossible to visit soon. These islands are being consumed
by the ocean as sea levels rise. In the not-so-distant future, Kiribati
may need to be completely evacuated as storms wipe out the infrastructure of the country.
Eventually, the entire nation will be underwater, at which point the only way to visit Kiribati
will be by booking a scuba diving expedition. There is another island in the Pacific
that is guarded by ancient gods sculpted from the fabric of the land. However,
this does not mean it is easy to get to. Easter Island is known to the Polynesian cultures
as Rapa Nui. There are over 900 statues called moai on the island that were carved from
volcanic ash between 1400 and 1600 C.E. Getting to the island can be difficult
as only two flights go there each week. Travelers need to plan their entire trip
around the plane schedule; otherwise, they could be stuck there for quite some time.
The planes leave from Chile and Tahiti but aren’t always guaranteed to fly. Weather
conditions or lack of passengers can both ground the aircrafts. Once on the island, there
is no way off unless the planes are running. Technically, Easter Island is part of Chile.
However, it’s located around 2,200 miles west of the Chilean coast in the Pacific Ocean. Many
people end up traveling to Easter Island to see the magnificent statues and get a glimpse
of what the ancient Polynesian culture that once inhabited the island was like.
However, this trip is not the easiest to make unless you plan appropriately and are
willing to spend a long time on airplanes. Oppressive regimes requiring travelers to be
a part of a tour group to visit their country seems to be the norm. Traveling solo is almost impossible if you plan on
visiting this next country. Iran is currently categorized as a Level 4 risk
for travelers from the United States by the Department of State’s Bureau of Consular
Affairs. This means the U.S. government recommends not traveling there at all. Both the
U.S. and Iranian governments will try to make visiting the other as difficult as possible
for you. When Donald Trump was president and implemented the travel ban on Iranians into
the U.S., Iran did the same for Americans. Iran is still rated as a Level 4 risk because of
the likelihood of being kidnapped for ransom or arbitrary arrest and detention. And this
doesn’t just go for the United States; many European countries and other
nations have also implemented the same type of travel advisories. Therefore,
if you are trying to plan a trip to Iran, you will need to secure special permission
and join an Iranian-sponsored tour group. That is, unless you have business with the oil
companies there, then exceptions can be made. The next nation on our list
probably won’t surprise you too much as it is known as the Hermit Kingdom. North Korea is not the most welcoming country
for many. In fact, citizens of some nations like South Korea and the United States are
not allowed to visit at, except for some special circumstances. Like, for example, if
you are former NBA star Dennis Rodman and have become best friends with the Supreme Leader. The
government controls everything in the country, including what is seen and not seen by visitors.
If you somehow manage to secure passage into the country, you will not be allowed to explore
on your own. All tourists must be accompanied by a guide provided by the North Korean
government. You are not allowed to wander off, and you most certainly are not allowed to talk
to anyone other than the people on the tour. The only flights into North Korea are from Bejing.
So travelers must first secure a flight to China. Once there, you must secure a visa from
the North Korean embassy before getting on a flight into the country. The embassy
will have to conduct a thorough background check before granting you your visa, which
could take weeks or even months. And even if you secure all necessary documentation,
there is no guarantee you will be allowed on the flight to North Korea. Things
can change at a moment's notice. Getting into North Korea is incredibly difficult,
but the scariest part is that getting out can be even harder. If a traveler is detained
for any reason, it’s highly unlikely they will be released unless strenuous negotiations take place
between the North Korean government and their home country. These can last for years, which means a
vacation could quickly turn into a North Korean prison sentence. So, it’s probably for the best
that it’s difficult to enter the Hermit Kingdom. The only place that might be more dangerous than
North Korea for tourists is this next location. North Sentinel Island sits off the
coast of India in the Bay of Bengal. The only way to get to the
island is by chartering a boat, but most captains will refuse your request.
Even though North Sentinel Island is inhabited, there are no ferries or planes that go to the
island. And the reason why will shock you. The island itself is surrounded by
razor-sharp reefs that make approaching it difficult. But even more dangerous
are the Sentinelese people living there. This may be one of the last uncontacted
groups of people on the entire planet. They have had interactions with the outside
world, but none of them were very pleasant. There are accounts of shipwrecked sailors
in the past who were welcomed to the island but took advantage of the situation. They abused
the island’s resources and people, which led to the Sentinelese running them off their island.
However, not everyone made it off alive, and this would not be the only time that the inhabitants
of North Sentinel Island killed visitors. If you could get to the island, you would be
threatened the moment you stepped on shore. In 2011 it’s believed that somewhere between
80 and 150 people were living on North Sentinel Island. However, these estimates may be low,
and some think there are around 500 inhabitants on the island. Either way, when an American
Evangelical missionary named John Allen Chau stepped foot on North Sentinel Island to try
and convert the population to Christianity, he was met with hostility. Chau was driven
off the island twice by the Sentinelese. He returned a third time and wasn’t so lucky. It’s
believed that the Sentinelese people killed John Allen Chau as they did with
others who visited the island. North Sentinel Island is the only place in
the world that is not only hard to get to, but the inhabitants will actively
threaten and even kill you. This is why it may be the most difficult
place to travel to on the entire planet. Other parts of the world are just as
difficult to get to as North Sentinel Island, but you don’t have to worry about the
people living there trying to murder you. Take Machu Picchu for instance. This
ancient Inca settlement high in the Andes Mountains of Peru is a bucket
list destination for many. However, most people go their whole lives without
ever setting foot within its crumbling walls. There are a couple of reasons Machu Picchu
is so difficult to visit. The main one is that there is a limit to the number of
people who can see the site each day. This is because every tourist who steps foot on the
ancient ruins is inadvertently destroying them. The Peruvian government and UNESCO restrict
the number of visitors to Machu Picchu to around 2,500 per day, but only 500 people
can be on the Inca Trail at any given time to protect its integrity. The hike to the ruins
is around 26 miles, and many people suffer from altitude sickness as they make their ascent to
the ruins. This makes Machu Picchu incredibly difficult to reach if you are not in decent
shape and don’t have a good guide. There is a train that goes up to the ruins, but this is
expensive, and no matter how you get there, you have to be one of the 2,500 people with special
permission to see the ancient site that day. There is a place in Arizona that makes Machu
Picchu’s daily permit count seem immense. The Wave is a sandstone rock formation
that literally looks like a wave. However, only a select few ever get the opportunity
to walk through this natural wonder. The Bureau of Land Management
only gives out 20 permits a day. Getting to The Wave is a little difficult
as the roads to the trailhead are not paved and bad weather can quickly make them impassable.
But it’s not the location or even the 6.2-mile hike that makes The Wave one of the most
difficult places to visit. It is winning the lottery system to secure a reservation that
keeps most tourists from visiting this spot. The Lost City in Columbia, on the other hand, may
be the most difficult trek you can take to reach a destination. There is no limit to the number
of people who can visit this site each year, but its remoteness and the brutal landscape
of the Amazon Jungle keep tourists out. Ciudad Perdida, or the Lost City, rises out
of the jungles of Colombia and takes three to six days to reach by hiking. This is the
only way to reach the site as there are no roads and it sits too deep in the jungle
to allow planes or helicopters to land. The Lost City was built around
800 C.E. by the Tayrona people. The hike itself is incredibly difficult as
the path that leads to it winds through some of the densest rainforests in the entire
world. At any point throughout the year, constant downpours can wash out the
path and cause it to become impassable. If all goes according to plan, the weather
will hold up, but there are still a plethora of poisonous snakes, spiders, and other
animals that could kill you along the way. Even after reaching Ciudad Perdida,
you need to make the return trip to civilization. This is just as difficult
if not more difficult than the journey there as you will be exhausted. Very few
people make the trip to the Lost City, and it would be impossible to get there
without a guide. The environment and remoteness of the site make it one of the
most difficult places to travel in the world. If you thought it was hard to
get to the previous locations, you haven’t seen anything yet. The next few
places are so difficult to get to that only a handful of people can say they’ve
successfully managed to visit them. Bear Island sits 400 miles off the northern
coast of Europe at the edge of the Arctic. The only way to get to the island is by hitching
a ride aboard a Norwegian Polar Institute vessel or by chartering a boat. But since the island
is in a remote area of the Northern Atlantic, this can be incredibly hard
to do and very expensive. However, even if you are able to secure passage
to the island, you won’t be able to stay very long. Bear Island is a natural reserve that has
almost no precipitation and is surrounded by rocky cliffs. On top of that many tourists are deterred
from visiting the island as there is a nuclear submarine wreck nearby that is at risk of leaking
radioactive materials into the surrounding waters. Traveling to a barren island
in the Arctic is difficult, but getting to one of the most isolated
islands in the Antarctic is even harder. Bouvet is about 1,000 miles from Antarctica.
It’s uninhabited due to its sheer remoteness and difficulty to get to. The entire island is
almost completely covered by a glacier year-round, and in the winter, the waters around the
island are shielded by pack ice. This makes Bouvet almost impossible to reach,
and even if you do make it to the island, there is no practical way of actually
getting on it to explore the landscape. Bouvet Island is also a natural preserve that
is under the watch of the Norwegian government. If you want to investigate the island, you
need to have a good reason which is cleared by Norwegian officials; otherwise, you could
be detained as your boat approaches Bouvet. If you manage to secure permission, the
best way to get on the island would be to board a research vessel and endure a long,
perilous journey. Once within distance, you would need to fly aboard a helicopter that
would drop you off on top of the barren glacier. There isn’t much to do other than conduct
studies of the Antarctic climate and its geological processes. It would be an expensive and
dangerous vacation just to stand on top of a lot of snow and ice. This is why only a handful
of people have ever been on Bouvet Island, and this doesn’t seem like it
will be changing any time soon. This next place isn’t as remote as other islands,
but it’s rarely visited for one particular reason. Boreray Island is about 60 miles
from the mainland of Scotland. The island itself looks beautiful
from afar, but as you approach, you quickly realize that any ambitions to step
foot on the island could cost you your life. Boreray is a Scottish World Heritage Site
meaning that even if you could get to the island, you would need special permission
from the Scottish government to visit it. These requests are almost always denied to not
only preserve the island but peoples’ safety. It’s the jagged shoreline and intense swell
that makes landing on Boreray so difficult. Even if you are able to secure
permission to step foot on the island, you may be waiting for days or even weeks
for the sea and weather to cooperate. Boats that get too close to Boreray when the
conditions aren’t right find themselves smashed into the side of the sharp rocks that make up the
coastline and sink to the bottom of the Atlantic. It’s estimated that more people have summited
Mount Everest than have reached Boreray island since the 1950s. This just puts into perspective
how difficult this remote island is to visit. Now watch “These Countries Are
Impossible to Invade.” Or check out “What Americans REALLY
Think of Other Countries.”
