3 Places We'd Love to Offer Women Only Adventures to (But Can't)
At Patch Adventures, we’re a bit known for women only adventures that go to more interesting and unlikely destinations than others.
Mongolia in the middle of winter?
Iranian villages?
Buddhist festivals in the Himalaya mountains?
But that doesn’t mean we can go absolutely everywhere….
We actually do a careful, thorough assessment of the places that we travel to, instead of just relying on news headlines and public perception. (Unlike some people .. cough cough.)
While we wait for peace to descend on humanity and all nations to join as one to realise the pointlessness of war, here are three places we’d LOVE to take our Patchies to, but not right now:
YEMEN
Yemen has been a favourite of ‘extreme travel‘ Youtubers for years now.
Is it really the ‘most dangerous country in the world’?
Probably not. Especially not for groups of Westerners who stick to the right areas.
But it is extremely volatile and unpredictable. Sieges, blockades, and embargoes have made it impossible for us to even contemplate offering Yemen.
So what makes it special, and why do we want to visit?
Above is a photo of Sana’a, one of the most interesting cities in the Middle East from an architectural perspective.
Well before skyscrapers were ‘invented’ in the West, Sana’a saw builders construct these beautiful tall buildings of up to 9 stories.
Less famous compared to Sana’a, there is also Shibam:
In Shibam, the towers rise up to 11 stories tall.
According to sources around the internet, the primary reason for constructing in this way was to stay inside city walls, and outside the reach of Bedouin raiders. Other benefits included being less prone to flooding, and the shade that naturally resulted from having so many tall buildings around the place.
But is this the only reason we want to go to Yemen?
No but these unusual buildings are what piqued our interest at first. In addition to this quirky architecture, we have:
- Socotra island; where plants and animals spent many years evolving independently from the rest of the world. The result is an incredibly beautiful landscape.
- Traditional culture. Unlike Dubai – which has very few recognisable links to its past – Yemen has souks where locals actually shop, a jewellery tradition straight out of an Aladdin movie, and a cuisine that you won’t forget in a hurry. (Trust us on this one.)
When peace comes to Yemen, you can bet that we’ll be there.
RUSSIA
(Please read before reacting!)
Russia is safe to travel to right now for groups of Westerners (note *as of writing*), but for many other reasons that would be apparent to anyone who reads the news, we wouldn’t go there at the moment.
But we really do want to…
For one simple reason:
We love trains.
And Russia has some of the most epic train trips in the world.
It’s been a goal of ours since the very first day to offer a trans Siberian from Beijing, through Mongolia and then up through Siberia, finishing in Moscow.
But for reasons that all of us know, we’ll just have to wait for a while.
LEBANON
As anyone who’s been paying attention will be aware that we love exploring countries in the Middle East.
So far, we’ve taken Patchies to Iran, Jordan, Oman, and Egypt (*yes, parts of Egypt are considered to be the Middle East).
We’re also working on a trip to Saudi Arabia, which is coming very soon (we’ll probably announce it in June or July of 2024).
However, so far we’ve scratched the surface.
Iraq – especially Kurdistan – has been grabbing our attention for a good while, and Syria will have to remain on our bucket lists for a few years yet.
But it’s Lebanon, in particular, that we desperately want to explore.
So much so, that we started working on a trip in 2023.. despite the doom and gloom about the Lebanese economy.
Rebeca and Mat (our founders) had even booked a 2 month recce visit .. and then the Israel-Hamas war kicked off and flight cancellations made it impossible.
Lebanon is a special place, despite some of the darker corners of its history:
- The historical diversity that goes far beyond a stereotypical ‘Muslim-Christian divide’ – Lebanon is home to all sorts of religious minorities and ethnic groups
- The cuisine is amazing even outside Lebanon. Imagine how good it will be inside?
- Spectacular and varied scenery
Travel industry colleagues who have visited over the years all told us that Lebanon is just amazing, and even better – the atmosphere is not what you’d think. In fact, they told us that if you’re going to visit Lebanon, you’d better prepare your internal organs because the locals really, really know how to party… In fact, a cheeky glass of wine is sure to work its way into almost any meal, under almost any pretext. (And a group of visiting Aussies and Kiwis is definitely enough pretext!)
Not only that, but we have friends who we’d love for you to meet. A good friend of ours, for example, owns a cherry farm near Beirut and he’s dying to show it off to one of our groups.
Anyway, that’s the list for now. What do you think we should be adding to our list of places to add ‘some day in the future’ ..?