Where I Want To Go This Week In Travel – August 29, 2010

This weekly series on Solo Female Traveler focuses on the power of place. Where I Want to Go This Week in Travel is all about the colorful, the compelling, the enchanting, the quirky. Each week I look for travel stories and articles in personal travel blogs that highlight a destination – one I already love or one I have long wanted to explore, somewhere that brings to light for me a spot in the world of which I was unaware or that simply catches my eye with artfully spun words. From every travel blog on my radar, I’ll peruse the posts of the week and pull out the destination-based pieces that best capture my attention. The posts I choose may tell a travel tale – one that makes me want to grab my passport and go, or makes me happy that I’m reading the story and not living it. Here I will showcase what I think are some of the most intriguing spots on the map of the world, as brought to life by travel bloggers.

Here are the destinations that, for a myriad of reasons, grabbed my attention this week.

Sarande, Albania – I immediately loved this beautifully written short piece in Sophie’s World about a 1992 encounter with a young boy in southern Albania. In The Boy from Sarande when Anne-Sohpie Redish ventures off a busy street and finds a boy sitting on a wall, she demonstrates that even though you have no common language, it is very possible to communicate and even get to know someone.

Harar, Ethiopia – With exquisite caution borne of lessons learned, traveler Jillian from I Should Log Off selects a cut of meat at a restaurant in Harar, Ethiopia. Sadly, her vigilance was for naught. In Diarrhea + Ethiopia = Worst Day Ever, the most hilarious blog post I’ve read in a long while, her partner in adventure, Danny shares a detailed account of his resulting intestinal trauma. You can go ahead and read it. It’s not that detailed.

Road Trip in New Zealand – Amanda Williams from A Dangerous Business left a comment on last week’s Where I Want To Go, asking me to take a look at her post New Zealand Drives: The Southern Scenic Route Through the Catlins. I really liked her photo essay, but another of her posts, 5 Roads Less Travel in New Zealand more caught my attention, as it focuses on off-the-beath-path road trips. Amanda calls the areas that these drives highlight “slightly more perfect than others,” and her photos and words support her claim.

Caramoan, Philipines – This secret spot has been found and filmed on by the French and Israeli Survivor television series, but most people flock to touristy Borcacay nearby. Nathan and Sofia of As We Travel jumped out of the crowd, though, and headed straight to the tiny island of Caramoan, a locale so remote, they say in Caramoan, Philipines, the Secret Paradise? , that it was 2008 before even locals began venturing ashore.

Teutoburg Forest in Germany – Michael and Maryls, hikers so avid they are almost pro, give their account of the ups and downs of hiking 220 kilometers of the Eggeweg and Hermannsweg trails in northwest Germany on Easy Hiker. In Hermannshohen – Two Old Easy Hiking Trails, they write about not only the positives but the negatives of the route. I appreciate this, as it seems their they can be an honest and trusted source for hiking information.

Do you have any enticing, unusual, incredible or thoroughly bizarre travel stories you’ll soon be posting? Let me know in the comments below, and I’ll go check them out for next week’s segment.

Thumbnail photo by FutureAtlas.com