It took me 14 months to finish this book and it was such a struggle to force myself to finish it. The stories are kinda funny and really interesting as he visits places "normal" people have never heard of (Transnistria, Liberland) or wouldn't wanna go to (North Korea, Prypjat aka Tschernobyl) BUT the writing is terrible. Why is he explaining some (to my mind) unimportant facts for pages and the really cool stuff is done in a few sentences? Why isn't he prepared when traveling so some accidents which might happen (the story in China) wouldn't "ruin his experiences"? Those stories could have been so much more... I guess he found himself in this book after returning to his home place because the last story after visiting his hometown was really well written and if the book would have been like that, it would definitely be a big recommendation. Two stars for the creativity and the interesting stories about places I haven't heard of either (still don't understand why Istanbul made it to the "special places" list but okay) and the researched facts about the background stories from those countries/places.