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U2 was here—and so were thousands of fans who managed to find the remote Mojave Desert location of the very Joshua tree depicted in the photo series accompanying U2's 1987 album. The tree has died and now lies in brittle bits and pieces. Photo by Steve Hall.

Satellite views of the Earth plus the advent of digital photography and remote communication technology have rendered virtually no place on the planet unexplored—or unseen, anyway. To be an explorer in the old days was a legitimate and noble occupation, but traveling today is much less about first-time discovery than it is about rediscovery. But there is a particular thrill in going where certain others have gone before, to walk where they walked and to know that their eyes, too, played across the very landscape before you. So forget the world’s last lingering corners of wilderness for a moment, or the last unsettled islands, and consider these special sites of interest where writers, artists, musicians and heroes once walked:

The toppled Joshua tree. On a cold December day in 1986, the biggest budding rock band of the time—a group of young Irishmen known as U2—walked into the Mojave desert with photographer Anton Corbijn, posed before a lanky-limbed Joshua tree and created one of the most famous rock and roll image galleries, portrayed on the album sleeve of U2′s 1987 album The Joshua Tree. The images spurred a quiet pilgrimage of followers seeking to locate the Joshua tree—the Joshua tree, that is, the one shown on the album. The site is located near Death Valley, and presumably the first U2 fan to locate the place found it by following the skyline seen in the famed black and white photographs. Today, the tree itself lies fallen and broken, while a shrine and plaque, a variety of stone-based artwork and four stone circles indicating where each U2 band member once stood still give visitors a chilling sense of rediscovery.

The Slaughtered Lamb pub. “I vote we go back to The Slaughtered Lamb.” So said Jack Goodman, played by Griffin Dunne, to his friend David Kessler in the 1981 horror cult classic An American Werewolf in London. Two young American men, students on vacation, were walking on the cold, wild moors of Northern England not far from a fictional village called East Proctor. The pair had just left the town’s spooky village pub, The Slaughtered Lamb, where a bizarre cast of locals sent the Americans packing with crazy talk suggesting monsters and witchcraft. But some distance out of the town, piercing half-man howls echoed through the fog and scared Jack and David back again toward the pub—but a werewolf got them first. Jack was killed, and David, played by David Naughton, was rendered a once-per-month monster whose own days would soon end after a bloody rampage in the streets of London. Today, the village of Crickadarn, Wales, which portrayed East Proctor, remains a vaguely known source of attraction for traveling film buffs. If you go, stick to the road, keep clear of the moors and take some good pics—and perhaps post driving directions in the comment box below. Heads up: The interior of The Slaughtered Lamb is actually in The Black Swan, a pub in Ockham, Surrey, in case you should want a pint.

Cephalonia, home island of Odysseus. Just which Aegean waters Homer’s hero stirred and which Greek islands he passed as he voyaged home from Troy may be unclear, but we may know just where Odysseus landed at the journey’s end, the island he called home. Named Ithaca in The Odyssey, the home island of Odysseus is believed to be that now called Cephalonia, off Greece’s west coast, as described in Smithsonian in 2006. An amateur scholar named Robert Bittlestone made this claim after studying translations of Homer’s narration and touring possible islands in Greece, surveying the landscapes and imagining just where was the likeliest abode of Odysseus. The modern-day island of Ithaca seems not to be the old Ithaca—but on Cephalonia, Bittlestone believes he can even trace the footsteps of Odysseus from the moment he came ashore at Phorcys Bay to the hut of the benevolent swineherd to—at last—the cone-shaped hill called Kastelli, where Odysseus’ wife Penelope and their son Telemachus endured for years the hounding of suitors and drunkards—men who died in a bloody, skull-crashing fight when Odysseus finally walked through his door. Should you go to Cephalonia, bring along a pair of binoculars and a copy of the Odyssey, perhaps the truest guidebook there is to this lesser-known Greek island.

Cephalonia, off of western Greece, might be the island where Odysseus—or his real-life prototype—lived. Photo courtesy of Flickr user The Photo Factory by Christel Egberts.

Fairbanks City Bus 142. The broken-down bus in which a young man lived his final days in Alaska in 1992 has become an attraction for back-country visitors in recent years. Made famous by Jon Krakauer in his 1995 book Into the Wild, Chris McCandless, who took up the alias Alexander Supertramp, has been the subject of scorn, sympathy and admiration. He came to the interior Alaskan bush country with idealistic visions of living off the land in a place void of human contact and government control—but things didn’t go well. Though he had a rifle, he failed to feed himself adequately, and after more than 100 days in the wild, he died of starvation inside the retired Fairbanks city bus. McCandless’ tribe of followers exploded in numbers following the 2007 movie adaptation of Krakauer’s book, and today many—too many, perhaps—visit the bus each summer and fall, posing for photos exactly as McCandless did, signing their names inside the bus and taking pieces away. Locals have begun to consider the defunct vehicle an attractive nuisance. Though the bus has long served as a campsite for local hunters, there has been talk of removing it from the bush. Go see this piece of junk while you can.

Steinbeck Country. It’s sunburned, desolate and populated by pigs and cougars—and everywhere you go in the hill country of California’s Monterey and San Benito Counties, you are likely to be viewing the same wild country that inspired the writing of John Steinbeck. While you have a sure bet at mingling with the ghosts of Steinbeck’s past at tourist hubs like Cannery Row, the real excitement lies farther afield—where one might explore the scrubby back country and ask of suspect homesteads, trees and road crossings: “Was Steinbeck here?” Eight years ago while exploring California on a long bicycle tour, this very question came to me, along with a strange and eerie feeling in my gut, when I came upon a lonely intersection in Monterey County, far from any stores or farms or gas stations. I was riding northward on Peach Tree Road, parallel to and east of the Salinas Valley, and came to the junction with Long Valley Road, which led deep into the hill country to the west. I instantly recalled Steinbeck’s The Long Valley and felt with certainty that the author had walked up this road in its unpaved days, through these dry expanses of classic California oak and scrub, absorbing impressions of the land that would later move him to write. But in the lonely hills of Steinbeck Country, fiction overlays reality, and whether here once was a god unknown, or a red pony, or a man named Adam Trask—who really knows but the writer who invented them all?

There are many other literary journeys, sites to see and paths to follow:

Jack Kerouac‘s route in On the Road. Kerouac disguised many of his real-life characters with clever pseudonyms in On the Road, yet travelers and journalists seem to have pinned down where he went, drank, ate and slept, from San Luis Obispo to Colorado to New York.

The pond and cabin of Henry David Thoreau‘s Walden days.

The Overlook Hotel of The Shining. Film director Stanley Kubrick relied on multiple locations, including a set in England, for shooting his 1980 horror hit, but for a face-to-face, head-on look at the hotel that swallowed up the Torrance family for a long, frightening winter, head straight to the Timberline Lodge in Oregon.

The Abbey Road crossing in London as seen on the Beatles album. Should you go, take three long-haired friends, set up a camera and don’t forget the most important part: One of you must walk barefoot.

The Fairbanks city bus in which Chris McCandless died of starvation in 1992 has become a tourist attraction. This photo was taken in 2011. Photo by Dave Korn.

Starchy staple of the tropics, the breadfruit is often fried or baked and eaten like potatoes. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Librarian in Black.

Eating locally grown produce may be the easiest way to help spare the planet the stresses of cross-global commerce, and many of us have been all but trained out of buying imported fruits (though we tend to ignore the exotic realities of bananas, coffee and cheap Australian wines). But what if we make a voyage across the world to eat their local specialties? Does that count as eating locally? Probably not—but there are some fruits so unique, so exotic and so tied up with the place and the people from which they emerged that one simply must travel to truly taste them. And here are just a few of the best, most historical, most charismatic of the world’s fruits. Go get them at the source.

Breadfruit, Polynesia. The food value of this whopper tree fruit and starchy staple of the tropics has been heralded for centuries. The fruit grows on beautiful, large-leaved trees and cooks up like something between potato and bread. The British first gave close consideration to the species in the 1760s as Captain James Cook sailed the Pacific. An onboard botanist named Joseph Banks observed the breadfruit and was impressed by its yields and quality. In 1787, Banks returned to the Polynesian breadfruit country, this time on the ill-fated HMS Bounty captained by William Bligh. The boat’s mission, before it was taken over by miscreants, was to collect breadfruit trees in Tahiti and transport them to the Caribbean to provide a new food source for slaves in the sugarcane fields. Today, breadfruit, like so many tropical fruits, has been introduced to nearly every suitable region around the equatorial waistline of the globe, and in many places the trees grow semi-wild. Hawaii is just one hotspot. In Holualoa, the Breadfruit Institute is home to the largest varietal collection of breadfruits in the world—a tidy orchard of 120 varieties. The institute also co-hosts the annual Breadfruit Festival, which took place in March, but in many places, breadfruit trees fruit year-round.

Pitahaya cactus fruit, Baja California. Not to be confused with the common prickly pear or with the pitaya dragon fruit, the pitahaya fruit is brilliant red, is prickled with needle-like spines that fall off as the fruit ripens and resembles a crimson kiwi when cut in two. The fruit occurs in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico, with the Baja California peninsula a center of abundance. The fruit grows from the long arms of the so-called “galloping cactus,” which anyone who visits Baja will see. The octopus-looking plants are a dull green and mostly unremarkable—until September. That’s when the bright red bulbs the size of apples swell into ripeness, and until December the feast is on. The fruits occur by the millions, and tequila-sipping cowboys, fishermen with the day off, families from the city and even a few tourists wearing backpacks all take to the desert to pursue the pitahaya, filling buckets and bringing them home like many northerners do with wild blackberries. October is a sure hit for the pitahaya on the southern half of the Baja peninsula. The best bet: Bring camping gear and go out a-walkin’. Beware of the sun, and watch out for rattlesnakes. The fruits should be attacked with a knife, sliced in two, and eaten with a spoon like a kiwi. A piece of pitahaya trivia: Local indigenous people historically feasted on pitahayas in the fall, and toward the end of the season they sifted the many small seeds from their communal latrines to grind into flour.

Salmonberry, Southeast Alaska. Going to the Pacific Northwest this July? Then watch the berry bushes closely. You’ll see raspberries and blueberries and blackberries—and a lesser known one called the salmonberry. As tender and soft as a raspberry, the salmonberry is about the size of a farm-grown strawberry. That is, the things are huge. I discovered the salmonberry in 1999 on Prince of Wales Island, where my brother and I spent five weeks backpacking, hitchhiking and fishing for salmon. Salmonberry thickets lined most streams and roads, and many afternoons we set aside our fly rods to pick berries. The abundance was mind-boggling, and we would fill our Nalgene bottles in just minutes, each down a full quart of pulverized salmonberries, and then return to the brambles to fill our bottles for dinner. One afternoon, we rappelled down a cliff to access a particularly thick patch. We often dodged black bears working the same patches. We ate salmonberries until we couldn’t move, and when we could stand again, we went back for more. We grilled up sockeye salmon every day for lunch and dinner, and we often drizzled hot salmonberry reduction over the fillets. We feasted on these exciting new berries until the season petered out in August. Then we went home, and we have never seen a salmonberry since—but Michael and I still talk about the summer of ’99, the summer of the salmonberry.

This pair of Italian mushroom collectors have taken about 50 pounds of porcini from a forest in the Dolomites, northern Italy. Photo by Alastair Bland.

Porcini mushroom, Italy. As surely as the apple is the fruit of the tree, the mushroom is the fruit of the fungus—and perhaps no edible mushroom is so unmistakable or such a sure find in the times and places that it grows as Boletus edulis. Called cep in French, king bolete in English and manatarka in Bulgarian, this mushroom is the famous porcini in Italy. Here, this giant, brown-capped mushroom fruits in huge abundance in the late summer and fall. The species tends to grow among chestnut trees throughout southern Europe, and following the first of the autumn rains, the forest floor erupts. Local hunters swarm the woods. Until the winter frost ends the season, households grow fragrant with the nutty, smoky scent of drying and frying porcini, much of the harvest destined for pasta sauces. Can’t get to Italy? That’s fine, because Boletus edulis spores have drifted around the Northern Hemisphere, and in China, California, New York, Greece and Russia, the porcini mushroom grows. Note: The species occurs among different trees in different places—Douglas fir forests in the Pacific Northwest, Monterey pines in Central California and mixed deciduous forests on the Eastern Seaboard. But be smart, and only hunt mushrooms with an experienced forager, and if in doubt, throw it out—not into your risotto.

Stacks of durians occupy the streets of Malaysia during the harvest season each spring and summer. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Fadzly @ Shutterhack.

Durian, Thailand. Just as a wine writer is sure to speak again and again of the tireless Pinot Noir, a writer with an interest in fruits must pay regular tribute to the durian. This spiky and musky-odored beast is called the “king of fruits” in Southeast Asia and can be found worldwide in most large cities with thriving Asian communities—but these imported durians, usually from Thailand, are generally ones that have been frozen. They’re delicious, but fresh off the tree, the durian, which includes multiple species of the genus Durio, is said to be an experience just short of heavenly—the onion-vanilla flavor of its custard-like flesh amplified in every tantalizing way. In the jungles of Southeast Asia, Borneo and Indonesia, locals keep their ears tuned to the trees during the late-spring peak of durian season. Upon hearing a heavy thwunk, they go prowling—seeking the freshly fallen fruit, which is said to lose much of its aroma and flavor in mere hours after harvest. Journalist David Quammen described the hunt for durians on the forest floor in his collection of essays The Boilerplate Rhino. Author Adam Gollner praised the durian in The Fruit Hunters while giving a wary nod to a bizarre subculture of nomads who call themselves durianarians, who camp their way through Asia following the durian season. And in the mid-1800s, durian-lover Alfred Russel Wallace famously wrote that making a journey to the Southeast Asian durian districts is well worth the weeks of sailing just to have a taste. Even tigers, though built for beef-eating, can’t resist durians.

Next week: More fruits to eat locally when traveling globally.

Meadows, lakes, snow and granite are the enduring elements of California's John Muir Trail, which leads through 211 miles of some of the world's most beautiful alpine wilderness. Photo courtesy of Flickr user peretzp

After cycling for weeks, now I’m thinking about walking. Foot travel has been the way of the wayfarer since men and women were still dragging their knuckles. The fact that people still opt to walk today, in the age of the wheel and the combustion engine, tells us there is something virtuous and irresistible in the plodding of one foot forward after the other. And without question, walking works. Using their legs and feet, many people have moved thousands of miles overland, and in many places the trails they wore in the earth are used by modern recreational trekkers who follow in the footsteps of their forebears. Following are five of the world’s great walks—with more to come next week.

Appalachian Trail. Leading 2,181 miles through 14 states and the historic forests and backwoods shanties of Appalachia, the Appalachian Trail was conceived in 1921, and by 1937 it was ready for walking. Today, 4 million people walk parts of the trail every year. Those attempting a through-hike number in the thousands, and only one in four finish. From Maine’s Mount Katahdin to Georgia’s Springer Mountain, the whole package takes as long as six months as hikers accumulate a total elevation gain equal to climbing Mount Everest 16 times.

John Muir Trail. This path through the high Sierra Nevada of California immortalizes the landscape that naturalist John Muir worshiped. And at just 211 miles long through beautiful alpine country, it’s both epic and doable. From the south, the JMT begins at the lower 48 states’ highest peak, Mount Whitney; crosses mountain passes more than 13,000 feet in elevation; traverses some of the world’s most beautiful high altitude wilderness; never touches a road and finally lands hikers in one of the world’s most esteemed natural places, Yosemite Valley. The trail generally requires three weeks from start to finish. If you happen to have a little extra time on either side, you could walk from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail, of which the JMT is just a small part.

Coast to Coast Walk. A walk that doesn’t demand superb physical condition or half a year to complete, this 220-mile path crosses Northern England and leads through the evergreen verdure of the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors National Parks, from the Irish Sea to the east coast of England. Writer and walking enthusiast Alfred Wainswright devised the trail and suggested that hikers touch their toes in the Irish Sea at St. Bees before starting and step right into Robin Hood’s Bay after 10 or 20 days of trudging. Or else it doesn’t count.

Great Wall of China. No, you can’t really see it from space. That was a myth more or less debunked in the past decade or so by astronauts. However, while the Great Wall of China no longer plays a role in international affairs, it makes one heck of a walking platform. Unlike the heavily trammeled Camino (see below) or Appalachian Trails, the Great Wall demands ingenuity, craftiness and durability in anyone who attempts to plod the length of it, which is broken, crumbled or gone in many sections. Australian Mark Scholinz walked the wall in 2007. He encountered frozen steppe country, wolf tracks, endless hospitality and a whole lot of rice and tea.

Camino de Santiago. Once a path of the pious, this European network of trails converges toward its terminus as it leads many thousands of walkers each year to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Though founded by deeply religious pilgrims more than a thousand years ago, “the Camino” today is simply a recreational venture for most making the pilgrimage. It is also hardly an adventure anymore, as every step of the way has been walked a million times before, with many miles of pathway paralleling freeways and cutting through suburbs and farmland. One highlight of the trail is certainly the Cruz de Ferra, a 25-foot-tall cross which pilgrims have built by depositing knickknacks and trinkets and stones. Today, the rockpile is is almost 20 feet high, a sacred midden built over centuries. It’s truly a wonder just to touch it.

The Cruz de Ferra, surrounded by an ancient mound of stones left by pilgrims, is one of the marvels to be found along the Camino de Santiago. Photo by Alastair Bland

Reading About Walking:

Don’t feel like walking the walk? The armchair is one of the comfiest vehicles of travel we have. You’ll need a good book, and here are several classics of adventure travel.

The Snow Leopard. In this sober account, we find author Peter Matthiessen to be a man of Buddhism, western science, literature and a love of big cats. In 1972, when biologist George Schaller invited him on a 200-mile trek into the Himalaya to track the rare blue sheep, Matthiessen, now in his mid-80s, accepted, unable to resist the opportunity to see a snow leopard. It was the fall, and their trip led into one of the most mysterious, dangerous yet peaceful regions of the world under blue skies and a warm sun. By November, frostbite and blizzards were ever-present dangers. The two Americans, accompanied by Sherpas and porters, do eventually see the blue sheep, while all along the high and rocky trails lurk the haunting signs of the snow leopard.

Danziger’s Travels. English author Nick Danziger points out early in this book that he was not interested in walking a record distance or cycling across a continent when he took up the old trade route of the Asia-to-Europe silk traders. Rather, he utilized whatever local means of travel were available in China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey—and often he was walking. Danziger’s travels lasted 18 months, for part of which time he went disguised as a Muslim. The book is an adventure account almost as simple as the travel genre gets, but few are better.

The Places in Between. Journalist Rory Stewart walked for 16 months through Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal in 2000 and 2001. Then, in the virulent months following the September 11 attacks, he found himself facing Afghanistan. The month he spent walking across it would produce, eventually, one of the best modern travel books I’ve found. Stewart survived on the food and shelter of kind strangers, but many Afghans, hardened by war and the desert, were downright vicious. Stewart was determined to walk, and he firmly refused rides across known danger zones. For part of the way, a trio of Afghan soldiers escorted him. But it’s the many miles he walked alone (and with a great shaggy dog adopted along the way) that make readers marvel, at times, that Stewart lived to write about the trip.

A Walk in the Woods. He’s pudgy. He’s brainy. He has a strange penchant for stupid knickknacks and trivia from his Americana Midwest childhood. And for some reason, late in the 1990s, he decided to walk partway across America. In the end, comic Bill Bryson only completed, in bits and pieces, 800-some miles of the Appalachian Trail, but it was enough to provide him with the fodder he needed to write one of the funniest travel books of our time.

Pitcairn Island provided the mutineers of the Bounty a haven from the world in the 18th century. Today, it offers much the same—along with a general store, a cafe and 50 permanent residents. Photo courtesy of Flickr user wileypics.

Planning a vacation for next year? Consider these remote island getaways. They could really use a visit.

1) Pitcairn Island. The history of this island is one of the most compelling stories in nonfiction, recounted in the book trilogy of Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea and Pitcairn’s Island. The two-square-mile subtropical crag was unoccupied until a boatload of mutinous Englishmen showed up in 1790, sank their ship off the island’s coast and piled ashore, along with a number of ladyfriends picked up in Fiji and other islands along the way. The mutineers had sent Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 loyal sailors adrift in a flimsy lifeboat after taking control of Bligh’s ship, HMS Bounty. They brought to life a true Lord-of-the-Flies scenario to the island as they learned to survive, descended into drunken infighting and began killing each other. By 1800 the only sailor left was John Adams, whose life assumed a peaceful pace with his Polynesian companions. Today, Pitcairn Island is populated by 50 people, has administrative headquarters in New Zealand, markets honey, stamps and coins as its chief products, has a handful of hostels, a general store and a café, and frankly, it could use some company.

2) Nunivak Island. I probably don’t need to warn anyone to stay away from this desolate island patch of Alaskan tundra until May or June. It’s then that the sun comes out and stays out over Nunivak Island, located in the Bering Sea at 60 degrees latitude north. About 200 people, almost all residents of the Cup’ik Eskimo town of Mekoryuk, live here, hunting seals and fishing for a living. Musk ox and reindeer also occupy the island, introduced after the native caribou were exterminated, and the streams teem with salmon. Don’t expect much in the way of accommodations here, and bring a waterproof tent if you go. Flights come regularly from Bethel, Alaska. The virtues of this island are its isolation, its wilderness, its bounties of wild fish, blueberries and game and, in the absence of tourist infrastructure, the prospects for true adventures and interactions with local people and culture.

3) Isla Angel de la Guarda. If there is an island in the ocean but no one there to enjoy it, does it really exist? Sure. Consider Isla Angel de la Guarda, in the Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. At any given time, almost nobody is there—but satellite photos show that the island itself always remains. This 40-by-10-mile wilderness, with the stoic silence of the desert, is surrounded by sapphire-blue water. Without hotels, villages or tourist attractions of any sort where one might spend money, it doesn’t really need visitors—and that’s the best reason to go. If you should find yourself there somehow (you’ll have to hitchhike out via fishing boat), stand on the beach at night and gaze at the night skies bejeweled with stars, and by day soak in the clear ocean waters. Bring plenty of water (or a desalinator), and take along a fishing rod. Leave only footprints.

4) Tokelau. Poverty, idleness, the despondency of being marooned—these aspects of life on Tokelau are nothing compared to what’s coming for this triangle of islands. Lying smack on a straight line between Auckland and Honolulu, the islands of Atafu, Nukunonu and Fakaofo, made of sand and crumbled coral, stand no more than two meters above sea level. With sea level rising already, the Tokelauan archipelago may not see another century of life above water. For the time being, this territory of New Zealand is home to 1500 people and, reportedly, three cars. (I have not learned where people go in them.) There is no landing strip, and the fastest way to Tokelau is a two-day boat ride from Samoa. Representatives of Tokelau recently made a stir in Durban, at the November-December climate change summit, where they announced an ambitious plan to switch entirely to renewable energy within a year. Their idea is to challenge the rest of us to take similar action. If you go to Tokelau, expect to eat breadfruit, tuna, taro root and kaleva, a local alcohol made from coconut.

The rugged shores and soaring peak of Tristan da Cunha, home to the world's most isolated community.

5) Frank Sinatra preferred New York City. I prefer places like Tristan da Cunha, famed as the most remote inhabited island group in the world. This Atlantic cluster of volcanoes lies 1,750 miles from the nearest port, Cape Town, South Africa. The six islands take up 52 square miles of the Earth’s surface and provide a home to just under 300 people. Tristan da Cunha Island itself sports a dramatic summit that rises 6,762 feet from the sea—a perfect conical peak with a heck of a hike to the top. In other words, sea level won’t swamp this island group and you’ve got all the time in the world to go see it—but how does one get there? Like Tokelau, “Tristan” has no airport, and the only way here is by boat, whether fishing vessel, freighter or private sailing yacht. Camping, meanwhile, is reportedly not illegal but is considered unusual. The other islands in the group are uninhabited, though, and presumably you can sleep any place you want. One of these islands is actually called Inaccessible Island—which sounds to me like a challenge. Note: Tristan is not tropical. It lies at almost 40 degrees south latitude. Better bring a coat.

6) Lemnos. This Greek Aegean island is a personal favorite of mine—a lesser-known expanse of low hills and untrammeled beaches that I visited in 2006 and which I remember most for its abandoned villages, desolate plains, beehives everywhere and a mind-blowing abundance of fig and mulberry trees. Homer praised Lemnos in the Iliad for its wine, and today its scrubby 186 square miles still produce a variety of acclaimed wines. Myrina is the main western port, served by multiple ferry lines and with all the hotels and services a tourist might want. But Lemnos’s east side, relatively deserted, is where the magic happens. Camp where you like. Savor the stars at night. Eat figs by day. Revel in the rare solitude. While you’re in the area, Samothraki to the north is a beautiful mile-high volcanic island populated by camps of Central European hippies known for their trance parties and well worth a visit, while Chios, just a ferry ride to the south, is another mountainous beauty of the Aegean.

The author surveys the blue waters and desolate coastal bluffs of Lemnos.

7) Caroline Atoll. Want a real party this New Year’s Eve? Then go to New York City. But at the eastern edge of the Kiribati island group you’ll find the Caroline Atoll, whose proximity to the international dateline makes it among the first places in the world to see each new day on Earth. Go here in a week and enjoy the distinguishing thrill of being the first person to enter 2012. In fact, Caroline Atoll’s name unofficially became “Millennium Island” prior to the “Y2K” New Year’s celebration. But in the realm of more relevant and real tourist attractions, visitors here will find virtually no people, as the Caroline Atoll is uninhabited. Sleep where you will—and bring a mask and snorkel, for the coral reefs here are considered among the most spectacular in the world. Watch for giant clams underwater, grab a lobster for dinner and good luck keeping the coconut crabs out of your tent at night.

Last Note: If you plan to be marooned somewhere for some time, that’s great. I’m glad for you. I wish I was going, too. Just be sure to bring along a copy of David Quammen’s The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions, in which the author-naturalist discusses, through fascinating examples and cases studies, just why the creatures that inhabit islands—from the largest lizard on Earth to flightless birds that have no fear of predators to grotesquely oversized tortoises—can be, well, such freaks.

A game of chess on a fold-up travel board can break the ice between strangers in strange lands. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Sean Wallis

1. Seawater desalinator. The planet may be your playground – except for those places lacking freshwater. Indeed, some of the finest desert wildernesses in Australia, Mexico, Egypt and elsewhere are simply off-limits to the self-sufficient foot or bicycle traveler because of their lack of one of life’s most essential molecules. A water desalinator changes everything. That desert coastline along the Sea of Cortez, the wild shores of Australia’s west coast, the undeveloped beaches along the Red Sea: All become fair game for the journeys of your dreams when you’re packing along any of the reliable and lightweight desalinating devices now available on the market. Our recently featured Baja wanderer, Graham Mackintosh, has used various homemade contraptions in his desert journeys but recently invested in a Katadyn Survivor 35,  a reverse osmosis hand pump capable of rendering drinkable 4.5 liters of seawater per hour.

2. Portable Miniature Chess Set. You step from the freezing, blustery darkness of a late-night blizzard into the toasty warmth of a mountain chalet – and as you drop your backpack and kick the snow from your boots, you see it’s going to be an awkward evening: A half dozen gruff Romanian mountaineers occupy the premises, staring at you wordlessly over their glasses. They’ll share their wine, you can bet, and the venison stew – but they don’t speak your language, or you theirs. How will you break the ice?! Chess, of course – assuming you’ve packed along your portable chess set – a miniature, fold-in-half system, often with magnetic pieces that cling to their squares even on the bumpiest of train rides. This makes an excellent gift for wayfarers with an affinity for sacrificing pawns, battling knights, dismounting horsemen, destroying queens and stomping on kings – and communicating across borders in the global language of the world’s greatest board game.

3. Bear Spray. Bear attacks are very rare, and even the most avid hikers may experience the terror of a bluff charge just once in their lives or never – but occasionally bears mean tooth-and-claw business. So blast ‘em with bear spray. Charging bruins – usually grizzlies – have been stopped in their tracks with a smartly placed shot of this nasty if not-permanently-damaging stuff. Some experts have warned, though, that bear spray might only make angry bears angrier. Others, meanwhile, discourage the carrying of guns for self-defense against bears, arguing that that firearms can instill overconfidence in those who carry them and indirectly increase the likelihood of a violent encounter with a bear. Whichever way goes the debate, the fact is that bear spray has been used in emergency situations, and it works.

4. Wild Edibles Foraging Guide. The world is for eating – but, beyond such no-brainers as blackberries and trout, where does one start snacking? I recall years ago, on a three-week backpacking trip in the Marble Mountains Wilderness area in northern California, while we walked the lake’s shore, my dad, with a few swipes of his hand, produced a brace of familiarly-scented greens which we would dice and sprinkle as garnish over our grilled trout: wild chives. The occasion opened my eyes to the fine foods that grow under our hiking boots and usually go unrecognized. If there’s a food-savvy wilderness traveler on your shopping list, start browsing now through the many available pocketbook guides to foraging wild edibles.

5. Soccer Ball. Friends in far-off places come easily for those who pack in their bag the simplest, most universally loved piece of sporting equipment on the planet: a soccer ball. Know someone headed for Latin America in 2012? Africa? Central Asia? Then see that they have a deflatable ball and a pump in their backpack when their plane leaves – and remind them at the security gate that where they’re going it’s called futbol.

If you brought a ball and a pump, these kids might let you play. Courtesy of Flickr user edgebrook

6. Laminated Map. The most valuable item of travel is often the most disposable: the map. Unless, that is, it’s been laminated. Many stationary and office supplies shops offer this service; for a few bucks, they’ll seal a flimsy sheet of paper within a durable coat of heavy plastic, making it impervious to rain, rough handling and the wear and tear that will turn most road or trail maps into a shredded rag by a journey’s end. A map protected by lamination can be passed around and reused for years – or displayed on the wall as a poster.

7. Emergency Rations to Save a Life. What would it take to get you to chow down on dog food? A real emergency, right? Well, we’ll hope so, anyway – and that’s why a can of sloppy, wet dog food makes among the best emergency ration foods available – a source of calories that, no matter how many glasses of wine you had with your camp dinner, no matter how many miles you trekked that day, no matter how much you would like to have another bite to eat before bed, you will never plunder in a moment’s weakness unless you are absolutely starving. In the bottom of your pack it will stay – hopefully for many, many safe and happy years of traveling – and only in the darkest hour will this 20-ounce life-saver even begin to look like food. Warning: Most options are not suitable for vegetarians or vegans, though at least one all-natural product is: V-Dog.

8. To the Top of Denali: Climbing Adventures on North America’s Highest Peak, by Bill Sherwonit. Trying to talk someone out of plans to climb America’s most massive mountain this year? Trying to convince a friend to come along? Either way, this dramatic page-turner about the history of Man’s relationship with Mount Denali might do the trick. A quintessential must-read in the collection of any adventure traveler, especially those with a love for Alaska, To the Top of Denali has it all: tales of the frostbite, the hunger, the snowstorms and blizzards and whiteouts, the heroic winter solo assaults, the disastrous group ascents, the tragedy, the romance, the comedy and the heroism that have unfurled on the slopes of North America’s most massive mountain. A 1990 release, To the Top of Denali remains as relevant today as the mountain itself – and, more than ever, a maturing classic in armchair adventuring.

9. Weather-proof Fire-starter. Few minor disasters in the bush will sink one’s heart quite like a cold morning without tea or coffee or a post-hike evening without dinner – and it will happen if you can’t produce a flame. Antarctic adventuress Felicity Aston (who should now be at or darn near the South Pole) recently experienced a fright when her three lighters failed to work. Fortunately, she had backup matches to light her stove, and so should anyone else who walks into the wild. So stuff a stocking this Christmas with waterproof matches (which you can make at home) – or a windproof, refillable lighter.

10. Internet Anywhere Plan. Bring that stodgy, wool-wearing, stick-carving Luddite on your gift list up to pace with the modern world with one of the many “internet anywhere” access plans now available. The concept is almost miraculous: access to email, search engines, music and all the other services and comforts of the Internet from some of the remotest places in the world. Though some will argue that such technology interferes with the very experience of travel, the advantages are hard to argue with: From afield, one may identify unknown plants, scout the terrain ahead, learn the local language or just tell Mom everything’s okay. Oh yeah – and that Luddite will also need a mini laptop computer.