place you were at but never really experienced? For me it is Thule Greenland where we stopped for a couple of hours at the air base for fuel on the way to the US. I saw he inside of the small terminal and whatever little I could see of the airfield walking to the terminal from the plane and back which was not much because it was night.

Yet, I was there!

I was reminded of this watching The Late Show tonight which had parts taped at the base.

Dubai, twice, but never left the airport.

Nothing as exotic as that, but I guess I've had quick layovers I'd wished were long enough to go have a leisurely look around. Otherwise, most of our trips have been more like connecting in better known cities on the way to a more "exotic" (to me) destination. Singapore enroute to Colombo, Taipei connecting to Siem Reap. I'd still like to double back to a few cities like those.

I'm not sure this qualifies but in 1970 I was salmon fishing in a stream in Alaska and my brother in law and others kept reminding me that if a brown bear shows up to fish don't run away, slowly walk the opposite direction and keep casting like youi're not scared of it. When you're 12 years old and from farm town that's as exotic as it gets.

I am nowhere near as well travelled as most on here, and when we used to fly we would try to fly direct or do our stopovers in Europe if possible. So the only two airports I can think of which we landed at but are places we have never visited are Atlanta and Tenerife South.
DH on the other hand has had all sorts of odd stopovers for all sorts of reasons at odd places on his business travels.

Tahiti.

Back in the 80s I had a refueling stop there on my way home from Australia. I haven't been back since. Someday.

I wanted to go into Muscat, Oman on a longish layover between flights, but the Israeli stamps in my passport stopped me at the passport control point.

I loved Oman Gardyloo - visited twice. It's the only Middle Eastern country I have any interest in revisiting, although I guess I wouldn't mind seeing Dubai again - it's gone Disneyland since I was last there.

The only place I can think of that we weren't allowed off the plane was in Colombo, Sri Lanka, when they were at civil war. I think we were flying to the Maldives, our flight was overbooked, so we were offered business class upgrades if we flew via Sri Lanka. Of course we said yes.

I think we had a stopover in Copenhagen once too, where we couldn't leave the plane for whatever reason. Not exotic, but I'd love to go back for a real visit sometime.

For me it was the Copper Canyons in North Mexico. Probably not exotic to other travelers, but I usually joined groups.

This is also my biggest regret. I was flown to Ecuador for work, working in Quito. It was a short trip, in and out. I think maybe three days. As I was flying out, on the way home I realized how absolutely stupid I was. It was during our "busy season" and I didn't take any extra time to go to the Galapagos Islands. That was a lifelong dream and I was "too busy".
At least I was young enough to realize how stupid I was at the time and did a better job of stopping to smell the roses along the way. That trip was in 1989. Wow. Time does fly.

Moscow. Spent about 8 or 9 hours in a nice airline club there.

I guess I can add Lebanon and Syria to my list. For Lebanon, I was touring northern Israel with my son who won a trip there when he was ten. I was looking for a historical spot and got completely lost. The road became increasingly narrow and there were no structures at all. After some driving we finally came out on a wider road and there was a tall wire fence running alongside. Between the fence and the road was a wide area of neatly raked dirt. It struck me that I was at the border and the field I saw through the fence must be Lebanon. I also knew it was a place where we should. not be and stayed exactly where I was, figuring the place would be under electronic surveillance. I was right and after a short while an armored personnel carrier came along. I explained that we were just a couple of lost tourists and showed our passport to the soldier in charge. He said it was a good thing I had stopped moving because the sides of the road was mined and to follow the APC down out of danger being sure to stay exactly in its tracks. But, I did get to say I saw a tiny piece of Lebanon.


About Syria, After retirement we took a. month long trip part of which was to meet some of DW's relatives for the first time. One cousin lived on a kibbutz near the northern town of Afula. She took us to a look out point where we could see into Syria where the civil war there was still hot. From there we could see Syria down in the valley with Qumran in the distance. The was a UN camp down below and we could. hear artillery fire. Up on our peaceful cliff was a Druze fellow selling apples and a news crew while down below people may have been dying. It was quite a contrast. I wrote a TR including that with a photo where one could see the Syrian flag in the distance.

I think Texas is pretty weird. I once changed planes in Dallas/FT Worth.

Wholeheartedly agree.

We still refer to Texas as our first foreign assignment.

We felt the same about being stationed in Louisiana.

Senegal

Zebec's post reminded me of another exotic stop.

Ghana, on my way to South Africa. When we were landing in Ghana we saw the remains of a little plane which appeared to have crashed. That was unsettling.

Auckland,NZ, enroute to Melbourne.We weren’t allow to leave the Gate area while they sanitized the aircraft. Reboarded but never “was there!”

Amsterdam: in 1981 we spent the entire time looking for the place to drop off the car (took forever) and had next to no time for the city itself; we stayed out at the airport. We realized later we got some of our best pictures there. We're fixing that next year with 7 nights.

Transnistria. I was on a bus from Odesa to Chisinau in Moldova that went through Transnistria. As expected I had to bribe the border guard to be allowed in (only recognized by Russia so no way to get a visa) and only got off in the capital to use the rest room in the station.