I have been attracted for a tour around Chernobyl NPP, as well as going to a brand new country of Kosovo and I'm thinking if this will be my plan for summer 2009.

So, has anyone seen these places and was it worth it? Are there other people who feel strangely drawn to places that "sane" people would avoid?

And what is the most (I hate to use the word, but..) extreme place you've been in?

the Gulf of Tonkin, May 1975, during the evacuation of the US Embassy in Saigon... it was extreme... a very sad and tragic affair...

Tijuana

Not really. I don't particularly enjoy going somewhere for the thrill of gettin' potentially killed. In fact, the most thrill I wanna experience when on vacation is having to deal with a poorly-mixed umbrella drink.

Did shark feeding safaris in Burma when I worked as a diving instructor in Thailand.

Nice big 3metre long sharks with razor sharp teeth taking lumps of tuna out of my hand ... enough to get the heart pumping.

The Burmese navy used to stop us and take half our food sometimes.
Sort of focusses the mind about life, death and the fluff in your belly button when a naval gunship "requests" to come alongside for a "chat"

Dangerous animals needing feeding, and then the sharks too

Getting killed isn't in my plans, and the dangers in Chernobyl and tensions in Kosovo aren't anywhere near the threat levels Belushi or AllenAqua have experienced.

I just want something more meaningful to see than just old churches, architectually strange buildings etc.

But my gosh! As I read Belushi's and AllenAqua's posts, I wonder what else to do with my life than just working from monday to friday.
Of course AllenAqua's experience isn't really something you'd wish to see though.

Come to the Sinai!!!
Learn to scuba dive
Ride a camel through the Sinai with Bedouins
Snorkel with dolphins
Dive with sharks & rays
Climb Mount Sinai and eat enough mind altering plant life to experience God and get given two lumps of stone that have lots of scribbley writing on.

I could go on, but then I would get sarcastic.

This is brought to you by the "I love the Middle East" appreciation society ...

But if you really want to do something dangerous ... ;-)

It depends on what how you define extreme. Are you thinking natural landscape, potilically unstable, death defying animal adventures? New York at 2AM can get pretty crazy man!

LMAO!!! Thats brilliant. I never thought of that. I would rather wrestle a shark for its lunch than walk through any of the major parks in London at 2am!!!

LOL!!! I read an article in National Geographic awhile back and it said that last year, new yorkers bit more people than sharks did. The emergency room at the hospital there treated over 200 bites or something like that. I'm with you on the shark diving man!

Go to Florida, Georgia or South Carolina for a hurricane party and then come to Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas to race a tornado through a horizontal hail storm.

...Nope, not kidding. The trip through US security should be an experience in itself.

Visiting the hurricane highway (was that what it was called?) on the worst time would be really something. Ain't nothing like mother nature showing off.

It's starting to be the time to start saving money and planning destinations for next summer for me. I don't dare to include trans-atlantic flights, god knows what they cost a year from now..

So, it just may be that Chernobyl, Kosovo, Abghazia etc will be on my route. I should have just enough time to lear a few words of russian/Ukrainian.
That would be one nuclear disaster, one brand new country, and one trying to be a new country.

But still, I would love to hear your experiences of the most exciting/extreme places you have visited!