A Life of Travel: Hello from Mauritania...and endless inspiration for 2025!
Derek Baron
January 14, 2025
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It's Tuesday and it's time for a travel newsletter...
update
Hello from Nouakchott, Mauritania!
Last night at 2:00am I arrived after a surprisingly seamless journey from Lisbon (via Casablanca) on Royal Air Maroc, an airline that, from experience, does not typically specialize in seamless journeys.
But here I am and I’m very much excited to be back in this fascinating country for the next 2.5 weeks!
Here’s some more updates…
🇲🇷 Mauritania - The reason I’m here is because I have a group arriving over the coming days for my first Wandering Earl Tour to Mauritania! This adventure was carefully designed with the help of my local contacts and it promises to be a spectacular trip.
The nature alone - from oases to massive sand dunes to canyons to the Richat Structure and more - is beyond impressive. And we’ll be visiting remote communities that live way out in the desert. I’m talking about communities that can only be reached by driving straight across the dunes of the Sahara.
During this trip, I’ll be more disconnected than usual as the internet is spotty and often non-existent once we leave the capital of Nouakchott. So these two weeks will involve being fully immersed in nature with fewer distractions, spending time soaking up the magical surroundings and enjoying a very slow pace of life. I can’t wait!
🩻 Hip and the US - On a very different note, what I’m not excited about is the hip pain that I’ve been experiencing lately. It’s been 3 years since I had arthroscopic surgery for a torn labrum and everything has been great since. But the pain started coming back recently and it feels as if something is off once again.
After Mauritania I’ll be flying straight to the US. I already have doctor appointments lined up to try and figure this out as soon as possible. So I’ll be in the US until it’s all sorted out, and I’m not sure if that will be 2 weeks, 2 months or beyond. I have no choice but to take it one day at a time.
💻️ Things I found - Here’s some random online stuff I came across lately 🙂
Biocubes! - It’s worth checking out this visual story of the living and what’s been built on Earth, which uses cubes to explain it all.
Star Wars-themed glamping - Well, this looks like a cool place to stay.
Most relaxing song - Apparently, this is the most relaxing song you can listen to and I’ll admit, it’s remarkably soothing.
💭 26 thoughts from the 26 countries I visited in 2024 - If you didn’t see my previous newsletter that I sent out on December 31st, you can read it online here. It included my thoughts from all of the countries I traveled to last year.
Mauritanian roads!
wandering earl tours
In 2025, I have a wide variety of small group tours on offer and they are indeed selling out fast! Here’s some highlights and if you have any questions, just let me know :)
🇲🇽 MEXICO CITY
This brand new trip involves a very special (and VERY fun) itinerary full of culture, interaction, food, unique activities and more!
🇮🇶 IRAQ
Our April trip is going ahead and we have a couple of more spots available for this unbelievably memorable experience!
🇲🇷 MAURITANIA
Given the popularity of this first Mauritania trip (it sold out), we’ve opened a second departure in December!
🇨🇺 CUBA
With two Cuba departures sold out in February and March, we opened up another Cuba trip in November!
around the globe
🧳 2025 Travel Trends
This newsletter will have plenty of travel inspiration, and I’ll start with Expedia’s list of 2025 trending destinations.
🌐 52 Places to Go
Here’s the yearly New York Times list of 52 Places to Go. Perhaps even more interesting in a look at the history of the NYT 52 Places to Go lists as this year marks the 20th anniversary of this popular tradition.
🏆️ Best of the Best
While such lists don’t mean much, TripAdvisor’s Best of the Best Travel Awards are still useful for finding destinations (such as foodie spots, countries for solo travel, etc) that you might not have considered visiting!
🇯🇵 Life Lessons from Japan
This calming article explains 30+ ways to improve your life based on Japanese principles and ideas.
🇨🇭 Swiss Museum Bar
Is the Museum Bar Giger, with its immersive ‘Alien’ design, the most impressive bar in the world? I’ve never been but I definitely want to check it out after learning more about it.
🗺️ All the World History
I played around with this history map for a while. It allows you to see what was going on in history at any point in time, anywhere in the world. It’s official description is “an interactive map of the world throughout history, created by people like you and dedicated to the public domain.”
🇵🇬 PNG Gogodala
In Papua New Guinea, there’s a remote tribe called the Gogodala that believes they are one of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel. A British professor has studied them and reached his conclusion.
🌄 Surreal Landscapes
Continuing the theme of travel inspiration, these surreal landscapes from all over the globe will certainly appeal to any traveler! (In 2026, I’ll actually be offering a Wandering Earl tour to one of the most incredible places on the list - Socotra Island, Yemen!)
where in the world?
A big congratulations to those who guessed the location of the photo in the previous newsletter! Here’s who guessed correctly:
Aleta, Virginia, Steve, Rafael, Tom, Kevin, York, Kevan, Don, Kenric, Dorota and Mari
The photo is of the Kuwait Towers in Kuwait City, which despite looking as if they were designed purely for decoration, are actually functional water towers.
This week’s photo:
It’s time to guess…where was the below photo taken?
If you have a guess (the more specific the better), click reply and let me know. Anyone who guesses correctly will be mentioned in next week's newsletter 😄
If you wish to help support this free newsletter, kindly forward it to people you know, make a donation or join one of my unique small group trips to some spectacular destinations!
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Thank you so much for reading!
Derek
(my middle name is Earl)
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