Travel in Guinea

Spain now has the world’s most powerful passport, according to a new index.

Nov 27, 2024 • 7 min read

Orchids are zygomorphic, which means that if you cut the flowers in half from top to bottom, each side is symmetrical, like a human face. It could explain why these blooms — which range from baroque and blowsy to subtle and delicate — inspire particular passion among botanical enthusiasts: In them, we see a reflection of ourselves. That’s especially true in Papua New Guinea, where the scale and diversity of orchids holds a mirror to the country itself, which is home to some 850 distinct languages and about as many tribes. More than 3,800 species of orchids have been identified on the island of New Guinea, the eastern half of which comprises most of Papua New Guinea, but Mary Gerritsen, the president of the California-based Orchid Conservation Alliance and a frequent leader of orchid-spotting trips to Papua New Guinea, estimates that there could be more than a thousand species yet to be documented.

At a checkpoint in a remote part of Guinea, an official scanned his eyes repeatedly over Pelumi Nubi’s car in disbelief. “I asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ And he replied, ‘The other person.’ Then he looked me dead in the eye and asked, ‘Where’s the driver?’ I was holding the steering wheel. My right-hand driving confused him, but people couldn’t fathom that I was doing this by myself. It’s interesting what societies expect from women, and the box they keep us in.”

Early one Saturday morning in April, I find myself beneath a dense tree canopy in Maui's Honōkowai Valley. The air is still. Sparrows and mynahs chirp cheerfully. A wild pig, one of thousands that roam the mountain ranges of the Hawaiian Islands, darts in front of me. It's hard to believe that the crush of resorts along Ka‘anapali Beach, on Maui's western shore, are just a few miles away.

Today I am where I want to be, strolling along almond-fringed beaches that, like cuffs of lace, fall from the dark sleeve of the jungle. Steam rises after a recent downpour and morning sunlight glances off cresting waves silver-threaded with the shoals of sardinella that ride their swell. Coconuts drop with a thud around me and begonia blossoms spiral slowly. This is a fecund forest of vastness that’s so alive you can practically hear the sap rising. I have been walking for more than an hour from my tented suite at the Sundy Praia retreat and seen no one. I have padded across sandbanks in the flipper trail of turtles who have come to lay eggs on these northern shores and clambered over rocky headlands. I’ve scaled the heights – and pushed through the insect drill—of the forest, into the shade of the towering oka. These trees have a presence not unlike Tolkien’s ents, those humanoid-like tree creatures. In Príncipe, it is customary to bury a newborn baby’s placenta beneath a trunk, so that everyone has a tree they consider their own. The forest is venerated and it is sacrilege to fell a tree, a belief embedded in law.

A European country has taken over the top spot as the world’s most powerful passport, according to a new index by VisaGuide.World. As of December, the Spanish passport has claimed first place from Singapore, a new study by the visa advice website has found.

Gunta and Greg Larsen were looking for an expedition cruise that colored outside the lines when they found a 15-day coastal Japan cruise offered through Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic. And that's exactly what they got.

I meet Donald Macauley, the 37-year-old founder of Sierra Leone's first surf school, along a sunny swath of silky yellow sand at Bureh Beach, a surfing destination on the Western Peninsula where he’s been catching waves for more than 20 years. Macauley learned how to surf from a British soldier; before he had access to a proper board, he and other local teens would ride wooden surfboards shaped from busted fishing boats. In 2012, he launched Bureh Beach Surf Club—whose slogan, “Di waves dem go mak u feel fine,” says it all—and today he leads a handful of instructors, mentors street kids, and rallies behind some of Sierra Leone’s most promising young talents. Among them, I meet 25-year-old Kadiatu “KK” Kamara, the country’s preeminent female surfer. “My dream is to teach more girls in Sierra Leone how to surf,” says Kamara, who herself learned at Bureh Beach eight years ago and hopes to someday open her own school. When girls sign up for lessons, she refuses their money. “It’s my responsibility,” she says solemnly. “I want to motivate them not to be afraid of the water.”

For most travelers, entering the vast diversity of Ecuador’s Cuatro Mundos ("Four Worlds": the Pacific Coast, Andes, Amazon and Galápagos) requires nothing more than arriving with your passport.