What’s the one place everyone should visit before they die?

[Shane Limbeck]

There are places that change the way you see the world. Some you find by accident, others you chase for years.

What’s the one spot you think everyone should experience at least once? Could be deep in the backcountry, across an ocean, or just down a forgotten dirt road.

Tell us where it is, what makes it special, and why it stuck with you.

 

[Jeff Forrester]

There are so many places but one that really stands out is Alaska. My dad served there in the Army in the 60s and always wanted to go back and never made it back there before he passed away. He said it was the most beautiful place he had been and I would like to experience it first hand.

 

[Joe Ferronato]

I'll echo Jeff's note on Alaska, it is one of the most phenomenally beautiful places on the planet, and it's truly wild. I have been many times and will always go back. But, if I had to pick one place for people to visit in this lifetime, I'd say everyone needs to experience Africa. The more remote, the better. For a sportsman, there's no place like it, and the continent will change your outlook on life in general, and help garner a deep appreciation for the various wildlife conservation models in place around the world.

 

[Pete Correale]

If you are into spearfishing or rod and reel fishing, Ascension Island is mecca, but, your fucked, because they made it extremely difficult to get there as a civilian. It is British military territory, and you used to be able to hop on a flight out of the Brize Norton military base in the UK, but stopped offering that to non military personnel. It sure was fun while it lasted though! 200 plus pound yellowfins eating dead bait right on of our hands on the surface!

 

[Dave Eder]

Botswana

 

[Charlie Benton]

This will come as a surprise to no one, but my vote is for Africa. There's an unbelievable abundance of game and so much of the land is still raw and wild. It's also one of the few places that retains a sense of authentic culture, due to remoteness---though Elon's Starlink and China's Belts and Roads efforts are homogenizing the culture with the rest of the world. As of right now though, Africa continues to be an unrivaled, amazing experience and as close to the old world frontier as we can hope to find in the modern day.

 

[Cagney]

This will come as a surprise to no one, but my vote is for Africa. There's an unbelievable abundance of game and so much of the land is still raw and wild. It's also one of the few places that retains a sense of authentic culture, due to remoteness---though Elon's Starlink and China's Belts and Roads efforts are homogenizing the culture with the rest of the world. As of right now though, Africa continues to be an unrivaled, amazing experience and as close to the old world frontier as we can hope to find in the modern day.

Hearing you talk about going to Africa for the first time sold me. Now I just have to figure out how to sneak into a FE camp.

 

[Cagney]

I'll echo Jeff's note on Alaska, it is one of the most phenomenally beautiful places on the planet, and it's truly wild. I have been many times and will always go back. But, if I had to pick one place for people to visit in this lifetime, I'd say everyone needs to experience Africa. The more remote, the better. For a sportsman, there's no place like it, and the continent will change your outlook on life in general, and help garner a deep appreciation for the various wildlife conservation models in place around the world.

I'll never forget hearing @Charlie Benton talk about going to Africa for the first time. Life changing was mentioned a time or two. You both have sold me on it. Disney's Animal Kingdom's African Safari better not the the closest I get to it before I die.

 

[Ron Dan]

There are endless adventures all over the globe that make it easy to forget what we have in our own backyard. Get out and explore some of the national parks right here in the US. You won’t be disappointed.

 

[Pete Correale]

There are endless adventures all over the globe that make it easy to forget what we have in our own backyard. Get out and explore some of the national parks right here in the US. You won’t be disappointed. View attachment 15View attachment 16View attachment 17View attachment 18View attachment 19View attachment 20View attachment 21

I bet you drove into that national park in your Subaru while eatin' gluten free, non GMO granola....

 

[Andrew Court]

Japan! I did a motorcycle trip there a couple years back (Which I wrote about for FE) and I barley scratched the surface of the amazing natural beauty, great food, and fascinating culture

 

[Andrew Wilson]

Go to Southern Soul Food on Crenshaw and Adams in LA. Order some oxtail and sweet potato pie. The stark contrast between the rich flavors of the food and the cheap styrofoam tray on which it is delivered will help you reflect on your life, sorta like sitting in a hot tub during a snowstorm. We need these experiences to heighten our senses that have been dulled by constantly staring at a screen.

 

[Tony Caggiano]

Tanzania was probably the place that moved me the most.

Growing up watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom and John Wayne in HATARI!, it was always a spot I knew I needed to see.....and it did not disappoint.

 

[JRQ]

There are so many places but one that really stands out is Alaska. My dad served there in the Army in the 60s and always wanted to go back and never made it back there before he passed away. He said it was the most beautiful place he had been and I would like to experience it first hand.

Had I gone to Alaska as a young buck with no wife or kids, I would have stayed.

 

[JRQ]

This will come as a surprise to no one, but my vote is for Africa. There's an unbelievable abundance of game and so much of the land is still raw and wild. It's also one of the few places that retains a sense of authentic culture, due to remoteness---though Elon's Starlink and China's Belts and Roads efforts are homogenizing the culture with the rest of the world. As of right now though, Africa continues to be an unrivaled, amazing experience and as close to the old world frontier as we can hope to find in the modern day.

Totally feel this @Charlie Benton

When you tell someone who has been to Africa that you're going to Africa, they will grab you by the arm or lay a hand on your shoulder, lock eyes with you, and recount the trip they took. It's an insanity void of inanity and the years melt away on a fella who professes his sincere and deadly love for that wild country.

Before my first trip, I thought there was no way in hell that any one place could vise grip a sonofabitch that hard.

But then I went.

Now I go to sleep every night trying to figure out how to get back to Africa, and I wake up every morning a little brokenhearted that I'm not there.

 

[Andrew Wilson]

Japan! I did a motorcycle trip there a couple years back (Which I wrote about for FE) and I barley scratched the surface of the amazing natural beauty, great food, and fascinating culture

Someday I got to get to Japan

 

[Andrew Wilson]

This will come as a surprise to no one, but my vote is for Africa. There's an unbelievable abundance of game and so much of the land is still raw and wild. It's also one of the few places that retains a sense of authentic culture, due to remoteness---though Elon's Starlink and China's Belts and Roads efforts are homogenizing the culture with the rest of the world. As of right now though, Africa continues to be an unrivaled, amazing experience and as close to the old world frontier as we can hope to find in the modern day.

When I went to Africa, I was terrified it was going to be a canned experience, something like a Disney Cruise, but I was pleasantly surprised! It's still raw.

 

[huntbirdz]

Alaska...definitely. I went to The Last Frontier for the first time about four years ago at the invite of a detective buddy of mine in Kenai. He told me to get up there and bird hunt with him. From the moment I looked out of the plane's window, I was blown away as to how massive the state is. Later, on a puddle jumper it looked even more wild a few hundred feet up. By the end of the first day spruce grouse hunting, I had already encountered several moose that got too close, and bears. Trailing bird dogs, I never knew what was going to come out of the brush, muskeg, or forest. It was a constant state of paying attention and watching where I was and listening. It was even more nerve wracking hiking in eight hours into the backcountry for ptarmigan, but the views and unbridled wildness of the land was like being doused in frigid water, life changing. It awakened me to things I had missed. Venturing anywhere in Alaska you have to plan for the worst and be proficient or should be, to staying alive if something goes sideways. Sitting on a hillside with dead birds at my side, watching grizzlies below me was amazing and exhilarating.

 

[Godfather]

To me this is very situational - ie. it's both PLACE, and TIME:

Ireland, just south of Killarney, on my families ancestorial land, Killeagh, in what is now a national park, on the highlands above the Ring of Kerry, looking down on the Mucross Estate where my Great Grandfather was the Head Gameskeeper for the Bonnie Vincent family, wind blowing in my face, staring at a large deer.

Jerusalem, with my family, hearing the Adhan and watching the Muslim Quarter shut down as they went to pray, and realizing those two square miles that have been fought over forever are all about one thing, FAITH.

Up above main camp at Crusader in the BaviaansRiver, first light, seeing the early rays of sun cast upon a WaterBuck, as he stood in full glory, I let him live, I had taken one of his brothers earlier in the week.

Watching my amazing wife of 33 years walk down the aisle, the church built in the early 1900's, one of my groomsmen's Grandfather had been a mason and installed the incredible array of Irish marble, knowing that my Grandparents were married in the same church.

Outside Ketchikan, Alaska, back transom of twenty-foot fishing boat, fighting to reel in my first Silver Salmon, as a bald eagle flew over.

In the hills Steinbeck so aptly described, North of Paso Robles, California, early light, early 1980's, having run up a hill, winded, borrowed Steyr SSG69 chambered in .308 in my hands, stupid young guide says if you pull the trigger, it's your shot, big Russian boar headed up the opposite hill, nearly four hundred yards out, steadied the rifle on my knee and pulled the two stage trigger, boar went down, my first big game animal was in the books.

Upper Owens River Valley, fly fishing pool to pool, catch and release, and losing all sense of time until my wife hiked to tell me it was time to go back to the cabin.

...and my list goes on and on and on.....

One memory, one place, one experience, does not define us, good or bad, as we probably all have both types in the library, they are just chapters in the book of our lives we write in each day.

 

[Alexandra]

If I ever disappear, you'll [probably] find me in the Italian Alps. Valtellina (Sondrio province) has its hooks in me, as does Sudtirol.