• Australia/Kimberley Range

It would be, wouldn’t it? The first thing we saw after stepping out of the Toyota Landcruiser at El Questro was a crocodile…

• Cuba, Cienfuegos

The conversion of the building into a hotel is a typically and eccentrically Cuban affair

• Cuba, Havana

Undoubtedly one of the best places to stay in Havana Viejo is a first floor suite in the Santa Isabel – formerly the Count of Santovenia’s palace

• Cuba/Jardines de la Reina

The gardens Christopher Columbus saved for the Queen, a large uninhabited archipelago, may seem empty at first, but one only need to look deeper to find what he must have seen

• India/Nimaj

Durga, a Hindu warrior goddess, remains as relevant to Rajasthan, a state in India with a violent history, as ever. But this low-key tent camp built on a dam wall offers a sweet refuge

• India/Varanasi

It's a contradiction that's not easy for the first time visitor to swallow: that one of the most patently polluted places on earth is a place where people come to be purified

• Indonesia/Irian Jaya

Isabella Tree recounts her arrival amongst the Highlanders of Irian Jaya - a people whose culture is fast disappearing - with her Papua New Guinean friend, Akunai

• Japan/Kyoto

Her face was chalk white – the image of every Japanese tourist poster; her hair lacquered into glossy black wings, transfixed with ornaments like some exotic cocktail...

• Kenya/Tana Delta Camp

As mad as it may seem to build an entire resort atop a 100ft sand dune, that lunacy fits right in with the lunacy of its surroundings

• Mexico/general

In Juchitan, a thriving market town on the Pacific Coast, Isabella Tree samples a traditional Zapotec 'cleansing' at the hands of one of the town's powerful matriarchs

• Mexico/Tehuantepec/Juchitan

In the hazy glow of a Pacific afternoon two teams of transvestites are engaged in their weekly basketball match. They’re wearing micro-skirts and crop-tops and shrieking like schoolgirls.

• Morocco/Marrakech

The hammam was not how I imagined. I had pictured something bustling and sociable, a traditional courtyard thronged with women in towels like a scene from Steaming

• Nepal/Kathmandu

Smoking hashish is an obligatory function of the sadhu, or holy man - part of his ‘darshan’, his divine gift of communication with god; and for the three days of Shivaratri the Nepalese authorities who usually subscribe to the school of ‘zero tolerance’, turn a blind eye to all the bleary shenanigans going on down at the ancient golden temple of Pashupatinath.

• Nepal/Kathmandu

There are more gods than people here, so the saying goes, with Buddhas and bodhisattvas, tantric gods and mother goddesses at every turn.

• Nepal/Kathmandu

This almost jocund familiarity with death is one of the first challenges a westerner faces when encountering Tibetan Buddhism. “Your thigh-bones would make marvellous trumpets”, he’d exclaimed, “Would you like to leave them to our monastery?”

• Papua New Guinea/Trobriand Islands

In the Trobriand Islands the annual yam festival is more than just ordinary. Nick burst out laughing when I told him I was heading for the Trobriand Islands. 'I hope you know how to bite off a man’s eyebrows,' he said.

• Poland/Krakow

The enduring legacy of Krakow’s extraordinary capacity for survival, its tradition of stoical underground resistance and socio-political camaraderie, is a burgeoning café culture of steamy windows and smoke-filled cellars. This is a city where people still talk for hours; where the din of conversation rises exuberantly above the sound of musak and the rustle of newspapers.

• Southeast Asia/Singapore

The Imperial Herbal Restaurant in Singapore is definitely not the place to go on a first date. Before you’ve had time to shake out your napkin or sink an aperitif

• Sri Lanka/Dambulla

With a curious interest in Sri Lanka’s elephant fascination, Isabella Tree begins to understand the respect paid to them, and really fathom why

• USA/Wyoming

It’s precisely this wild west, no-holds-barred, live-or-die frontier attitude that resonates so perfectly with children

• USA/Wyoming

We rendez-voused at the trailhead, an hour’s drive from Jackson and a few miles beyond the legendary Togwotee Pass. Dogsleds are designed for equilibrists. They take for granted an almost superhuman sense of balance