Why do tourists go to Afghanistan?

Ancient ruins?

I think that’s just about the best question I’ve read on Fluther! Certainly one of the most timely ;-)

I’ve wondered the same thing. Two of my best friends, a married couple, are hopelessly addicted overseas travelers. They go every year, sometimes twice a year, and they’ve gone everywhere, including various hotspots. We had lunch last week before they departed on yet another trip—can’t recall where but I believe it’s considered one of the “safer” locations (as if ANYWHERE is really safer anymore—and they told me this was the first time they ever hesitated to travel abroad, and were seriously considering limiting their travel from now on.

I don’t know why anyone would want to go to Afghanistan these days. Makes me nervous just going to downtown Austin.

Good one, @ragingloli.

Sex trade. Look up Afghan dancing boys and then go take a shower and sanitize your eyes and brain with bleach.

Why now? or why ever?

Now? I don’t get it.

Ever? I’d love to see / experience it – but I wish I’d gone 30 years ago. Wonderful people, great food, beautiful scenery.

Maybe 100 years ago would have been better?

To abduct various wildlife

Yeah, “Why now?” would be the question.

Thanks, @Pachy. It’s a damned shame they have to limit their travel or even contemplate it.

Thanks, anyway, @Winter_Pariah. I’ll take your word for it. But aren’t there safer places to pedophile? Singapore or Thailand or someplace?

Well, yeah, if it was safe, I’d love to go, @BellaB. Safe + wonderful people, great food, beautiful scenery isn’t that hard to find. New Mexico. lol

My experience with the food of New Mexico (as well as some not very sympatico humans) would lead me to look elsewhere.

I love Afghani food and would really like to see the Bamiyan Buddhas as well as some of the valleys. A couple of decades ago, I got to know someone from Afghanistan online. He posted some truly beautiful photos and I always wished I could have seen his world before it got so messed up.

No @ragingloli

Ancient ruins is why people go to Detroit.

I would love to visit the middle east. But you aren’t going to see me getting my head cut off on u tube.

Iran especially attracts me. But I would never go. Not worth it. Sad. It sucks.

There are a lot of people with little sense. Then there are those with obsessions. If there were live-in work tours of hell, the list of those eager to pay a fortune for the “experience” would startle the sane.

There are many reasons tourists would want to visit Afghanistan. I would like to go myself but there is no way I would go while there is a war going on.

@BellaB “would really like to see the Bamiyan Buddhas”

Those don’t exist anymore. They were destroyed back in 2001.

@MrGrimm888

Iran’s a stable, secure and modern country. You’re as safe there as you are anywhere on the planet. Whether or not Americans in general are allowed to enter the country may be a different matter (assuming you’re an American), but relations between the US and Iran are thawing and they can be a friendly nation again if we’ll just let them.

Ya don’t set the time machine for -30 years – that puts you in the middle of the Soviet occupation fighting the Taliban with CIA advisers helping the Taliban. (Unless you’re in a bad movie about (pointlessly) going back in time to kill Osama Bin Laden.)

And you might get choked out by some guy with a robot arm hiding in a cardboard box.

@Darth Algar, you wouldn’t catch me anywhere in the middle east. And just because we’ve been on speaking terms with Iran for like a year doesn’t change my mind.

I’m super poor anyway, so it’s not like I would have been able to go if I wanted.

I wouldn’t be interested in visiting the Middle East at this time.
I’d hesitate at visiting France, unless it was a tour of the countryside.

I would love to visit Turkey, but right now, I wouldn’t. I’ve never really thought about Afghanistan, but from a cultural and historic perspective, I imagine it would be a fascinating place – at a different time. Right now, it’s not safe. I have no idea why some people determine their safety is less important than the opportunity to visit a place. Perhaps it’s so cheap they can’t resist?

I’ve often thought I would like to visit Turkey, too, @Earthbound_Misfit.
Not now, but in the past.

Some people want to feel like they’ve actually travelled somewhere and 2 weeks on a beach in a country with so many expats you never meet a native probably doesn’t float their boat.