...and then I was kidnapped and decapitated in a nice dark basement by a incredible friendly muslim.

I think the danish and norwegian girls in morocco thought the same bullsh#t. An AK-47 under the bed? Tanks on every Street? What a friendly and peaceful part of the world

@offspring Travel sometime. You literally see here that they are just normal people. If you actually go to other places you'll find most people have the same core values and wants as everyone else. If we're talking about guns "under the bed", well I think half of America has guns in their home and many have assault rifles. The tanks are there for the same reason most countries have tanks. To protect themselves against a unreasonable, hateful minority. What you think all Muslims are is in reality only a few unreasonable people that display hateful behaviour, kinda like you're doing now...

@offspring you're only confirming what this guy says: "the world is generally a much better place than we tend to see on the news". But if you want to wallow in your Fox-news driven stereotypes...

Anything can go wrong anywhere at anytime. The point was don't let fear stop you. He certainly didn't and it paid off with a nice trip. Cool pix!

you can keep my share!

maybe someday his body without head gonna be found on the street

he looks like Matt Damon's retarded little brother

Maybe you should stop watching CNN then, pal.

Kurdish part of Iraq is nowhere near as dangerous for westerners as other parts of Iraq. But were he to be walking around non Kurdish cities he could easily turn out like Nick Berg or Daniel Pearl.

@shark this. Kurdistan is the overall best part of all the countries it's in. Except in turkey, where the government destroys Kurdish citys.

lol @ the naivete of this whole post

Some places are statistically speaking more dangerous than others. And it's pretty much always the people there that make them so.

Now just because they are more dangerous, does not mean that 100% of the visitors come out scalped, or that there are not plenty of great people even in dangerous zones.

It could be 2% chance vs 1% chance that you get robbed on any particular visit. Still not very high odds of getting robbed. But much higher than that 1% odds or the 0.001% where I am...

note he went to kurdistan.....thats not the same as going to the rest of iraq where they frequently kidnap and decapitate non muslim......so its like going to the most protected area of the country then act as if the entire country is friendly its not the case

Yes he went to a safer area than some. But his visit is important to try and break stereotypes, hate, and fear of anyone from these “scary” places. The media does hype fear of anything Middle Eastern and spreads hate. People are judged just for being from Iraq or Iran, even though most of them don’t condone war and terrorism. The radicals don’t represent the culture and people. We need to reminded of that sometimes.

Without even breaking a sweat I can think of 10 US cities with neighborhoods where you're just as likely to be murdered as anywhere else in the world, Iraq included, and in one or two of them the murderers are just as likely to be white so-called Christians -- you know; just like most of America's serial killers and school shooters.

The more you travel, the less room for Xenophobia. Everyone wants to experience more happiness and less suffering. To live a life with dignity, parents want a future for their children, healthcare, water and food. It's what we all want. Let kindness be your religion, see what we have in common rather than what is different. However anyone tries to distract or diminish this post the idea is a good one. I hope that it has pleasantly surprised many who have seen it. Thank you