Destinations you shouldn't visit: Five places I won't go to

I watched most of Anthony Bourdain's travel and food TV shows in a state of highly focused jealousy. I wanted to be where he was at pretty much all times. I want to eat what he was eating. I wanted to drink what he was drinking. I wanted to do and see all of the things he has. It's my kind of travel.

That is, until the other day when I watched the episode of No Reservations set in Panama, and Bourdain and his crew took a flight south to the Darien Gap, that huge section of almost impenetrable jungle that separates Panama from Colombia, Central America from South. I sat there for about 15 minutes watching Bourdain sweat and stumble and swear and I thought to myself: No. Thank. You.

It made me realise that, as curious and adventurous as I may be, there are parts of the world that I have no desire to visit. These are few and far between – I could only come up with five for this list – but there are places on this Earth that hold no appeal for me whatsoever, at least in their current social and political climates. These are the places I just do not want to go.

North Korea

I've written before about North Korea, saying that I actually do want to visit, that I am fascinated by this strange and kind of scary place that seems like nowhere else on Earth. However, after following the case of Otto Warmbier, the American student who visited North Korea as a tourist in January 2016, and eventually returned home in a coma in June this year before dying six days later of a severe neurological injury – all because he's supposed to have stolen a picture or poster from his Pyongyang hotel – my mind has been changed. There are plenty of great places in the world to visit, and it really doesn't seem like North Korea is one of them.

See also: Visiting North Korea is like 'torture porn' for tourists

Pitcairn Islands

As an extremely popular and fashionable child I used to collect stamps – still can't figure out why I didn't have more friends – and one of my most treasured, most exotic stamps, was from the Pitcairn Islands. I fantasised about what this far-flung tropical destination must be like. I dreamed of one day going there and seeing it for myself. Then, of course, I heard about the child abuse scandal in 2004, when six of Pitcairn's 50 residents – including the mayor – were imprisoned for sexual offences, and I heard about the subsequent call for new settlers to the island which went pretty much unheeded. Yeah, nup.