Flight of Fancy podcast: Countries with bad reputations that are still worth visiting

It's your friend's reactions that tell the story. It's the look on their faces when you tell them where you're going, when you announce that you're planning a holiday in Rwanda, or you're heading to Colombia, or you're about to spend a few weeks in Iran.

People know those places; they've seen them on the news. They know that they're scary. They know that they're dangerous. They know that no sane traveller would actually choose to go to places that have such a bad reputation.

And yet, those people are completely wrong. Because as you learn when you travel, a bad reputation means very little. A country might have a war-torn past, and it might even have a questionable present – for travellers though, that makes no real difference. In fact, it can often mean the experience you're about to have will be even better.

On this episode of Flight of Fancy, I chat to Traveller's Rob McFarland and Intrepid Travel product manager Jenny Gray about the bad boys of the travelling world – the countries that have a dodgy reputation, and why you should go there anyway.