Traveling to Iran as an American citizen may sound complicated and dangerous. It’s not. We’re here to dispel the myths and answer the questions piling up in our inbox about visas, safety, and other concerns based on our visit to Iran.
Our aim in the following Q&A is to answer actual reader queries and to help demystify the process of traveling to Iran, especially for Americans.
This is a story of a woman I met on a train in Iran and a letter she wrote to me — a letter I now read through tears.
My heart sank as I watched the news from Iran this morning, scenes of the British Embassy being charged by an angry mob in Tehran. It saddens me – angers me, really – that narrow groups like this who define the world’s perception of Iran and the Iranian people are in reality such a small percentage of the country's population.
My experience tells me they are the outliers, yet circumstances conspire to convince us on the outside to see them as the norm.
Although Persepolis is one of Iran’s top archeological and tourist sites, I was careful to keep my expectations in check before visiting. After all, what would remain of the 2,500 year-old capital of the Achaemenid Empire? Amidst crumbled columns, I found great detail that blew me away and a surprising connection to the present.
There's nothing like early morning light falling through a stained-glass window…casting designs on a Persian carpet…amidst immaculately tiled pink columns.
This is the winter prayer hall inside the Pink Mosque in Shiraz, Iran.
What does it feel like to travel to Iran, to fly into the country for the first time? Here’s the story of our flight to Tehran including some things you might expect, and some others you might not.
Destination: TEHRAN. I ogle my boarding pass at the departure gate in Istanbul. We bought the tickets months before, all easy enough. So easy in fact that we wondered if the day of our flight would actually ever come; a rejected visa application snatching it all away in a breath.
But our Iranian visas were approved and there we were waiting to board a plane — our plane — to Tehran.
We offer the following slideshow of girls we've met during our around the world travels in support of The Girl Effect, an organization whose goal is to promote awareness of girls’ issues around the world and to highlight the benefits of investing in girls as a means to poverty alleviation, better public health and community development.
A view of Berlin — its cycles of destruction and renewal and the evolution of its food scene — through the lens of a one-night gastro tour.
If you wish to learn about a place, eat your way to the answer. This maxim resonates no less so than in Berlin, a city whose history tells of a rise from the ashes and from oppression and whose present-day witnesses a continual carving out of its own identity.
For as much as we’ve learned and eaten during our time in Berlin, there was apparently still more to eat, still more to learn.
This is a story of what we wear — and how, when you pack so little, you’d better make it count. When all your clothes need to fit into a couple of packing cubes, every item seems precious. Multi-purposed too, … Continue Reading
“We would like to eat American food. You know, you are American, so it would be great if we could try American food with you.” — A dinner request from our Iranian CouchSurfing guests a few weeks ago in Berlin.
Dan and I looked at each other, deer in headlights. American food? What's that?
