10 great destinations lost to modern travellers

For holidaymakers, horizons are shrinking. We lament the loss of places that were once on travel wishlists.

Socotra, Yemen

Climbing up a thousand metres through a dusty heat, we crested the mossy ridge, and there it was. The last remaining forest of dragon blood trees in the world, hundreds of them standing sentinel along a limestone ridge, silhouetted against a huge sky like blown-out umbrellas, their wizened boughs twisted like bent spokes tangled in a wind.

I was high up in the Haggeher mountain range on Socotra, a Yemeni island the size of Cornwall which has never heard of McDonald’s. It’s the land of the djinn, prized for its frankincense, where older generations still consult a Makoli witch doctor, where men still speak in unwritten languages and sleep in caves in the hot months. An island cut off from the world for six months a year by monsoons and now by war in its motherland. 

I could have taken the weekly ‘humanitarian’ flight from Abu Dhabi. But I wanted to take time to arrive at this island caught in a fracturing time capsule, a Unesco Natural World Heritage Site where a third of its species are endemic, so instead I boarded a commercial dhow carrying building materials, several hundred cartons of chocolate milk, and provisions for a week.

Thirty-four hours later silvery white sand dunes shimmered in a milky moonlight. Ahmed Adeeb helped me clear customs and drove me to a huge white tent and a warm bush shower on a pink sandy beach guarded by curious Egyptian vultures. We spent a week swimming in warm seas vivid with bright fish, exploring huge caves vibrant with stalagmites and stalactites, gyrocoptering, hiking and fly-camping. Our last destination was the forest, where, miraculously, our tents had now been moved into the shade of the dragon blood tree, known for its red resin and still harvested by Soqotri as a cure for dysentery and fever; a colour so evocative of the tragedy unravelling in its beleaguered homeland.

By Annabel Heseltine