Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World

Some good Canadian with lots of hard currency should give Pico Iyer a ticket to Yellowknife, or Inuvik, or Pangnirtung or Come By Chance—almost anywhere in Canada, come to think of it. Iyer is the author of Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World (Vintage), which is a great read and hardly lonely at all (loneliness, after all, is the attribute of the traveller, not the place, but anyway) and includes North Korea, Argentina, Cuba, Iceland, Bhutan, Vietnam, Paraguay and Australia, but not even one hectare of what must by now be the largest lonely place on the planet. If you can't send him a ticket, send this guy a snotty note or something.