Mongolia

My visa in China needed a reset, so in 2013 I took the train from Beijing up through the Gobi to Ulaanbaatar. It's one of the great train rides. You go from hazy city to grassland to nothing, and somewhere along the way they change the wheels on the train because the tracks are a different width. Ulaanbaatar itself is a cold, scrappy capital with Soviet blocks and a giant statue of Genghis Khan never far from view.

The real Mongolia is outside the city. I stayed in a ger out on the steppe, where the silence is so complete you can hear your own heartbeat, and the stars come all the way down to the horizon. My host handed me a bowl of airag, fermented mare's milk, and watched to see what I'd do. I drank it. It tasted like fizzy yogurt and regret. Mongolia is the emptiest place I've ever been and one of the most memorable.