Man charges £4,000 per person for holidays to Afghanistan despite Foreign Office 'do not travel' advice
If someone was to ask you where your dream holiday would be perhaps you'd say somewhere on a beach in the Caribbean, or to Iceland to watch the Northern Lights dance above your head.
Maybe those braver among us who enjoy seeking out a thrill would say an expedition up the incredibly challenging Mount Everest.
However, one man has decided to throw caution to the wind and offer tourist holidays to Afghanistan, despite the Foreign Office advising Brits to avoid travel to the country on its website.
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Freelance cameraman Joe Sheffer has decided to cash in on the bizarre opportunity by charging punters £4,000 per person for a tour around the war-torn country.
He's offering the trip through his travel company Safarat Tours, and has been honest in answering travellers worries about how safe it is to travel to Afghanistan.
The website reads: "From our point of view, we consider Afghanistan a reasonable place to travel or we wouldn’t be offering the country as a destination. We are constantly reassessing the situation and would never hesitate to cancel or curtail a trip if that assessment changed.
"Significantly, low level corruption and intimidation at checkpoints has largely evaporated. This makes it considerably more difficult for criminals or terrorists to move around easily by paying cheap bribes.
"The Taliban are a heavy presence in all cities and are found dotted around at dozens of checkpoints on the main roads, which were formerly held by national army or police."
Nevertheless, Joe has been honest that trip could be dangerous, with tourists at risk from targeted attacks on foreigners and accidentally being caught in an explosion or fighting.
However, he explains on his website that his company 'mitigates' these risks via their local knowledge and itinerary choices.
The Brit and his colleague took their first group of travellers to Afghanistan in October, but Sheffer says that this time around it's a 'bigger group' that are set to travel, headed for their destination in just a few weeks.
Sheffer explained that his next tour will include 'a mix of people, some for whom it's a bucket list item, others have been engaged with Afghanistan for a while.'
He mentioned that he'd managed to get insurance to cover the trip for him and his travellers, despite the Foreign Office's advice against travelling to Afghanistan.
Sheffer says that the 'meat of the trip' will be in Kandahar and Helmand, in the Taliban's heartland around the southern parts of Afghanistan.
He plans to return later in the year too, taking a bigger group to the country in autumn along with a photographer from the New York Times to document the trip.
Sheffer told LADbible: "We are offering a genuine insight into Afghanistan whilst directly employing Afghans who have been left in a terrible situation regarding poverty and employment.
"The Afghan people should not be punished for the behaviour of the Taliban."
Topics: Travel
Harley Young