For many travelers, the chief reason for visiting Timbuktu is to say they did, to check the place off the intrepid world-travel list. That is why you occasionally meet hawkers selling T-shirts that proclaim, "I've been to Timbuktu and back!" The name instantly conjures a location that is remote and inaccessible, and with good reason. By the mid-19th century, only four Europeans had made it here, and not all of them made it back alive. From Morocco, on the north side of the Sahara Desert, the traditional camel trek took more than 50 days. Today, by four-wheel-drive, reaching the city requires an arduous, dusty, 20-hour drive from Mali's capital, Bamako, 135 miles of which is off-road.

- From Washington Post Magazine Read more