Ethiopia

Ethiopia does things its own way, and that's not a figure of speech. The country uses its own calendar, which is roughly seven years behind the Gregorian one - so when the rest of the world celebrated the millennium in 2000, Ethiopia waited until 2007. There are 13 months. The clock runs differently too: sunrise is 1 o'clock, not 6 AM. The writing system, Ge'ez, is one of the oldest alphabets still in active use, and it looks like nothing else on Earth. This is a country that was never colonized (a five-year Italian occupation during WWII doesn't count, and Ethiopians will tell you that firmly), and that independence seeps into every aspect of the culture.

The physical country is equally extraordinary. The Simien Mountains, often called "the roof of Africa," rise to 4,550 meters with cliff faces that drop a thousand meters straight down. Lalibela's eleven rock-hewn churches were carved top-down from solid volcanic rock in the 12th century, and they're still active places of worship. The Danakil Depression is the hottest inhabited place on Earth, with sulfur springs, lava lakes, and Afar salt miners working in 50°C heat. And then there's coffee - Ethiopia is where Coffea arabica originated, where a goatherd named Kaldi supposedly noticed his goats dancing after eating the berries, and where the coffee ceremony remains a sacred daily ritual. With 120 million people, over 80 languages, and a civilization that stretches back three thousand years, Ethiopia is less a country and more a continent in miniature.

The food alone is worth the trip. Injera, the spongy sourdough flatbread made from teff (a grain that grows almost nowhere else), serves as plate, utensil, and flavor vehicle for dozens of spiced stews and vegetable dishes. Ethiopian cuisine is one of the world's great culinary traditions, and the fact that much of the world hasn't figured this out yet is everyone else's loss.