To easily find your way through Europe & the Middle East all maps are designed so anyone can create a personalised travel itinerary in under 5 minutes. Simply click on a country or region and figure out how to get from A to B, where to book budgetfriendly transportation and where to find the best destinations on your way.

All destinations shown come with a few ground-rules.

1. Overall attractiveness. They were handpicked after exhaustive and in-depth research by yours truly. A top 2000 of Europe and the Middle East if you will.
2. Ecological travel. Because people will bang on about your ecological footprint. All places are accessible without the need to drive or fly. And yeah, global warming is real.
3. Direct travel. Nobody likes layovers. Frequent direct transport connections with other destinations are a Godsend for the independent traveller. For example hovering over Paris will show direct train connections as far as Vienna.
4. Urban enough to easily find a place to spend the night.

You’ll find your regular staple of destinations like anywhere on the internet. But there are many other unique maps to widen your horizon further. Maps inspired by the great travellers, novelists, moviemakers and even conspiracy theorists of the past. Take the main map above: inspired by an islamophobe.

Europe is no longer Europe. It is Eurabia, a colony of Islam. – Journalist Oriana Fallaci

To me ‘Eurabia’ feels a lot like a real life version of Middle Earth. As every corner has its own epic story to tell, this extremely well-connected part of planet earth quickly becomes the ideal canvas for the independent traveller. Probably the best place in the world to explore.

Imagining geography intensifies it’s own sense of self and overdramatises the distances and differences between what is close and what is far away – Professor Edward Said

Just don’t try the 50 hour direct bus from Bordeaux to Bucharest, Edward.