So we've been kicking around the idea of taking a trip to Mongolia late next year sometime. Airfare is remarkably cheap if you book several months ahead, and actually staying and traveling in Mongolia is pretty much as inexpensive as one could ask for, even during the current recession (the exchange rate is something like 1 to 1387, which seems pretty reasonable...). More importantly, it's a beautiful country, and pretty friendly, with a lot of fascinating places to go and explore. The Gobi Desert looked amazing on the "Planet Earth" series, and there's places there to go fossil hunting. It's even got a legendary death worm, like something straight out of Robert E. Howard, to either believe or disbelieve in, which is always entertaining. Did I mention most of the country can be seen on horseback? There's an indigenous reindeer culture to visit, falconers who fly eagles, rivers to fish, Paleolithic cave drawings, Tibetan Buddhist sites to see, small town naadams, new foods to try, and lots of ponies to ride- what more could one ask?