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By Root 435 0

She’s right, of course—the worse something is in the moment, the better the story when you get home. So for those people who look at a warehouse full of rotting human sewage and see an interesting way to spend an afternoon, I also included some places that would be impossible to visit even if you were intent on finding the bright side in everything, like the Yucatán Peninsula sixty-five million years ago or the bottom of the Kola Superdeep Borehole. It might seem pointless to say that you shouldn’t go to a place like Io, Jupiter’s least hospitable moon, but look at it this way: when someone publishes 1,001 Places in Space to See Before You Die, the pressure will be off.

No matter what type of traveler you are, I invite you to take a break from your other to-do lists and spend a moment being grateful for some of the things you’re not doing. Then, when you’re ready to hit the road, leave behind your list of 1,001 Places You Must Pee* and give yourself a chance to come up with some experiences of your own. Travel should be an adventure, not an assignment, and if you spend your vacations armed with too many checklists, you’re missing the point of leaving home.

Chapter 1

The Testicle Festival

Forget apple pie. Few foods are as uniquely American as the Rocky Mountain oyster, a euphemism that refers not to a high-altitude mollusk but to the testicles of a bull. Also known as cowboy caviar and Montana tendergroin, these balls can be boiled, sautéed, or even eaten raw, but they’re usually treated more like chicken—breaded and deep-fried.

There are also few things more American than eating competitions, so it should come as no surprise that each summer offers opportunities to prove your manhood by stuffing your face with gonads. I appreciate the pun of the Nuts About Rocky Mountain Oysters competition that occurs annually in Loveland, Colorado. But the award for Best in Show goes to the Testicle Festival, held each year at the Rock Creek Lodge near Missoula, Montana. Started in 1982, it is America’s premier venue to chow down on balls.

When the festival first began, it drew about three hundred people. But these days the crowd has grown to fifteen thousand, and the debauchery has expanded to a weekend full of wet T-shirts, impromptu nudity, and an Indy 500–inspired race called the “Undie 500”—all natural evolutions of an event whose tagline is “Come Have a Ball.” Try your hand at Bullshit Bingo, a larger-than-life—and quite literal—game of chance where every time a bull defacates on a giant bingo card, someone wins $100. Or support the event’s alternate title—the Breasticle Festival—by signing up for the Biker Ball-Biting Competition, where girls riding on the backs of Harleys race to snag a Rocky Mountain oyster off a string without using their hands. There are belly shots. There’s No Panty Wednesday. And, of course, there are the Rocky Mountain oysters themselves—more than fifty thousand pounds of them—greasy, salted, and USDA-approved.

Jim Kleeman

Chapter 2

An Underpass in Connaught Circle, New Delhi, at the Moment When Someone Puts a Turd on Your Shoe

Imagine this scene: you’re walking through an underpass in Connaught Circle, a mess of traffic where twelve of New Delhi’s roads converge, and all of a sudden a voice calls out of the crowd.

“Excuse me, friend,” it says. “You’ve got feces on your shoe.”

Several weeks in India have made you realize that when people yell at you on the street, it’s usually best to ignore them. So at first you pay no attention. But something in this man’s voice is different, believable. He repeats himself, and you slowly lower your eyes.

And there it is: a flattened turd sitting on the top of your shoe.

Your first reaction is disbelief—you’ve had shit on the bottom of your shoe, sure. But the top? How can this be? There aren’t any birds around, or monkeys. Disgusted, you lean down to inspect it. Still moist and glistening, it gives off a familiar fecal smell.

You consider throwing up, but before your gag reflex can kick in, a voice pipes up. “Don’t worry, I will clean it for