Algeria

North Africa has some of the most exciting and exotic cultures and landscapes in the world. The region has an edgy energy - almost a breathless quality - about it: the intense, relentless heat; surreal, mystical labyrinthine souks and medinas, some of which look so unearthly they have been used in films set in space (some star wars scenes were set in Tunisia); ruins and temples scattered about the land like sweets waiting to be discovered afresh.