FIVE OF THE PLANET’S UNEXPLORED PLACES

The suggestions below are not holiday destinations. Travellers should always follow UK Foreign Office advice – which for these is, basically, “don’t go”.

The giant sinkholes of the Guyana Shield South America

Some of these, spanning Guyana, Venezuela and Brazil, have not even been reached – let alone explored. This is because the dense forest and confusing rocky outcrops obscure them. Should you negotiate your way there, you will still need to be handy with a rope, so as to descend your objective’s vertiginous sides. I once climbed Mount Roraima, one of many such isolated, misty “Lost World” plateaus typical of the region. Even back then, in 1983, I thought this magnificent landscape would remain a long while “lost”. And so it has proved.

Hindenburg Wall Papua New Guinea

This is not so much a “wall” as an extensive karst range of cliffs, ravines and caves. Visited for the first time by outsiders just 100 years ago (a patrol officer named Leo Austen made it to the southern edge in 1922), the region lies in New Guinea’s central mountains. Forbidding enough as the Wall is, earthquakes and heavy rainfall result in frequent landslides, further thwarting the ambitions of indigenous inhabitants and foreigners. To this day, the hideaway is a treasure house of barely examined habitats.

Kabobo Massif Eastern Congo

Like much of the surrounding region, the massif has remained inaccessible to outsiders for years due to conflict. The 60-mile Kabobo mountain range lies in the easternmost Democratic Republic of Congo, an additional safeguard from visitors being the proximity of an international border (with Tanzania). Another is the almost 420-mile-long Lake Tanganyika, protecting the Kabobo’s eastern flank. The result is a long swathe of montane forest – one of the biological hotspots of Africa.

Gangkhar Puensum mountain, and its surrounds Bhutan-China border region

The mountain itself boasts the highest unclimbed summit on the planet and, like most major peaks in Bhutan, is regarded as sacred – and therefore off limits. But it is not just spiritual considerations that have kept the upper reaches unexplored.

The almost 300-mile-long northern border of

Bhutan is also shared with, and in parts contested by, China. All this means there is a very long, broad ribbon of no-go mountain tops and pristine glacial valleys remaining to be explored.