I Was Terrified of the Middle East. 9 Countries Later, I Can’t Stop Going Back.

My sis GOT the video of me dancing in Jerusalem. Didn’t even know it existed until writing this article, I just know I never forgot that moment. He was such a delightful man. Here’s a pic from the moment below.

I’m in a jewelry store in Jerusalem, dancing with an older man I just met. No plan. No reason. Just music and a moment that happened because I said yes to a trip I almost didn’t take.

I watch that clip now and I think — I almost let fear rob me of this.

I’m gonna be straight with you. I was scared of the Middle East.

Not a little nervous. Scared. Like, I-don’t-want-to-die scared. Years of news cycles, headlines, and secondhand opinions had built this image in my head that the entire region was a war-zone wrapped in danger. I had zero desire to go.

My sister changed that.

She wanted to go to Turkey. I resisted. She pushed. We went. And Turkey broke something open in me — this realization that the picture I had in my head didn’t match what was actually on the ground. The people were warm. The food was unreal. The streets were safe.

So when she said Israel next, I didn’t fight it. I jumped at the thought.

That one decision started a domino effect that would eventually take me through Qatar, Dubai, the UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait (the best five star I’ve stayed at to date), and Jordan.

The Middle East went from my biggest fear to one of my favorite places on earth.

But Turkey and Israel were the door.

I don’t remember the name of the sandwich place. I’ve tried. It’s gone. I wil find it if I look harder (usually I save all the restaurants I peruse and forgot to save this one). But I remember the taste like it was yesterday.

The thing doesn’t even look impressive. Nothing about the presentation screamed “this is about to change your day.” But I took one bite and immediately knew I was coming back. I didn’t just go back once. I went back multiple times during the trip. That sandwich became a ritual.

On the last day, I ordered 3–4. I got three for myself. I didn’t think my sister would want more than one…come on bro.

That’s the thing about great food in unfamiliar places — it doesn’t announce itself. It just shows up looking ordinary and then wrecks your expectations (My favorite pasta place? a little spot in Kyoto that only two other people were in when I visited).

Tel Aviv also gave me some of the best gelato I’ve ever had in my life. And I’ve had gelato in Italy, so that’s not a throwaway statement. They do this fruit gelato thing — I had mango and raspberry — and the blend was so perfect it felt intentional in a way most gelato doesn’t.

Like someone actually thought about how those two flavors would land together instead of just scooping whatever was there.

The city itself had this energy. Modern, fast, beachy. Good food on every corner. Music on Sundays. But Tel Aviv wasn’t the reason I came. That was Jerusalem.

Let me tell you something nobody warns you about. Walking through Jerusalem is disorienting in a way that doesn’t compare to any other city I’ve been to — and I’ve been to over 60 countries.

The alleys twist. The tunnels loop. Pathways that look different end up in the same place. Pathways that look the same take you somewhere completely new. It’s like the city was designed to keep you wandering, to make sure you couldn’t just pass through without getting a little lost first.

Photos: Jerusalem alleys, tunnels, winding streets, the church in Gethsemane.

We had a guide. I’ll say that much. We also had to ditch that guide — strategically. I’m not gonna get into the details, but let’s just say it got a little sketchy and we made the right call.

Sometimes travel throws you a curveball and you gotta trust your gut over politeness. We trusted ours.

Even without the guide, we kept walking. That’s the thing about Jerusalem. The confusion isn’t a bug. It’s the experience. Every turn has something — a shop, a conversation, a smell, a piece of history you didn’t expect to stumble into.

The hotel had mosquitoes. Like, a lot of them. I don’t even remember the hotel name, but I remember those mosquitoes like roommates I didn’t ask for. Just part of the deal. You don’t go to Jerusalem for the hotel.

They don’t bite ME though….just my sister hehe. So of course, I like keeping the windows open.

Here’s something a lot of people don’t know about me.

I’m really into philosophy. Specifically, biblical philosophy and stoicism. I’ve read Epictetus. I’ve read Marcus Aurelius. Don’t quiz me on every doctrine — I won’t pass. But I engage with that material seriously. And the Bible? I rip that thing apart constantly. Not from a religious angle. From a wisdom angle.

Most people hear “the Bible” and immediately file it under religion and move on. I get it. But if you approach it with an objective lens — just looking at it as one of the oldest collections of human insight on discipline, suffering, consequence, and purpose — there are nuggets in there that hit harder than any modern self-help book on the shelf.

So walking through Jerusalem?

That wasn’t just tourism for me.

Standing at the Garden of Gethsemane — the place where, according to the text, a man wrestled with the weight of what was coming and chose to face it anyway — that hit different when you’re physically there.

It’s one thing to read about it.

It’s another thing entirely to stand in the space and feel the age of it.

The realness of it.

I’m not here to preach. I’m here to tell you that if you engage with ideas seriously, visiting the places where those ideas were born will change something in you. Jerusalem did that for me. It took concepts I’d been studying for years and made them three-dimensional.

There’s a moment from the trip that sticks with me for a completely different reason.

I’m sitting somewhere in Jerusalem eating ice cream. Just vibing. And suddenly there are people everywhere — signs, chanting, energy. A boycott. Protests related to Palestine. I had no idea what was happening. I was literally mid-scoop trying to figure out why the street just changed.

I’m not going to get political here. That’s not what this article is about. But what I will say is this — we left Jerusalem, and shortly after, everything in the region escalated. The conflict intensified. The news got heavier. The window we had to experience that city in relative peace started closing.

We got there right in time. I don’t take that for granted.

A few years later, we met some Israeli guys in Vienna at a chocolate museum, who were stuck and they couldn’t get back home because of all the stuff happening between Israel and Palestine.

Israel was supposed to be a one-off. My sister wanted to go. I got over my fear. We went. Done.

Except it wasn’t done.

After Israel, I looked at my sister and said let’s keep going. We hit Qatar. We hit Dubai. We did the UAE. We did Oman. I remember being in Dubai and saying “we’re going to Qatar tomorrow” like it was nothing. Like hopping between countries in a region I used to be terrified of was just… Tuesday.

Then I went back. Did it all again — plus Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. The Middle East became my thing.

And here’s what I need you to hear if you’ve never been: it is one of the safest places in the world. I’m not exaggerating. The hospitality is unmatched. The food is insane. The history is layered in ways that make most Western cities feel like they were built last week.

I know that doesn’t match what the news tells you. It didn’t match what it told me either.

And then I went.

Sixty countries in and I still think about that sandwich. I still watch that video of me dancing with a stranger in a jewelry store. I still think about standing in the Garden of Gethsemane feeling something I can’t fully explain.

Israel surprised me.

It humbled me.

It made me angry at myself for almost letting fear win.

If you’re sitting where I was a few years ago — curious but scared, interested but hesitant — I only have one thing to say.

Go.

The version of you on the other side of that fear is someone you haven’t met yet. And trust me, you’re gonna like them.

I walked the streets at midnight on a Sunday and felt safer than most American cities at noon.

There’s this thing that happens in Tel Aviv after dark that nobody tells you about.

The sun drops. The heat loosens its grip. And the city exhales.

I’m walking back to my hotel on a Sunday night — late, like well-past-any-reasonable-hour late — and the streets aren’t empty. They’re alive. Not in a chaotic way. Not in a dangerous way. In a way that feels like the whole city just clocked out and decided to exist together for a while.

Music drifts off the beach. Not a club. Not a bar blasting speakers into the sidewalk. Just… a scene. People sitting, playing, vibing. It felt like stumbling into someone’s living room except the living room was a coastline and everyone was invited.

That’s when I grabbed the falafel wrap.

I don’t even remember deciding to stop. There was a spot. It was open. The wrap was in my hand and I was walking again. That’s how food works in Tel Aviv — it just appears in your life at the exact right moment like it was waiting for you to walk by.

I got two of them. I can be a pretty hungry Joe.

I know that sounds dramatic. I don’t care.

There’s a breeze that comes off the Mediterranean at night in Tel Aviv that does something to you. It’s not just cool air. It’s invigorating in a way that resets your entire nervous system. You breathe different. You walk different. Your shoulders drop. Your brain quiets down.

I remember standing still for a second — just stopped walking — and thinking, I feel different here.

Not better. Not worse. Different. Like a version of me that doesn’t carry the weight of the usual noise. The emails, the content calendar, the obligations. None of it followed me onto that street.

Here’s what surprised me most.

Tel Aviv at night doesn’t feel like a city full of strangers. It feels like a neighborhood. People are out together — not just couples on dates, but groups, families, older people, younger people. There’s a sense of community that you can actually feel in the air. It’s not performative. Nobody’s trying to prove anything. They’re just… together.

I’ve been to over 60 countries. I’ve walked through cities at night on every continent. Very few of them gave me this feeling. This sense that the people around me weren’t just occupying the same space — they were sharing it.

It’s hard to explain if you haven’t experienced it. But if you’ve ever been somewhere and thought, these people actually like being around each other, that’s Tel Aviv on a Sunday night.

This wasn’t the most dramatic night of my trip. No stranger danced with me. No ancient garden rewired my brain. I didn’t witness history unfolding in front of me while eating ice cream.

It was just a walk. A falafel wrap.

That was also the night I had got that gelato.

A breeze off the water. Music I didn’t choose playing from somewhere I couldn’t see.

And somehow that was enough to make me miss it years later.

The best travel moments aren’t always the ones that make the story. Sometimes they’re the ones that make you go quiet. The ones where nothing extraordinary happens except you feel fully alive for fifteen minutes on a street you’ll probably never find again.

Tel Aviv gave me that. And I’m going back for more.

I’ve been reading about the Garden of Gethsemane for years.

Not casually. Not the way most people skim a Bible verse on a Sunday and move on. I mean ripping the text apart, sitting with it, studying what happened in that garden — the weight of a decision, the fear before the commitment, the moment a man chose to face what was coming instead of running from it.

I studied that story from my couch. From my desk. From airplanes and hotel rooms in dozens of countries. I engaged with it intellectually for years.

And I almost never stood there.

Let me be honest with you. I didn’t avoid Israel because the flights were expensive. I didn’t skip it because the timing wasn’t right. I didn’t push it off because I was too busy.

I was scared.

Scared of the Middle East. Scared of the headlines. Scared of the version of that region I’d built in my head from years of news cycles and secondhand fear from people who had never been there either.

Think about that for a second. I had a place I genuinely wanted to visit — a place connected to ideas I’d spent years studying — and I let fear build a wall between me and the experience. Not a real wall. Not a logistical wall. A wall made entirely of things I imagined.

That’s what most of us do with the things we want most.

We don’t say “I’m too scared.” We say “maybe next year.” We say “the timing isn’t right.” We say “I need to save more” or “I need to plan more” or “I need to be more ready.” And then we wake up five years later having done none of it, and we call that being responsible.

It’s not responsible. It’s fear wearing a nice outfit.

My sister wanted to go to Turkey. I resisted. She pushed. I went.

That trip cracked something open. Not because Turkey was life-changing in some dramatic, cinematic way — but because the reality on the ground didn’t match the story in my head. The people were warm. The food was unreal. The streets were safe. Everything I’d been told to be afraid of just… wasn’t there.

Turkey was my proof of concept. It showed me that the barrier between me and the Middle East was made of smoke. And once you walk through smoke, you realize there was nothing behind it.

So when my sister said Israel, I didn’t fight it. And that decision — the decision to stop negotiating with my own fear — ended up producing one of the best experiences of my life.

I’m not going to preach to you. That’s not what I do.

But I will tell you what it felt like to stand in a place I’d only ever read about.

The Garden of Gethsemane is smaller than you’d think. Quieter. The trees are ancient — twisted and thick in a way that makes time feel different. And when you’re standing there, knowing what the text says happened in that exact space, something shifts. The words stop being words. The ideas stop being abstract. The philosophy you’ve been studying in your head suddenly has dirt under it. It has air. It has weight.

I stood there and thought — I almost traded this for fear. I almost let the news decide whether I was allowed to have this experience.

That’s the moment it hit me. Not just about Israel. About everything.

How many things have I wanted to do that I’ve delayed? How many curiosities have I let die because the timing wasn’t perfect or the conditions weren’t ideal? How many versions of this moment — standing somewhere that matters, feeling something real — have I left on the table because I was too comfortable being afraid?

I don’t believe in bucket lists.

I know that’s a controversial take. People love their bucket lists. They write them on New Year’s. They pin them to their walls. They talk about them at dinner parties like the act of writing something down is the same as doing it.

It’s not.

A bucket list is a graveyard of good intentions dressed up as ambition. It gives you permission to delay. It says, “I’ll get to it eventually.” And eventually is where dreams go to die quietly so you don’t have to feel bad about killing them.

Here’s what I believe instead.

Write down every single thing you want to do. Every place you want to see. Every curiosity that keeps you up at night. Every experience you’d regret not having. Write all of it down.

Then start. Not next year. Not when the timing is right. Not when you’ve saved enough or planned enough or feel ready enough. Now. Start now. Start ugly. Start scared. Start broke if you have to. But start.

Because life does not care about your timeline.

This is the part where most writers would give you a motivational quote and send you on your way. I’m not going to do that.

I’m going to tell you something uncomfortable instead.

You are going to die. I am going to die. Everyone reading this sentence is on a clock that doesn’t pause, rewind, or negotiate. And when that clock stops, it doesn’t matter what was on your bucket list. It doesn’t matter what you planned to do. The only thing that matters is what you actually did.

I almost didn’t go to Israel. I almost let secondhand fear from people who’d never been there dictate the boundaries of my life. I almost missed standing in a garden that I’d been reading about for years — a place that made every hour I’d spent studying those texts feel worth it — because I was comfortable being afraid.

I went anyway. My sister pushed me. Turkey softened the landing. And Israel delivered something I didn’t know I needed.

But here’s what keeps me up at night sometimes — what if she hadn’t pushed? What if I’d said no to Turkey? What if I’d stayed comfortable?

I’d still be reading about Gethsemane from my couch. Studying it intellectually. Appreciating it from a safe distance. Never knowing what it felt like to stand in the place and feel the weight of it in my chest.

That’s what fear does. It doesn’t take your dreams away violently. It just convinces you to keep them at arm’s length until you forget they were ever close enough to grab.

Not to Israel specifically. Maybe your version of this is a different country. A different career. A different conversation you’ve been avoiding. A different version of your life that you keep pushing to “someday.”

Whatever it is — the thing you’re curious about, the thing that pulls at you, the thing you keep almost doing — stop almost doing it.

The version of you on the other side of that fear? You haven’t met them yet. And I promise you, they’re worth the jump.

I took mine. I landed in Turkey. Then Israel. Then nine more countries across a region I used to be terrified of.

And I’m still going.

I’m sitting somewhere in Jerusalem. Mid-scoop. Just vibing. The ice cream is good AF. The weather is warm. Life is fine.

And then the street changes.

People everywhere. Signs. Chanting. Energy shifting fast.

A boycott — protests related to Palestine — unfolding in real time right in front of me. I had absolutely no idea what was happening. I didn’t know it was coming. I hadn’t seen a single headline about it.

I was completely blindsided with a spoon in my hand.

We left Tel Aviv shortly after. And shortly after that, things escalated.

The conflict intensified. The news got heavier.

What had been a tense but manageable situation turned into something much bigger.

We got out right in time. That wasn’t strategy. That was luck.

And luck is not a travel plan.

Check travel advisories before and during your trip. But don’t stop at one source. For instance, I visited Egypt when it was advised as “Do Not Travel Advisory”

This is the part most people either skip entirely or half-ass. They’ll Google “is [country] safe” the night before their flight, read one article, and call it research.

Or worse — they’ll check nothing at all and assume everything is fine because it was fine when they booked the trip three months ago.

Things change. Fast. Especially in regions with political tension.

Here’s what I do now — every single trip:

Check your government’s official travel advisory. For Americans, that’s the State Department site.

But don’t stop there.

Cross-reference with actual news sources — multiple ones.

Even better if you have friends in the region.

Never stop at just one outlet. Not just American outlets. Check local news from the country you’re visiting. Check international coverage. Look for patterns to help you filter out the noise and bias (because that’s a common thing, too, for example Qater is safe AF, but the news may not communicate it like that to audiences).

If three different sources are flagging the same thing, pay attention.

One source can have a bias. One source can be outdated. One source can be sensationalized.

But when multiple independent sources are saying the same thing, that’s signal — not noise.

Let me be clear. This isn’t a fear piece. I’ve been to over 60 countries. The Middle East is one of my favorite regions on earth. I went back to the region multiple times after this experience.

But I go informed now. I don’t leave my safety up to luck and good ice cream timing.

I also talk to people around me in the region to learn what’s really going on.

Check the advisories. Read the news. Use more than one source. And keep checking while you’re there — not just before you leave.

That’s it. One tip. It takes ten minutes. And it might be the difference between a story you tell at dinner and a situation you wish you’d avoided.

Everything you’re afraid of is on the other side of the best week of your life.

Hey.

I know you’re not going to believe most of this. That’s fine. I didn’t believe it either. But I need you to hear it anyway because right now you’re two conversations away from talking yourself out of the trip that’s going to change everything.

You’re going to go to Israel. I know — breathe.

I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’ve heard.

I know the version of the Middle East that lives in your head right now, built from years of headlines you half-read and opinions from people who’ve never left their zip code. I had that same version. It’s wrong.

But you’re not ready for Israel yet. You’re going to start with Turkey. Your sister’s going to push you.

You’re going to resist. Let her win this one.

Turkey is the crack in the wall. Once you walk through it, you won’t stop walking for a long time.

You’re going to land in Tel Aviv and find a sandwich place. I can’t tell you the name because, honestly, I forgot it. I know — I’m you from the future and I still can’t remember the name of the place. It’s going to bother you for years.

But that sandwich is going to be so good that you go back multiple times in the same trip and get double each time you make a visit.

It doesn’t look like anything special. Don’t let that fool you.

They just show up looking ordinary and then rearrange your standards.

While you’re in Tel Aviv, get the gelato. Mango and raspberry. Don’t ask questions, just order it. You’ve had gelato in Italy, London, Prague, etc, and you think that’s the ceiling. It’s not.

One Sunday night in Tel Aviv, you’re going to walk back to your hotel late. Really late. And you’re going to notice something that doesn’t compute — the streets are alive. Not dangerous. Alive. There’s music drifting off the beach.

People are just existing together in a way that feels like community, not chaos.

You’re going to feel a breeze come off the Mediterranean that resets something in your chest. I can’t explain it better than that. You’ll feel different. Lighter. Like the noise you carry every day just decided not to follow you onto that street.

You’re going to grab a falafel wrap on the walk back. You won’t even remember deciding to stop. That’s how Tel Aviv works — it just feeds you at exactly the right moment.

Enjoy that walk. You’re going to miss it more than you’d expect.

This is the part I need you to really hear.

Jerusalem is going to disorient you. The alleys twist. The tunnels loop. Pathways that look different lead to the same place. Pathways that look the same take you somewhere new. You’re going to feel lost constantly. That’s not a bug. That’s the city doing what it does.

You’re going to hire a guide. You’re also going to have to ditch that guide. Trust your gut when the moment comes. You’ll know.

The hotel is going to have mosquitoes. A lot of them. Don’t let it ruin anything. You’re not in Jerusalem for the hotel.

You’re there for the Garden.

You’ve been reading about this place for years. Ripping apart the text. Studying what happened there — the weight of the decision, the fear before the commitment, the moment where everything could’ve gone differently but didn’t.

You’ve engaged with those ideas from your couch. From your desk. From a safe, intellectual distance.

Standing there is different.

The garden is smaller than you’d think. Quieter. The trees are ancient in a way that makes time feel like a suggestion rather than a rule. And when you’re standing in that space, everything you’ve studied stops being words on a page and starts having weight. Dirt. Air. Texture.

You’re going to stand there and realize you almost traded this for fear. You almost let the news decide whether you were allowed to have this experience. That realization is going to stay with you. It’s going to change how you make decisions about everything — not just travel.

You’re going to be eating ice cream somewhere in Tel Aviv when a protest erupts around you. Boycotts related to Palestine. People, signs, chanting — and you’re sitting there mid-scoop with absolutely no idea what’s happening.

Here’s what I need you to know: you’re going to leave shortly after that. And shortly after you leave, things are going to escalate in a way that would’ve made the trip very different. You got there in time. You got out in time. That wasn’t planning. That was luck.

So when you get home, build a new habit. Check travel advisories — not just one source, multiple sources. Local news. International coverage. Your government’s site. Do it before the trip and during the trip. Ten minutes of research is the difference between a great story and a bad situation.

You got lucky this time. Don’t make luck your strategy.

Here’s the part that’s going to sound insane to you right now.

After Israel, you’re not going to stop. You’re going to look at your sister and say “let’s keep going.” You’re going to hit Qatar. Dubai. The UAE. Oman.

You’re going to be in your bed in Dubai and casually say “we’re going to Qatar tomorrow” like hopping between countries in a region you used to be terrified of is just a normal Tuesday.

Then you’re going to go back. Again. Saudi Arabia. Bahrain. Kuwait. Jordan.

The Middle East — the place you were afraid to visit — is going to become one of your favorite places on earth. A second home of sorts. One of the safest places you’ve ever been. A region so full of warmth, history, and hospitality that it makes most Western cities feel hollow by comparison.

Sixty countries in and it’s still the region you talk about most.

All because your sister dragged you to Turkey and you stopped saying no.

Get on the plane.

Don’t wait until the timing is right. Don’t wait until you feel ready. Don’t wait until you’ve saved a little more or planned a little more or Googled “is it safe” one more time.

The things you want most in life are sitting on the other side of the fears you’ve been negotiating with. And fear is a terrible negotiator — it doesn’t take your dreams violently. It just convinces you to keep them at arm’s length until you forget they were ever yours.

Israel is going to be one of the best weeks of your life. You’re going to dance with a stranger in a jewelry store in Jerusalem and forget you even have the video until years later. You’re going to feel something in the Garden of Gethsemane that no book could’ve given you. You’re going to walk through Tel Aviv at midnight and wonder why you ever hesitated.

You’re going to come home different.

But only if you go.

This wraps up my week-long series on Israel — one of the places that turned my biggest fear into my greatest obsession. If you missed the rest of the series, go back and start from the beginning. Next week, I’m taking you somewhere new.

Destiny S. Harris