Backpackers can attest there’s no better way to fully experience a country than by walking through it.

Staying in a hostel or tent in the woods and interacting with locals. Grabbing food from a street cart and trekking through roving landscapes. The experience isn’t for everyone, but backpacking is a fulfilling and unique way to see foreign countries.

Whether you’re searching for history, food, culture, art, nature, good prices, or a mixture of everything, here are six of the best countries for backpacking:

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The holidays, cold weather and the flu. It’s an unfortunate combination, but all these things come around toward the end of the year.

And with the flu season in tow, there are also many myths involving the virus that people believe. Here are five of the most common flu myths about the virus and why you shouldn’t believe them:

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Smallpox, is a contagious illness that has a mysterious origin, as well as a long history.

Recently, tiny particles of the disease were discovered on an Egyptian mummy, identified as Pharaoh Ramses the V. The pharaoh reigned from 1150 – 1145 B.C., leaving the mummy 3,000 years old. In recent years, traces of smallpox were also found on two other Egyptian mummies, reigning during the Egyptian Dynasty from 1570 – 1085 B.C.

If smallpox can be found in ancient pharaohs, then how old can it be? Millennia later, there’s still much debate over this issue.

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What comes to mind when you think of scarlet fever?

To many people, the disease is ancient. Thanks to modern medicine and vaccinations, reports of the ailment are few and far between. In fact, most people think that scarlet fever is completely eradicated and any news about it pertains to its effect in the past.

Unfortunately, scarlet fever is not just an illness reserved for history. In fact, there have been recent outbreaks of the infectious disease in the United Kingdom. Officials reported 6,000 cases of scarlet fever in 2016.

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Unique to rest of the world, Middle Eastern cuisine is actually similar from country-to-country within the region.

Using many of the same ingredients, the small changes in each country make the dishes stand out.

Fava beans are popular throughout the Middle East, but boiled in some places and eaten green in others. Coffee is thicker in Turkey and saved for special occasions in Oman. One constant for hungry travelers is a wide variety of spices and flavors in the food throughout the Middle East:

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