Five years after the Chernobyl disaster, in the summer of 1991, the last summer the Soviet Union was still in existence, I visited Ukraine. I trekked out to the 20-mile exclusion zone - it had been cleared of all people after the accident - together with some local environmental activists.

Anne Applebaum

Whenever I visited China in the past, the relationships always felt superficial; there was no time where I felt those moments of conflict and delight that make you feel close to another person. But since I started touring there in 2004, I would always collaborate with local musicians, and that opened up a new level of intimacy.

Abigail Washburn

I have a lot of family in Marquette. I'm way more familiar with the U.P. than I am with the lower peninsula. I've visited Michigan every couple of years since I was a kid.

Adam Conover

In April 2001, I visited Big Bone Lick State Park in Kentucky. The heaps of mastodon and other large skeletons that used to loom out of the brackish backwaters along the Ohio River here are long gone, though the occasional big bone sometimes comes to light.

Adrienne Mayor

My education in the arts began at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As a Cleveland child, I visited the museum's halls and corridors, gallery spaces and shows, over and over. For me, the Cleveland Museum was a school of my very own - the place where my eyes opened, my tastes developed, my ideas about beauty and creativity grew.

Agnes Gund

I do not believe that anyone from outer space has ever visited the Earth.

Alan Bean

I watched 'Who' with a mixture of affection and exasperation through the eighties, always ready to cheer on the Doctor but seldom feeling that the series was playing to its strengths. Some of the adventures, revisited on DVD, turn out to be better than I remembered - others just as infuriating.

Alastair Reynolds

There is a lot of interest among the descendants of Holocaust victims in getting back artworks that were looted by the Nazis, for getting at least some form of compensation and closure for the horrors visited upon their families.

Alex Shoumatoff

I first visited the Philippines when I was 29. I thought I would feel at home there, but I felt more out of place than I did in the U.S. I discovered I was more American than Filipino. It was shattering because I never felt quite at home in the U.S., either.

Alex Tizon

I'd love to study in the U.S. I visited Vanderbilt in Nashville, and I've been told to check out Ole Miss. There are so many schools that I don't really know where to start. But I do love the U.S. and have met so many supportive and enthusiastic people here while I've been on tour. I could definitely live here!

Alexandra Adornetto

At one school I visited, everyone had read 'Halo,' and they were all dressed up as angels - with halos!

Alexandra Adornetto

I once had an Early Girl tomato at my friend Jay's house, and I thought that was the best thing I'd ever had. But then I visited friends in Senegal, and I ate sea urchin pulled fresh out of the sea. It tasted like the ocean.

Alice Waters

I was 16 before I met another passionate collector. One summer, I visited England; a new friend took me calling on his dotty, brilliant old aunt. She occupied a quaint house in Kent. Its walls were lined with glass-fronted cases full of what? Ancient shoe buckles.

Allan Gurganus

There was a time when I was wondering about this business of going public, so I visited about a half-dozen companies in the Boston area, all of them formed by MIT faculty and all had gone public.

Amar Bose

I work really long hours and work a lot and have done press tours and junkets, but there is nothing like a presidential campaign that I have experienced before... I think at one point we visited three different cities in one state in 12 hours. It's exhausting.

America Ferrera

Since it's a biopic, Harjeet's contribution is almost a hundred percent. We have lived together, we visited his base camp in Bangalore a couple of times.

Ammy Virk

When I visited Moscow for the first time in 1998, I wandered into the historic Metropol Hotel as a curious tourist simply to ogle the giant painted glass ceiling that hangs over the grand restaurant off the lobby. It was the memory of that short visit that prompted me, some years later, to set 'A Gentleman in Moscow' in the hotel.

Amor Towles

I am obsessed with silver jewellery, so I visited the Johri Bazar, which is famous for it and bought a lot of silver rings, earrings and pendants.

Amyra Dastur

The first time I visited Jaipur was during a school trip, when I was 14 years old.

Amyra Dastur

A country that has really resonated with me and I was really impressed with was Israel. I found that the whole country had a very special atmosphere. I was there to perform, but it was one of the few places that I've visited over the years that I had some free time to explore, and I was hugely impressed by all the religious history there.

Andrea Bocelli

I've traveled a fair amount around the country and visited many states. It's amazing that Oregon is so different from Idaho; even though Portland isn't that far from Boise, it's a completely different city. Colorado is very different from Oregon. From a European perspective, I've always found that fascinating about America.

Andrew Haigh