Destination: World's dangerous places

— -- They're considered dangerous, distant and difficult. The U.S. State Department warns against visiting, and your mother probably would, too. But for a certain breed of American traveler, destinations more associated with trouble than tourism are the place to go.

And where there's demand, there's usually someone happy to supply. Here's a look at new developments on the tourism front in some of the world's current hot spots.

New guide to Iraq

When the Iraqi tourism office reopened in May 2003, spokesman Saddi Younis told then-USA TODAY reporter César Soriano it might take about three years for visitation to rise to pre-2001 Gulf War levels, when a half-million tourists visited annually.

Younis' optimism was a tad premature. But it may surprise many that travelers are trickling into Iraq's northern Kurdish reaches, far from the turmoil in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Soriano recently returned from a month spent primarily in Kurdish northern Iraq while researching a chapter for the latest edition of the Lonely Planet series Middle East guidebook, due out next spring. It marks the first time in almost 20 years that the publisher has sent a writer into that country.

"I would completely dissuade anyone from visiting Arab Iraq — which is basically two-thirds of the country," Soriano says. "But you never hear about the one-third that is safe."

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Publisher Brice Gosnell echoes the sentiment, noting that the guidebook's information on troubled southern Iraq is aimed at private contractors, media, military and others who have to be there.

Though Soriano didn't encounter many other travelers in the north, some locales there have ambitious tourism strategies. In the city of Erbil, for instance, long-term plans call for five-star hotels, a Formula One race track and a safari park.

Even now, tourism infrastructure is better than Soriano expected — and it's uncrowded. In Dohuk, a city near the Turkish border, there's an amusement park called Dream City and a new deluxe hotel that appeared empty when he visited.