Backed by the Caucasus mountains and bisected by the rugged Terek river, Vladikavkaz might be pleasant, were it not for the occasional terrorist eruption and internecine gangster bombing.
The area is characterized by rugged hills, rivers, forests, unpaved gravel roads, free running animals, and grass-thatched huts scattered sporadically over the hills.
Both Mr. Gates and the Marines are hoping that the stirrings of life in this rugged, starkly beautiful river valley become a model for President Obama's strategy of holding and rebuilding areas after military battles have been won.
The town of Aviemore, at the foot of the Cairngorm Mountains, is a centre for skiing and other winter sports, and many other towns and villages provide accommodations for visitors attracted by rugged mountain scenery, river salmon fishing, the picturesque coastline, and various cultural activities.
But Tsangpo Gorge, a rugged, steep-walled river valley in southern Tibet (pictured), doesn't seem to fit that pattern.
020-7575 6480, rms-st-helena.com Gonarezhou national park is one of Africa's true wilderness areas, a 5,000sq km slice of rugged forests and rivers in south-east Zimbabwe.
Today, however, a range of newly popular active sports are reinvigorating the former battlefields, as travellers discover a world of ice-blue rivers, rugged hills and thick forests, which unfurls south from Karlovac to meet the vertiginous Velebit mountains that rise up towards the coast.
Along the way, she camped and hiked in rugged Hells Canyon, North America's deepest river gorge.
The rugged terrain along the river in the Llano Estacado (Staked Plain) in southeastern New Mexico and western Texas was a favourite hiding place for bandits and rustlers.
But there was little that was magnanimous about the soldiers who fired into the water with Kalashnikov rifles when they spotted a floating reed, or the senior army officers in dark green uniforms, with pistols at their hips, who boarded the speedboats that cruised the river, offering rugged handshakes to the boatmen.
