# Kiriakou on travel

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Kiriakou on travel," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-on-travel/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's own ranking of the countries he has visited: Greece his favourite and, he insists, the best food anywhere; Oman the most beautiful landscape; Syria the most extraordinary civilisation; and Chile the cheapest, illustrated by a bottle of a vineyard's locked-away reserve that cost $8.50 on his honeymoon.*

- **Favourite country:** Greece — visited four times in 2026 alone
- **Best food:** Greece, "hands down, no comparison"
- **Greatest natural beauty:** [Oman](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/oman) — thousand-foot escarpments running to the ocean
- **Greatest civilisation:** Syria — Damascus Gate, and the house of St Ananias
- **Cheapest:** Chile — a vineyard's director's reserve for $8.50
- **First visits in 2026:** Norway and Sweden; Vietnam next

Asked which country is the most beautiful, has the best food, is cheapest and is easiest to navigate, [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) calls it *"a wonderful question"* and answers each in turn.[1]

## Greece

He declares his bias immediately: *"my favourite country is Greece. I go to Greece two, three times a year. I was there 2 weeks ago. I'm going again in 2 weeks. I'm going again in November. I was there in March, so four times this year."* Greece also takes the food category outright — *"hands down, no comparison. I eat like a pig when I'm there, and invariably, I always always lose weight."*[2][3]

The award is not unqualified. Speaking from [Cyprus](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-cypriot-ancestry) earlier the same year he gave the island's cheeses the advantage over the Greek ones, and reported having been talked out of frappé by a cousin in Rhodes on the ground that it is made from instant coffee — both set out at [Kiriakou on Greek and Cypriot food](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-on-greek-and-cypriot-food).[4][5]

## Oman and Syria

For beauty he splits the question in two. Natural beauty goes to [Oman](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/oman), on the south-eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula: *"You've never seen landscape like this before. Thousand-foot cliffs going right to the ocean. Incredible."* He notes the local practice of camping at the top of the escarpments, where *"The view is unlike anything you've ever seen before in your life."*[3][6]

For the beauty of a civilisation and its culture, *"it's got to be Syria. You go to Damascus, and you're looking at stuff that's mentioned in the Bible, like by name. Damascus Gate, and there are cars driving through it."* The example that struck him hardest is domestic: *"there's this little house over here. That's the house where Saint Ananias lowered Saint Paul in a basket so he could escape from the Romans. It's just an incredible thing to see."*[6][7]

## Chile

The cheapest country produces the longest story. On honeymoon at a Chilean vineyard, going through a tasting, Kiriakou asked for fun what the most expensive wine in the house was and was told it was the director's special private reserve — expensive, and locked up. *"I said, 'Ah, we're on our honeymoon. Let's break open a bottle.'"* The man returned with a ring of keys, opened the room, opened the bottle and poured. *"we drink it and it's magnificent. And so I said to him, 'How much is it?' And he takes a calculator and he goes He goes, '$8.50.'"*[8][9]

Kiriakou's reply was *"You guys have a really nice country here. You need to raise your prices."* He bought a case of the wine — Concha y Toro — and shipped it home, where *"The shipping cost more than the wine did."*[10]

## Still going

He closes by noting he is not finished: he had visited Norway and Sweden for the first time two weeks earlier, is baffled to have missed Sweden for so long, and is going to Vietnam the following week — *"I'll do the show from Vietnam. So I'm still out there exploring the world."*[11]

## What European airlines owe you

Kiriakou treats [an overnight in Dublin](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-dublin-compensation) as the benchmark against which American practice should be measured. A mechanical fault in Madrid cost him his Washington connection; the airline had already booked him into a four-star hotel with a buffet *"that could feed an army"*, laid on a shuttle and expedited check-in, and refunded $600 of a $1,200 ticket — money that reached his checking account about six weeks later.[12][13][14]

His question about it was short: *"How come we don't do that?"*[14]

## See also

- [Oman](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/oman)
- [Greek death rituals](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/greek-death-rituals)
- [U.S. foreign policy process](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/us-forces-in-syria-legality)

## Sources

1. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 34:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2069s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
2. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 35:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2100s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
3. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 35:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2130s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
4. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou — 'They Physically Removed My Stomach' (2026-06-01), at 24:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmAja1Rly0&t=1449s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-giorgos-omirou-clickbait-title-personal-channel-probe/
5. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou — 'They Physically Removed My Stomach' (2026-06-01), at 27:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmAja1Rly0&t=1670s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-giorgos-omirou-clickbait-title-personal-channel-probe/
6. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 36:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2161s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
7. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 36:33. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2193s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
8. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 37:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2223s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
9. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 38:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2284s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
10. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 38:37. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2317s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
11. "Are You a CIA Plant?!" | John Kiriakou Answers Most Asked Fan Questions! (2026-08-01), at 39:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J7znGcmKMg&t=2348s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-08-01-john-kiriakou-are-you-a-cia-plant-john-kiriakou-answers-mos/
12. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-06), at 25:32. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_K7Ab0PsdM&t=1532s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-06-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
13. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-06), at 26:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_K7Ab0PsdM&t=1564s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-06-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
14. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-09-06), at 26:36. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_K7Ab0PsdM&t=1596s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-06-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-on-travel/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt