Our honest review of Iraq as British tourists

Our honest review of Iraq as British tourists

Hello everybody. If you don’t know already, my 
name’s Bob and I’m Eve and we have just come back from a trip backpacking around Iraq. Iraq. So we 
flew into Baghdad and we also visited Babylon and Mosul as well as going into Kurdistan and going 
to Sulammonia and Urbal. This video is about our opinion visiting a country that we’re constantly 
told is unsafe and a country that I think most people still consider to be a war zone. Now, 
Iraq is not your typical tourist destination. So, this is our honest opinion and experience as 
British tourists. Let’s start with some first impressions of this country. And we actually did 
not have the best start to Iraq because we flew into a sandstorm. So literally on the plane when 
we were coming in, you could hardly see anything outside and it was mad. It was a bit actually mad. 
We knew the plane was coming down. The the pilot was like, “We’re landing in Baghdad airport.” And 
we were like looking around like we can’t see the ground yet. It was it was wild. It was a mental 
sandstorm. So when we arrived like we literally we couldn’t see like hardly anything at all. And 
when we did go outside there was like sand in our eyes and everything. There was a uh there was 
a health warning. I think for the for the time there was just mad sandstorms. Yeah, I’ve got a 
screenshot of it on my phone. It’s like hazardous. But that is not to do with country. That was just 
the way. No, we were I think we were just very very unlucky when we landed. But after we made it 
to our home state, we were hosted by a great guy called Alli. It was a really traditional kind 
of Baghdad house. It was absolutely fantastic. And I think because we couldn’t go outside 
because of the weather, this actually made us feel like we were really welcomed into the 
country in a good way because we sat and had chai, we had coffee, we had some really good Iraqi 
food, had a huge dinner. Yeah. And uh yeah, it was very very good vibes on arrival. It was 
very like authentic experience to the country. So good bit of Iraqi hospitality straight away. 
Then when we did finally go outside, oh my god, the people were so nice to us. Everyone was 
saying hello. This was on day one. This was our very first impressions. We’d been in the 
country for like maybe 4 hours, 5 hours. Yeah, I think you can tell that not too many tourists 
visit this part of the world because when people saw us, they were like, “Hello, hello.” Like, 
people were literally waving like this. People were literally shouting inside shops to the 
outside world, waving at us, being like, “Hello, hello, friend. Hello.” People were very friendly. 
Yeah. And I think that made us think that what we’ve been led to believe in the Western world 
about Iraq was probably not true. Okay. Next up, I think it’s interesting to mention what Iraq 
actually looks like and the infrastructure because as we said at the start of the video, a 
lot of people I think imagine it to be a war zone and this is it’s just not true. It’s literally not 
true. No, the uh the the country is developed. The the country is I mean we ate at some incredibly 
beautiful like luxury restaurants. We played we played paddle. We played paddle there. 
Yeah. that multiple paddle courts in Baghdad, which was just incredible. Um, yeah, there was 
a lot of paddle courts. It wasn’t just one. I think there’s about six. Yeah. Oh, it’s coming at 
me. Oh. Oh my god. I hit it. Oh, I hit it. Oh no. Yay. I did it. Yeah. Oh my god. You’ve got nice cars driving around. 
Honestly, it’s really coming from the west, it’s it’s really not what people think when 
you say Iraq, especially when you get into like Urbal and Solomon as well, like Iraqi Kurdistan. 
Yeah, in there was like really tall buildings, you know, like cityscape with them like lit up and 
everything. It actually felt a little bit like um like European in Paris. When we went to Salmani, 
we we found like a little night market, but it was like shops opening up onto the street. It was a 
It was a really kind of a lovely atmosphere going on there, but again still fitting with the region 
like people drinking chai, playing board games, like it was it was great. We went to a park as 
well. Um, and there was this really nice park like green space and then there was a restaurant 
in there. It was actually like a old train weirdly and there was live music going on and stuff. It’s 
really really nice. Very nice spot. Really great environment. We just wanted to include a part 
on this because that is what most people don’t think of when you say, “Oh, I’ve been to Iraq. 
I’ve been, you know, I’ve been a tourist in this country.” So, it’s just a really interesting point 
to touch on. So, is it safe to travel to Iraq as a British tourist? Now, our UK government actually 
advises against this and to be quite honest, me and Eve have traveled to a few places on this 
list, and we normally find they’re not quite as unsafe as they’re made out to be. So, we traveled 
independently around Iraq. We didn’t have a guide, and to be honest, we felt safe the whole time. 
Like, I am happy to report that Iraq is a country where I did not have any experiences where I felt 
unsafe at all. So to start with, we we flew into Baghdad and then we went out and it was kind of 
like nighttime and we had no negative experiences at all. We actually went to a juice shop and there 
was a power cut and the lights went out and it was dark and we were just chatting with the people 
in there having a really really nice time. And the people next to us are such good vibes here. 
They’re trying to talk to us in English and we don’t know Arabic. They don’t know that English. 
We do know one thing. I love you. I love you too. That was honestly such a positive experience when 
you say to people, “Oh, I was sat in a shop in Baghdad, Iraq, and there was a power curtain. 
All the lights went out at night.” Yeah. Like, ooh, scary. We honestly could not have felt 
more safe. We were sat there with the family, and it was just great vibes, wasn’t it? Yeah. It 
was really nice. Literally fine. It was the same as being in like any other city. I think what I 
quite liked about going around Baghdad at night especially was how many people are just sat out 
drinking chai, playing games. Like where we got picked up for the taxi, there were people like 
kind of older men like just playing board games on the street. It was lovely, wasn’t it? Yeah, it 
has a nice feel to it and it’s it’s very different actually and I think that’s what makes it feel 
kind of safe as well because there’s people there’s people drinking chai like Yeah. No one’s 
going to harm you. They’re just drinking chai. Another safety aspect, as Eve said, we did this 
completely independently without a guide. Taking public transport was actually really, really easy 
in the country. I think the most difficult part, as with every kind of bus station, taxi 
station is the getting swarmed by taxi drivers, which we seem to somehow get every 
time we went to a taxi stand in Iraq. This is what it’s like to catch a taxi in Iraq. 
Okay. Who do you want to pick? Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. Babylon. 
Uh, no. No private taxi. Shared shared taxi. Bus bus. There was always one person that was 
sort of quietly like, “Where do you want to go?” You’d say, “We want a shared taxi or whatever.” 
And they’d be like, “Over there.” Yeah. Honestly, it’s it’s crazy. But, uh, no, Iraq actually is a 
very, very easy country to travel. I found much easier to travel and get public transport than 
I expected. Very simple, very easy. Obviously, there are checkpoints because there just are, but 
when you’re like going from different districts, I think, or different areas. And we never had 
any problems at any of them. To be honest, the uh the soldiers at the checkpoints checking 
our visas and passports were always we got asked a lot of questions, but it wasn’t in like 
a interrogation way. It was just like a curiosity thing. People were like, “Where have you been?” 
Oh, where have you been? Are you going here? What food have you eaten? Like all that kind of thing. 
It was It was lovely. Yeah. So, Iraq, did we feel safe on our experience? Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. 
And I would say from a female perspective, I was obviously traveling with a man. Um, but it’s 
somewhere I think I would feel safe going back on my own as well. So, I think the two best things 
about Iraq were the people and the food. So, let’s start with the people. The people in Iraq 
have been hands down some of the most hospitable that we have ever met. They were welcoming us 
into their country with open arms. And even as say a British tourist with the history between 
Iraq and the UK, we felt very very welcome there. Yeah, it was so nice. We met some like incredible 
people. There was this one lady. We’re on the bus to uh Babylon, I think from Baghdad, and she was 
so kind. We can well, we can’t speak much Arabic and she couldn’t speak much English, but between 
us, we were communicating and it was just this like lovely moment. She was showing us photos on 
her phone and we were doing the same back and then at the end of our bus journey, she actually paid 
for our bus. She would not accept no for an answer when we we tried to because we were sat at the 
back of the bus. We were trying to put our money down to the front of the bus and she wouldn’t 
let them take it. She paid for it and then she gave Eve a big kiss on the side of her cheek and 
said, “Thank you for talking to me and meeting me cuz she she’d never met anybody from the UK 
before.” And it was it was so heartwarming. It was heartwarming. I actually felt really sad when 
we had to leave and I had to wave bye to her off the bus. It was Yeah. The people just so nice. We 
also had a similar experience in Urbil with the um Oh yeah, when we got the kebab. We went to 
Yasin kebab and we were we were just queuing up. It’s a very very popular place to buy shish 
kebab in Urbil and we were queuing up outside and we didn’t really know how the queue worked and we 
ended up getting speaking to these three people that had traveled from Mosul to Urbil and uh they 
were like ah you’re in Iraq where have you been have you gone to Mosul yet? And then they invited 
us to sit with them. We shared 10 huge shish kebab between five of us. It was a good meal. It was a 
good meal, but it was a lot of food. Uh and then again they wouldn’t let us pay. They were just 
happy to sit and chat with us and they wanted to tell us about you know Mosul and the food and the 
country and just everything. And then in the end, we tried to take them for some chai after it 
because we wanted to do something and pay them back after they wouldn’t accept our money. And 
then they paid again again. They wouldn’t let us pay for the chai. It was it was frustrating but 
in the best way. They’re so nice. And like this is why you travel for these kind of experiences. So 
it was really really nice, wasn’t it? And we also, our homeay guide was so lovely and Merced who did 
the food tour with us. Yeah. With Let’s Go Iraq. He was an incredible guy. Even after we finished 
kind of this this food video that we made, we invited him to come play paddle with us. 
Yeah, we played paddle together. Yeah. Just as just as friends. It was It was unbelievable. 
The people of Iraq honestly are the best. Okay, so now let’s talk about food. Food. If you don’t 
know, me and Eve are very, very big foodies. A lot of people don’t even know what Iraqi food is, but 
it is some of the best that we have. The best food in the world. I feel I didn’t know what Iraqi 
food was before we went to Iraq, but honestly, it’s it’s unreal. It was so good. So, we had this 
one thing for breakfast that was called khaki and kima. I think I said that right. And it is like 
the best breakfast I have ever eaten. And I’m I think about it often like I’m actually really sad 
that I can’t have it again. We do discuss that breakfast quite a lot. Honestly, out of all the 
countries we’ve traveled to, maybe the probably the best breakfast that we’ve had. Be careful what 
you say. Yeah. So, it’s this like flaky pastry and then it’s got like a cream. It’s kind of like 
a thick cream almost like a cream cheese on it and then you put some syrup water and it has like 
pistachio on the top and I just don’t think you can beat that. Like that is incredible to be 
honest that type of food. We had a incredible breakfast in Kurdistan as well in Smani. We had a 
similar sort of thing. These huge breads and like it was like cream and cheese and honey and oh I I 
don’t think it’s very good for your body. I feel like we would get very very fat if we lived 
in that country because we ate so much. Well, we didn’t quite know what we how to order or what 
we were ordering and stupidly I asked for two, one each, but we definitely couldn’t share. There 
was like there was a lot of dairy going on that day. Yeah, a huge amount of dairy but so good. 
And that’s the kind of food that you don’t get in other places. You’ve obviously got other things 
like um like shish kebab and you know that type of thing which obviously is very big in Iraq which 
was just unbelievable. Again that yasin kebab we went to in Bil was 10 out of 10. And in Baghdad I 
think the place was called Beiruti kebab was yeah a Bayruti restaurant where we sat down like on the 
water. It was like a it was like a really luxury restaurant. It was Yeah. That was really good 
actually, wasn’t it? I’d forgotten about that. I think the best kebabs I’ve had were from Iraq. 
Yeah, definitely. And how can we talk about Iraq food without mentioning the national dish, also 
known as the world’s best fish, Meshoff. Honestly, the place we went to in Baghdad that was called 
Albagaghdaddy restaurant, I think, where there was like a huge bonfire in the middle with all 
this barbecued fish around the outside. That was good. It’s like nothing I’ve experienced before. 
No. that level of bonfire to cook. That was like a barbecue on steroids. That was that was wild. 
And the people there were really nice showing us like how the fish are processed and that kind of 
thing. Yeah. Honestly, Iraqi flavors. Honestly, unmatched flavors. Good flavors. So, usually we 
would talk about our best and worst experiences. However, we didn’t have any bad experiences. 
No, weirdly quite a lot of the time we do when we travel have like something negative happen, 
but maybe we were just lucky. Like the sandstorm, I guess. Flying into a sandstorm wasn’t great. 
No. And then but the thing is as well the best experience like the whole trip was such a 
good experience. We were literally on a high for like the whole time we were there. I would 
actually say one very memorable experience was when I went to get a haircut in Baghdad. that 
was just made. Obviously, it’s just a haircut, but the guys in there were just such good vibes. 
And we were talking kind of broken English, but it was just they all gave me a round of applause when 
I stood up after my haircut. It was all right. It was just incredible vibes. But honestly, I think 
Imagine getting a round of applause after you’ve had your haircut. Yeah, I know. I felt you’ve 
not done anything. I felt very honored. Yeah, that was that was really good. There was so many 
amazing experiences. I think honestly just just the people we met there were were just incredible. 
It was good. So would we recommend visiting Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan? I would say if you are a fan 
of lesser travel destinations, if you’re a fan of history and if you’re a big foodie, Iraq is the 
place to go. Honestly, you you will not go wrong in that country. I might not advise somebody 
that wants the average holiday to, you know, an all-inclusive resort, that type of thing. I 
probably wouldn’t advise Iraq. But if you want any of the things we just outlined in the video, 
then you have to visit Iraq. And to be honest, I think it’s getting quite touristy now. I 
really think there’s more and more tourists visiting the country. It’s definitely gaining 
a lot of popularity. Yeah, I would say yeah, I would recommend if you’re the kind of person 
that likes to travel and likes lesser travel places, then Iraq was just an insane trip. And 
we’re coming back. We haven’t gone to Bazra and we haven’t gone to the marshes in the 
south. We’re going should we get Iraq 2026? If this is the first video that 
you’ve seen from us from Bee Travels, then make sure to check out our Iraq playlist 
that we’ll link at the top of the page now because we’ve had some incredible experiences 
in this country and there will definitely be something there that you want to watch. 
Also, make sure to check out our Facebook because we have lots of stuff on there 
as well, stuff that we don’t post here, exclusive stuff, as well as our Tik Toks and 
Instagram. And if you did like this video, please give it a thumbs up and don’t forget to 
subscribe. And we’ll see you next time. Bye bye.

After visiting Iraq for the first time we want to share our honest opinion of this country through the eyes of a foreign British Tourist.

We sit down and discuss how we felt before we entered the country before talking about saftey, Iraqi food, the people of Iraq and finally explaining our stance on whether we recommend Iraq as a tourist destination or not.

As always, enjoy the video, if you want to see more of Iraq then SUBSCRIBE!

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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:39 First Impressions of Iraq
02:49 What does Iraq look like?
04:56 Is Iraq Safe?
08:52 People of Iraq
11:49 Food of Iraq
14:45 Best & Worst Experience
15:51 Would we recommend Iraq?