Mongolia

Mongolia is probably my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film, for which Tom Cruise fully deserved to win Best Supporting Actor in 2000 (but didn't, because the Academy Awards are stupid). A landlocked country in central Asia with Russia to the north and China to the south, Mongolia forms the geographical meat of a sandwich that has communists instead of bread. Much of the country is made up of steppes, which are dry areas of land that could be deserts if they only had the gumption (they don't, but in this case it would be difficult to blame the Academy Awards). Almost a third of the Mongolian population is nomadic, which contributes to a recent statistic positing that Mongolians see more depressing landscape per capita than any other nationality (even Utahans). The most famous Mongolian ever was Genghis Khan, considered to be one of history's biggest and most innovative assholes. The second-most famous Mongolian ever is not famous enough for me to have heard of him or her. The capital, Ulaanbaatar, was first founded in the early 17th century, but kept getting moved around until 1778, before which all of its residents presumably lived in trailer homes. Mongolia is also home to the Mongolian Death Worm, (the local version of Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, or Joseph Stalin) a probably fictional but hopefully real thing native to the Gobi Desert that can kill you just by looking at you, or something.

Just in case you were having trouble finding a reason not to go to the Gobi Desert.