Timor-Leste

Timor-Leste became independent in 2002, one of the world's newest countries, after a referendum and a period of violence that left the infrastructure largely in ruins. What it has instead is intact: coral reefs among the healthiest in Southeast Asia, a mountain interior that produces coffee of genuine quality - Timor coffee has been traded internationally for decades, mostly without the country receiving credit for it - and a culture shaped by Portuguese colonialism, Indonesian occupation and its own Austronesian roots in a combination that has produced something entirely its own.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: Dili's waterfront, mountain coffee farm routes, dive sites that the Indonesia boats do not reach and the tais weaving villages where the textile tradition has not been adjusted for export.