In 2014, an American dad claimed a tiny parcel of 'unclaimed' African land to make his daughter a princess. But Jack Shenker had got there first – and learned that borders are delicate and volatile things

In Karakalpakstan, an obscure corner of central Asia where the waters of the Aral Sea have turned to desert, Jack Shenker finds a nation fleeing ecological disaster and authoritarian rule

One dodgy car, three irritable companions and 1000km by the Nile: Cairo to Luxor by road.

One hundred years ago, the British explorer WJ Harding King tried and failed to cross Egypt’s myth-laden Western Desert. Jack Shenker follows his footsteps into a once-isolated world on the cusp of transformation.

Prising open Egypt's cracks