The Places in Between is a travel narrative by Rory Stewart, a British writer, academic, broadcaster, former diplomat and Member of Parliament, detailing his solo walk across north-central Afghanistan in 2002.

On his journey, Stewart encounters many of Afghanistan's most notable historical sites, including the Minaret of Jam, the Dome of Chist-e-Sharif and the Buddhas of Bamiyan, which were destroyed by the Taliban.

The Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage had not heard a reliable report on its condition for some eight months, and there were concerns that the Taliban might have blown it up, as they did with the Bamiyan Buddhas.

Though Stewart found the Minaret still standing, he encountered villagers who were conducting excavations of what they believed to be the lost city of the Turquoise Mountain, selling their finds to traders from Herat.

Upon his return to the United Kingdom, Stewart contacted UNESCO to try to inform them of the scale of the damage being done by these unauthorised excavations, and confronted Professor Andrea Bruno at the British Museum in Bloomsbury in an attempt to raise awareness of its looting.