After I left Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, I spent 3 months reporting all of the dermatopathology in the Department of Pathology at the Wits University Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa as a guest of Wayne Grayson. What an amazing experience. Having left the Ivory Tower of Boston where melanocytic pathology and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma were my bread and butter, I entered a whole new world. I was reminded very quickly as to why I had embarked on a career in dermatopathology and why I loved the specialty so much. The range of material that I reported on daily couldn’t have been more different. Every week I saw examples of bacillary angiomatosis and both chancres and lesions of secondary syphilis regularly appeared in my signout. Cytomegalovirus infection was an almost daily experience. Kaposi’s sarcoma was routine and almost invariably associated with other pathology such as cryptococcosis infection, bacillary angiomatosis etc. It reminded me that in HIV/AIDS patients there was almost invariably evidence of multiple diseases in any one patient. Histoplasma infection, granuloma inguinale and Toxoplasma infection were additional exotica that I encountered. Part of my responsibilities included weekly dermatopathology lectures and slide seminars for the pathologists in the Department and also the private practice industry in addition to pathologists from Pretoria. It was wonderful to lecture to such an enthusiastic group of people who never let me finish when I was due to. I mention all of this to encourage junior staff- registrars/residents/fellows to give a lot of thought to follow my example and spent a little time abroad in Africa or India etc before embarking on their future career. It will certainly put dermatopathology into perspective and in addition give an opportunity to meet people and make new friends in less affluent societies. I look back on those 3 months as such a rewarding experience in addition to being so grateful for the kindness and generosity of the very many people that I had the privilege of meeting while in South Africa.