Places aemem Wants to Go

Mosques carved from coral and dozens of well-preserved stone structures fill this 500-year-old Swahili trading center.

Over the course of its history, this tiny island has held enslaved people in transit and served as a quarantine zone. Today, it's a giant tortoise sanctuary.

A remote island settlement off the coast of Tanzania is a storied archaeological site with an ancient past.

This monument is a stark reminder of the horrors of the Zanzibar slave trade.

This slowly crumbling mansion was home to one of East Africa's richest and most powerful slave traders.

The culture that built these Tanzanian ruins displayed advanced knowledge of irrigation technology before mysteriously disappearing.

In Zanzibar, a historic 19th-century palace is a reminder of the world's shortest war.

An exquisite and eclectic selection of African masks stands out within a massive woodcarving marketplace.

These strange piles of magnetized volcanic ash travel across the desert about 50 feet per year.

Human ancestor’s 3.6 million year-old footprints.

Freddie Mercury's childhood home is now a monument to the iconic Queen rockstar.

The largest game reserve in Africa is home to thousands of species but refuses to house humans.

This rare volcano spews the strangest and (literally) coolest lava in the world.

This sacred, circular cave is lined with pools so clear and still that it's hard to tell where the water begins.

After sunset the heart of Zanzibar's historic Stone Town neighborhood transforms into a culinary playground.

Stunning ruins of what was once the center of one of the greatest empires in East Africa.

Sitting atop a rock on Michamvi Pingwe beach, this restaurant becomes its own island at high tide.

A salty red wasteland in Tanzania is a breeding spot for endangered flamingos.

The best-preserved example of a unique structure in Nubian architecture.

These pillars are one of the few remnants from the mysterious lost empire of Makuria.

Crumbling pyramids and temple ruins stand within the shadow of this sacred butte.

All that remains of Jacques Cousteau's 1960s underwater "village."

Remains of an abandoned coral city.

These Nubian pyramids are strange and unique, even by pyramid standards.