Places akiraa1 Wants to Go

A faithful reconstruction of what was once the only window into Japan.

The statue's head is one of the few fragments of the original Urakami Cathedral to survive the atomic bomb.

A sobering scientific reminder of the human damage caused by the advent of the nuclear age.

The giant figure on the back of this turtle-shaped temple actually hides a memorial pendulum.

A construction mishap at this narrows on the Fraser River rendered it impassable to many migrating fish species, with international consequences.

Royals, rebels, and artists have all conversed at this grand 19th-century Viennese coffee house.

A settlement that was stopped in the middle of construction, leaving behind paved roads, curbs, light poles, a stormwater drainage system, and even a basketball court, but no houses.

A crumbling ghost town on the South Dakota prairie.

The ruins of a town wiped out by the second-largest earthquake in recorded history.

A historic freight system that found the true gold rush is in tourism.

The stickered marker pinpoints where the only maintained road in the United States crosses into the polar region.

A classic gold rush hotel can be expected to pick up some ghosts along the way, and the Golden North is no exception.

An abandoned aircraft sits submerged in a lake in the Alaska wilderness.

North America's first frozen mummified remains of an ice age steppe bison, the 36,000 year-old mummy named "Blue Babe."

The "Gateway to the Arctic" connects Barrow's indigenous population with the sea and its traditional industry: whaling.

This historic collection of Native Alaskan artifacts was resurrected through a partnership between the WPA and tribal artisans.

This ghostly Alaska village still clings to a steep cliffside despite having been abandoned for over 50 years.

This small city where almost everyone lives in the same building can only be reached via North America's longest tunnel.

The ruins of this Alaska gold mine form a gorgeous ghost town.

A trading post in the North Pole where children send letters.

Colorful boxes placed over the dead are left to rot and crumble.

Four-story concrete hotel never opened to customers.

A rare chance to get up close and personal with a 13-mile ribbon of ice near downtown Juneau.

Originally a brothel during the Klondike Gold Rush, this bar once used dolls to denote when ladies were working.