Places Edited by Allison Meier

A cannon designed to fire an atomic warhead.

Cavernous opening completely encased in Karst limestone.

A single tree's 2,800 aerial roots give the appearance of a complete forest.

Home of the ruins of a British slave castle.

The once forbidden "secret cabinet" of erotic art from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Mountain of unimaginable riches that bankrolled the Spanish Empire, complete with its own underworld god.

Harlem park dedicated to compulsive hoarders killed by their own junk.

This historic, palatial theater is now one of the world’s most beautiful bookstores.

British Empire's last territorial expansion, claimed by four countries.

Competitors race wooden replicas of pungent blue cheese.

This 38-drawer structure claims the superlative title, but it isn't the world's only giant filing cabinet.

A masterpiece in Golden Gate Park by virtue of the artist’s debt.

Japanese island famous for poison gas and fluffy bunnies.

A small chapel celebrating the spiritual bond between dogs and humans.

Manatees congregate around a power plant's discharge canal where the water is especially warm.

Designed by Maya Lin, the memorial honors 41 individuals who died fighting for equal rights between 1954 and 1968.

Shoreline strewn with the remains of ghostly fallen trees.

The hotel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot is now a museum dedicated to his work.

Huge hole looks down onto an underground beach populated with sea lions.

World's largest cave was only discovered in 1991, and now offers tours to the public.

World's tallest monolithic statue has served as a pilgrimage site since its completion in 993 CE.

The purported world's shortest international bridge connects a homeowner in Canada to his backyard in New York.

The final resting place for the remains of 143 Habsburg royalty.

On the outskirts of a desert trading village high on the Andean plain, steel giants have been destroyed by salt winds.