Places bristlecone Wants to Go

Three columns of volcanic rock shoot out of the ocean.

Strange rock formations tower above the river that snakes through this enchanting Icelandic canyon.

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

Massive mounds of golden sand look like a desert landscape randomly plopped in an Arctic forest.

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

Sunset-colored dunes of volcanic ash make taking a poor photo impossible.

It's hard to believe the dizzying patterns covering this abandoned mine are completely natural.

This red lake 4,000 meters above sea level is home to rare flamingos.

A town church once nearly submerged by the damming of a river is now hauntingly visible as the water recedes.

North Korea's massive "hotel of doom."

Gigantic unfinished stupa and the world's 2nd largest bell.

Over 2,000 ancient temples dot the Myanmar landscape at the site of this famed archaeological site.

A jagged silhouette of shamanistic stone heaps rises from the shore of this dazzling mile-high lake.

This striking landscape in northern Vietnam contains both geological and archaeological wonders.

Landscape of bizarrely shaped desert mountains and innumerable rock carvings.

This wondrous waterfall rushing down a green-covered mountain wasn't discovered until 2010.

The island where one woman reigned as a "queen" over 30-odd Japanese soldiers who refused to believe that WWII had ended.

This Pringle-shaped ledge makes for the perfect photo op.

Finding the exact middle of a giant land mass is hard to determine, but this spot managed to do the trick.

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

Stenciled handprints and wall paintings dating back 10,000 years, some of the earliest forms of cave art.

A French valley with forests so lush it was nicknamed "the Small Amazonia of the Pyrenees."

A rapidly disappearing glacier filled with extinct grasshoppers, perfectly preserved in the ice.

Colin Stokes "got a bit carried away" and built a castle that looks like something out of Tolkien.