No telescopes, no power, no gift shop: The Observatory of Chichen Itza, one of the world's oldest observatories, takes astronomy back to basics.

Clap your hands at the base of the pyramid, and the song of a sacred Mayan bird will echo through the air.

Every equinox this Maya pyramid puts on a spooky ancient light show.

A magical sinkhole on the Yucatán Peninsula is adorned with mini waterfalls and hanging vines.

An island graveyard with spectacular views of the Caribbean.

Beach instrument turned bed and breakfast.

An elaborate Mayan city shrouded in alien conspiracy revealed the tomb of Pacal the Great.

An old department store turned Nazi prison turned artist commune.

Metro station with a claim to rock n' roll fame.

An imperial church bombed to ruins during WWII now stands as a jagged memorial.

A monument to the three wars that led to German unification towers within a Berlin traffic circle.

Germany's Glienicke Bridge has a shady history of clandestine meetings, espionage, and spycraft.

An abandoned NSA listening post on Berlin's "Devil's Mountain."

The most visited, and possibly most controversial, museum in Germany.

An effigy of Vancouver's Gastown neighorhood's namesake.

A working steam clock, one of only a few in the world, located in Vancouver's Victorian Gastown.

A mysterious taxidermy man-beast of the seven seas.

The oldest natural history museum in western Canada houses more than 5,000 vintage botanical and zoological specimens.

Try the alligator at this fondue spot, which has been catering to "lovers and hedonists" since 1967.

Few other hotels can rival the grandeur of the Castle in the Rockies.

Though many were skeptical at first, these animal-specific routes across the Trans-Canada Highway have been a major conservation success.

A surviving remnant of the thick ice mass that once mantled most of Western Canada's mountains.

Every fall this lake mysteriously drains, like a bathtub with the plug pulled out.

The site of a strange super top-secret military experiment during WWII on a remote Canadian lake.