Places educatorclaire Wants to Go

Extremely isolated Silk Road caravanserai in the middle of nowhere.

A boulder carved into the shape of the cosmonaut's head.

Glacial lake that mysteriously empties itself every year.

A Stalinist prison camp for the wives and children of men accused of betraying the Soviet state is now a memorial museum.

Avenue of trees planted by cosmonauts before their space departures.

Nicknamed Kazakhstan's Grand Canyon, this natural wonder lies east of Almaty near the Chinese border.

Mysterious spherical rocks in the semi-desert of western Kazakhstan.

One of the most horrible legacies of the Cold War is a site where the Soviet Union tested nuclear bombs on civilians.

An abandoned Soviet-era mining town in the mountains of South Kazakhstan.

The lovely lake that was naturally dammed, then naturally destroyed, then unnaturally saved.

Granny Smiths and Fujis can both be traced back to Kazakhstan, where apples still grow wild.

World's oldest and largest space launch facility, once a secret missile testing site.

Rusting ships sit in a desert where a sea used to be.

Submerged trees jut ghost-like out of an idyllic turquoise mountain lake.

Mirrored floors and arched shelves create the illusion of an infinite tunnel of books.

The tallest stationary dunes on Earth also happen to sing.

A fifth-century temple improbably built into the side of a cliff.

A canvas of crops grow from vibrant red soil in this terraced farmland.

This psychedelic tourist trap is a leisurely descent into madness.

This vertical pinnacle in China was the inspiration for the floating mountains in the movie “Avatar.”

270 million year-old forest of stone.

The world's longest outdoor escalator takes visitors to the top of China's largest dam and is also shaped like a dragon.

The ancient settlement attracts tourists from all over looking to learn about the Chinese vision of the afterlife.

One of the world's largest ice festivals dazzles visitors for over a month with radiant sculptures and carvings.