Places educatorclaire Wants to Go

Only a handful of these gorgeous historic waterwheels remain but even those are in danger from local unrest.

Mysterious lost empire of the Silk Road.

A 19th-century fortress and collection of artifacts offer a tour of Saudi history.

Village of slate houses, built on a white marble outcrop.

Within the Saudi Arabian desert lies a 2,000-year-old ghost town made of stone and mud.

An archaeological site believed to be the burial place of the "mother of us all."

This giant volcanic crater holds its very own field of salt.

More than 100 monumental tombs carved into rock are preserved at this ancient Nabataean site in the Arabian Desert.

An unfinished tomb carved into a giant boulder in the Arabian Desert.

This seemingly random 30-foot statue of an oryx in Qatar's capital was a mascot for the 2006 Asian Games.

The shallow, salty inlet was a safe haven for 19th-century pirates.

These beautiful historic watchtowers were used for both scanning the desert for enemy invaders and observing the celestial world.

Some of the ancient-looking huts among these strange rock formations aren't ancient at all, but built as part of a movie set.

Some 20,000 dust-covered unwanted vehicles languish in the desert.

Robot jockeys ride their humped mounts to victory as part of a 21st-century twist on an ancient desert sport.

A 19th century pearling and fishing village abandoned before Qatar's economic boom.

Nature's water park in the Wadi Bani Awf valley is full of pools flanked with cliffs and natural water slides.

This bazaar is one of the oldest in the Arabian world.

Groups of prehistoric tombs that dot the mountains of northern Oman.

A monumental underground karstic wonderland is also the water source for over a million citizens of Beirut.

The ruins of a monumental tower in the heart of Lebanese mountains still puzzle archeologists.

After this one-of-a-kind palace was built the architect's hands are said to have been cut off to keep it that way.

A bathhouse from the second Islamic Caliphate decorated with frescoes of constellations, pleasure gardens, and naked ladies.

The world's oldest map of the holy land gives us a fragmented glimpse of the layout of biblical nations.