Places jonathanmicklos Wants to Go

Towns with a resource known as "white gold," valuable enough to fight a war over, now stand ghostly and empty.

The antique vehicle is a preserved relic of Chile's nitrate mining industry.

In the most arid desert on the planet, the world's leading telescope allows astronomers to see more than has ever been seen before.

A sculpture of a giant hand reaches for the stars in the middle of the Atacama desert.

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

A desert that evokes the surreal.

The largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere is a spectacular sight.

This abandoned nitrate town was repurposed as a dictator's prison.

This lake’s emerald green waters are a spectacular sight, but it’s not a great place for a swim.

This 18th-century tower is locally iconic.

The ruins of a pre-Columbian fortress city so secure it held off the Spanish conquistadors for over 20 years.

You can swim in these highly salty, mesmerizingly blue lakes in the Atacama Desert.

A rugged lava field dotted with molds of the ancient pines that were growing when the volcano erupted.

Historic psychiatric asylum and most-filmed location in the Great White North.

An abandoned 19th-century hospital now swirling in ghost stories.

Defying all odds, this lonely little tree found a home on a log sticking out of a Canadian lake.

A large spinning bath of liquid mercury, used to probe the early universe.

This perfectly preserved Chinese medicine shop was untouched for decades before being reopened as a museum.

A haunted hot springs hotel that went from healing retreat to asylum before it was restored.

Railways may have forged this quintet of lovely tunnels, but now they are open to hikers.

A sacred lake composed of over 300 separate pools of highly concentrated minerals.

A floating McDonald's built for Expo '86 is now a derelict relic on Burrard Inlet.

An American city stranded at the tip of a Canadian peninsula where strict adherence to the "49th parallel rule" became problematic.

Mysterious wreckage of a small plane has been lodged in this tree since at least 1971.