Places Lana Velkov Wants to Go

An abandoned miniature golf course in the middle of the jungle.

A dad joke was inevitable when a member of this 19th-century chocolatier family married the president of France.

Once a luxurious flagship of the Soviet Union, this Brutalist structure remains a landmark of Tashkent’s communist past.

A small island with no monkeys but plenty of military ruins.

The last remaining pre-dreadnought battleship in the world has been a museum for nearly a century.

This longship was a gift to commemorate the 1500th anniversary of the Anglo-Saxons arrival in England.

This abandoned ship has remained in place since it ran aground in 1998.

An eerie ship cemetery with gunfire as a soundtrack.

In 1962, the ocean severed this peninsula—and the village that sat on it—from the Angolan mainland.

An old spa town in the mountains of Romania where, according to legend, the great hero Hercules once bathed.

A giant portrait of an ancient king looms over the river.

Space-age monument to an early 20th-century uprising.

These dilapidated planes are now a canvas for graffiti artists.

A collection of historical engines and rolling stock from throughout Riga's rich railway history.

A former Latvian headquarters of the brutal KGB secret police is now open as a grim reminder of their atrocities.

A monument commemorating the 852 lives lost in the sinking of the MS Estonia.

This derelict superstructure was a very important warning system for the Soviet military.

Step inside a Soviet-designed nuclear power plant with RBMK reactors identical to the ones in Chernobyl.

Hidden in a high mountain cave, this hermitage dates back to the ninth century.

Iran's "Rose Garden Palace," built during 131 years of rule by Qajar kings, consists of 17 stunning structures.

The ghost town left by the worst nuclear disaster of all time is being taken over by nature and urban explorers.

Named after a legendary garden called Eram in southern Arabia, built by order of Shaddad, an Arab king who wanted to compete with Paradise.

The palace of the King of Kings, burned by Alexander the Great.

This outcropping was once home to a medieval monastery destroyed during the Ottoman conquest.