Places Luke Thomas Wants to Go

This nature center has one of the largest collections of native raptors in the Pacific Northwest.

Museum preserving torture methods from the past.

The abandoned husk of a mental institution that failed to save a Jazz Age icon still sits nearly unchanged.

A tiny, remote island packed with wonders both natural and geeky.

Acres of natural wonders left behind by a socialite-turned-gardener.

The mysterious, fantastical woodland inspiration for "The Lord of the Rings."

A 19th-century subterranean reservoir repurposed as a contemporary art cave.

The one-time stronghold of the noble Douglas family, now home to ghost sightings and nesting birds.

English antique dealers with a taste for the unusual.

A centuries-old lookout post still sits atop a natural stone spire.

This hidden rooftop garden in downtown London offers a quiet respite from a bustling city.

A Victorian natural history and ethnographic museum with wonderful turn-of-the-century, science-book-esque evolution displays.

One of the few remaining casualties of the London Blitz, this destroyed church has become an enchanting public garden.

This shop and gallery is a modern-day cabinet of curiosities, unassumingly positioned along an urban thoroughfare.

Fine dining 20 feet below the surface in the Indian Ocean.

The Burnside Fountain and its questionable interpretation.

Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.

270 million year-old forest of stone.

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

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

This dark, damp, perilous tunnel is the only passage from north to south Tajikistan.

Light still pours into the ruins of this ancient Islamic observatory.

The famous facade of Grand Central Terminal hides a regulation tennis court—and it's not the first one.

Rusting away on the edge of New Jersey are the remains of a Cold War missile launch site.