Places Mathias Van de Velde Wants to Go

Sculpture designed by Turkish artist and professor Mehmet Ali Uysal.

Theme park featuring miniature replicas of European monuments.

This abandoned Belgian fortress is purposefully being left to nature.

The highest point in Belgium is a staircase to nowhere.

The "stairway to heaven" lookout tower was built to resist weather, arson, and the laws of physics.

The Belgian royal family's private depot now stands abandoned and forgotten alongside the tracks.

A fantastical bed and breakfast with magically unique rooms.

The tiny Belgian town's ancient version of Mardi Gras involves eerie wax masks, sticks for warding off evil, and ostrich plume hats.

A garden of flying flowers.

You would never come across this tiny green oasis if you didn't know it existed.

This Belgian theme park began as a refuge for bored church children and was closed down when a boy lost an arm.

This impressive collection of skulls and bones was gathered by an ex-zookeeper who took advantage of a pig plague.

Ancient man-made caves underneath small town Belgium.

The vast chamber inside this abandoned cooling tower looks like something out of a sci-fi dystopia.

This bike path traverses the treetops.

An early 20th-century sanatorium, long abandoned and now being reclaimed by nature.

These roaring primates were considered a divine creature in the cosmology of the Maya.

One of the world's largest pyramids stands within El Mirador, the "lost city of the Maya."

Giant, natural amphitheaters made of delicate geological formations called "hoodoos."

Huge hole looks down onto an underground beach populated with sea lions.

These biodiverse university gardens form a green oasis amid the urban chaos of Mexico City.

The stoutest tree in the world.

Explore the atmospheric ruins of an abandoned convent in the dense forests of Mexico's first national park.

Stained glass windows bathe this botanical garden in cosmic light.