Places MikeInSanFrancisco Wants to Go

Abandoned blockhouses from Nazi Germany's Atlantic Wall erode into the sea on a French beach.

The eclectic observatory castle of a 19th-century astronomer and explorer.

A French valley with forests so lush it was nicknamed "the Small Amazonia of the Pyrenees."

Try Taiwan's iconic Apple Bread—which traditionally contains no apples—at the bakery that invented it.

The longest skywalk in Taiwan.

Devoted Buddhists can earn enlightenment in the next life by crawling through this symbolic nostril.

Giant animal sculptures are created with the rice straw leftover from the fall harvest each year.

Marvel at the world's largest collection of jellyfish, including more than 10,000 undulating moon jellies.

A natural resemblance of the monster of film lore.

This glass-themed tourist park in northern Japan feels like taking a step back in time.

This village is home to the largest existing settlement of the Ainu, the Indigenous people of Japan.

A place where you can symbolically rid yourself of negative thoughts and attitudes.

After a short 5 year run, this former major theme park sits in ruin.

This garden located inside a bamboo forest once belonged to a famous Japanese actor.

Nope, not the one in France. The only officially-recognized reproduction of Monet’s garden in Giverny is located in a remote corner of Japan.

"The Dance of Fools" is Japan's largest dance festival.

Fans line up at the crack of dawn for a slurpy bowl of deliciousness at this noodle counter inside a factory.

An ingenious solution to a tricky engineering problem, this spiraling bridge takes drivers for a dizzying spin.

This little known mountain has claimed four times as many lives as Everest.

Come for the fish sundae, stay for the collection of Studio Ghibli cat buses.

This amusement park brings a little slice of England to the heart of Kyushu.

This giant seated Bhudda of Healing dates to the 1780s.

Emerging from the sidewalk, this sculpture of a whale commemorates the importance of baleen in traditional Japanese puppetry.

A thick blanket of beautiful pampas grass cloaks this unique Japanese landscape.