Places Mike Parker Wants to Go

The crown jewel of the Queens Museum is a nearly 10,000-square-foot architectural model of the city originally built for the 1964 World's Fair.

Leaf through over 30,000 artists' sketchbooks in what may be the world's largest collection of doodles

The installation’s official name, “You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies,” says it all.

In Portugal, a secluded stretch of untouched natural beauty hides at the bottom of a steep hill.

Museum design and public transportation meet in this unique Russian train car.

The gorgeous entrances into the city's underbelly look more like grand halls than subway stops.

Dr. Strangelove-esque tours reveal the inside a bunker once reserved for Stalin himself.

A former French military respite turned jungle tourism hotspot.

Reaching the "Church in the Sky" requires scaling the cliff face of a sandstone pinnacle with a 650-foot drop.

Mount Nyiragongo has erupted at least 34 times since 1882 and is home to the world's largest lava lake.

Crumbling pyramids and temple ruins stand within the shadow of this sacred butte.

These Nubian pyramids are strange and unique, even by pyramid standards.

This ancient fortress in Iran was once the oldest and largest treasury in the world.

These little castles each held thousands of pigeons.

Putrefaction plateaus in Iran, where the dead were sent for decontamination before going to their final resting place.

Mirrors and glass shards cover every inch of this arrestingly beautiful mosque.

An abandoned saucer-shaped monument in the Bulgarian mountains.

This brutalist monument is inscribed with 9921 names of Yugoslav partisans who perished during WWII.

A war-torn Olympic relic is being overtaken by graffiti and nature.

These warring psychedelic crags commemorate an unsuccessful military operation.

Hidden beneath the famous St. Peter's Basilica is a veritable city of the dead that may hold the remains of St. Peter himself.

A spectacular rainbow of stained glass makes the "Pink Mosque" one of the most beautiful in Iran.

On the outskirts of a desert trading village high on the Andean plain, steel giants have been destroyed by salt winds.

It's not your typical library, memorial, or book store.