Places Paula Mejia Wants to Go

Stalactites and stalagmites in a beautifully lit cave.

A 16th-century horror show built in a lovely Italian garden.

A submerged archeological park still holds the wonders of a Roman Sodom.

A taste of the macabre Tokyo's ritzy shopping district.

This faux-seedy Japanese arcade is made up to look like a maze of alleys straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia.

Tiring of digging out the door to this church for every service, it was eventually abandoned to the sands.

Old Danish castle immortalized in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

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

A scale model of Russia so big visitors are offered binoculars to rent so they can see the whole thing.

A dormant lightning machine equal to all the power in Russia.

Legends of time travel and magical woodland creatures bolster the natural charm of this verdant sanctuary in the midst of Moscow.

Secret Soviet city once home to Russian cosmonauts and space training facilities.

Immortal combat in a Moscow museum.

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

This ancient village and its adjoining cemetery have a beautiful history of death and remembrance.

Tucked behind the Institute of Neurological Science down a decrepit street resides the largest display of human brains in Latin America.

A market for witches is hidden within a train station.

Huge stone depressions which may have acted as an Incan agricultural experiment.

The mortal remains of an estimated 70,000 people lie in the basement of a monastery in Lima, Peru.

The intricate stonework of Machu Picchu serves as a testament to Incan engineers.

An explosion of natural color known as "the river that ran away from paradise."

A town church once nearly submerged by the damming of a river is now hauntingly visible as the water recedes.

This former shopping center now acts as the eccentric lair of the Venezuelan secret police and their shadow prison.

Ruins of the laboratory where a mysterious doctor invented an embalming fluid and stored his mummies.