Places Nicholas Davis Wants to Go

Handcrafted thermal spa washes away each night with the tide.

New Zealand's epic shrine to all things puzzling.

The platform atop this verdant volcano was built with the help of a royal elephant.

A lakeside garden in the Southern Alps full of whimsical artwork and thousands of beautiful flowers.

A galaxy of glowworms—larvae of a gnat—hides deep in the belly of these caves.

Only 68 people per day are allowed to visit this New Zealand bird-watcher’s paradise.

Some of the clearest water anywhere in the world.

Known for the tunnel that leads visitors to the water.

A perfect turquoise lake colored with glacier dust.

This electric green sulphur lake in New Zealand looks like a cartoonish radioactive dump site.

One man's dream has turned into this naturally growing chapel made of almost nothing but trees.

The Dalai Lama named this New Zealand landscape the "Spiritual Center of the Universe."

This sheep farm has been forever transformed since being built for “The Hobbit” film series.

A rare octagonal brick beacon on an isolated island in the Baltic.

The tallest lighthouse in the Nordic countries was also the site of a bloody World War II battle.

A giant gorilla made of used car tires used to sit sentinel over a Helsinki college campus.

The grandest stage for the world's foremost masters of invisible instruments.

Every summer, an open-air swimming pool appears at the base of a Finnish city's beloved winter attraction.

One of the world's most unusual events combines headbanging and needlework.

Finland's northernmost zoo is home to the country's only polar bears.

Fortifications built for a Soviet invasion that never came now sit abandoned in a losing battle against nature.

A lumberjack in Finnish Lapland did not want to cut down his Arctic pines, so he offered them up to be adopted by nature-lovers.

Hidden deep in a forest is this geological wonder carved by glaciers.

This intricately spiralling forest was created as a monumental work of art.