20 most beautiful destinations
1. Grand Canyon
Stand before the vast rent in the earth’s crust and you’re looking down at two-billion years of geologic time. That fact does something funny to the human brain. Lit by flaming sunsets, filled with billowing seas of fog and iced with crystal dystings of snow, the mile-deep, 277-mile-long Grand Canyon is nature’s cathedral. You’ll feel tiny yet soaring, awed yet peaceful, capable of poetry yet totally tongue-tied.
As the explorer John Wesley Powell once said, ‘The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself’. But we had to try anyway. Come here to hike, to raft the wild Colorado River, to spot condors, black bears and elk, or simply to marvel.
2. Taj Mahal
How do you achieve architectural perfection? Start with acres of shimmering white marble. Add a few thousand semi-precious stones, carved and inlaid in intricate Islamic patterns. Take a sublime setting by a sacred river, in jewel-like formal gardens. Apply a little perfect symmetry, and tie up the whole package in an outlandish story of timeless love. And there you have the Taj Mahal.
Built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj has been attracting travellers to India for centuries. Ironically, the emperor spent his final years incarcerated in Agra For by his ambitious son, with just a view of the Taj to remind him of everything he had lost.
Despite the incredible multitudes of visitors it draws, the Taj Mahal still presents a misty window through time. The ghosts of Mughal India wander the gleaming marble courtyards, drifting like shadows under archways and floating behind latticework screens. There’s no other building in India that so perfectly encapsulates the attitudes and atmosphere of its era.
3. Mount Fuji
Seeing Mt Fuji in the flesh is like stepping into a Japanese woodcut. This volcano was the muse for Katsushika Hokusai, the printmaker who created enduring images of imperial Japan. Climbing to the barren crater is a Japanese rite of passage, but you’ll have to share the experience, and the sense of reward that comes from reaching the rim, with a crowd. Many are content to contemplate the mountain from the Fuji-goko lakes or the cherry orchards of Fujiyoshida.
4. Yosemite
Could Yosemite National Park be the world’s most enduring rock star? It’s a place where countless waterfalls burst out of the mountains, giant sequoias scratch at the sky, and bears roam the expanses. But it’s the rocks that are Yosemite’s undisputed royalty. Everywhere you look, sheer granite domes bubble up from the land. Half Dome hovers like a vast rock wave about to break over Yosemite Valley, and the ominous sentinel of El Capitan guards the entrance to the valley.
On Yosemite’s rocks, some of the world’s most epic climbing stories have been painstakingly carved. The first ascent of El Cap’s legendary Nose, once considered unclimbable, took 47 days. In 2008, Alex Honnold famously scampered up Half Dome without ropes, and in 2015, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson spent 18 days nutting out the puzzle of El Cap’s Dawn Wall, a feat many consider the most difficult rock climb ever attempted.
Come to watch the waterfalls or the climbers, but prepare to be awed.
5. Pyramids of Giza
Khufu is probably spinning in his tomb to find the Pyramids just scraping into the Top 5. Why aren’t the Pyramids closer to the top? After all, ther’re the world’s oldest tourist attraction, and remain truly awe-inspiring. The Great Pyramid of Giza clocked a 3800-year stint as the world’s tallest building, while just down the road is the Sphinx, one of the oldest and largest statues in the world.
The answer might lie in those same sands of time. Found on the edge of sprawling Cairo, the Pyramids remain a magnet for would-be guides and hawkers. Plenty of world-class sights make a better fist of explaining and showcasing the wonders on offer. Perhaps, above of all, the pyramids are too familiar to top this list. None of that really matters, though. The Pyramids will be here when you and I and this list are gone, and crowds will still be flocking to see them.
6. Colosseum
There’s nothing like a feisty Roman monument to rev up your inner historian, and the Colosseum performs billiantly. A monument to raw, merciless power, this massive 50,000-seat amphitheatre is the most thrilling or Rome’s ancient sights. Gladiators met here in mortal combat, and condemned prisoners fought off wild beasts in front of baying, bloodthirsty crowds. Two millennia on, the hold it exerts over anyone who steps foot inside is as powerful as ever.
The Colosseum really is colossal and it is this that first impresses (although the amphitheatre was named not after its size but after a nearby statue of Nero, the Colosso di Nerone). Simply navigating the 80 entrance arches through wich the audience entered and could be seated within minutes isa complicated affair – imagine the other 49,999 spectators who, in Roman times, would have been jockeying simultaneously for a spot alongside you and the mind boggles. Magistrates and senior officials sat in the lowest tier nearest the action, wealthy citizens sat in the middle tier, and the plebs on the highes tier. Women, being even more 2nd-class citizens than the plebs, were relegated to straining their necks to watch from the cheapest sections on the top tier.
Despite the gruesome shows that went on here, there’s no denying the majesty and grace of the arena. Less glam is what went on backstage: guided tours (a must- take the historically curious into the subterranean guts of the Colosseum where the full grunge, gore and filth of Roman gladiator combats come uncomfortably to life. Known as the hypogeum, this underground labyrinth of corridors, animal cages and ramps beneath the arena floor is vast and complex. Chuck in the bestial noise, strench, chaos of wounded men and dead or injured animals and you realise how gut-wrenching and bloody those Roman performances were.
7. Monument Valley
Like a classic movie star, Monument Valley has a face known around the world. Her fiery red spindles, sheer-walled mesas and grand buttes have starred in many films and commercials, and have been featured in magazine ads. Monument Valley’s epic beauty is heightened by the drab landscape surrounding it. One minute you’re in the middle of sand, rocks and infinite sky, then suddenly you’re transported to a fantasyland of crimson sandstone towers soaring up to 400m skywards. At one time, the valley was home to Ancestral Puebloans, who abruptly abandoned the site some 700 years ago. The Navajo people arrived a few centuries later, calling it Valley Between the Rocks, and they still inhabit the land.
8. Kinkaku-ji
Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion) is one of the truly great sights of Japan. Wrapped in gold leaf and shimmering in the pond below it, the Zen Buddhist temple is beautiful, whether you see it in autumn to a backdrop of red maple leaves, in winter covered in snow, or on a shining summer day. The temple was restored in 1955 after a young monk burned Kinkaku-ji to the ground five years earlier. The tale was immortalized in a novel by Japanse writer, Yukio Mishima.
9. Plitvice Lakes
A striking ribbon of crystal water and gushing waterfalls in the forested heart of continental Croatia, Plitvice Lakes National Park is excruciatingly scenic and has to be one of the most singular parks in the world. There are dozens of lakes here – from 4km-long Kozjak to reed-fringed ponds – all in surreal shades of turquoise that are a product of the karst terrain. Travertine expanses covered with mossy plants divide the lakes, while boardwalks allow you to step right over this exquisite water world, and trails lead deep into beech, spruce, fir and pine trees. Bears, wolves and deer roam around here, but perhaps you’re more likely to catch a glimpse of a swooping hawk or the occasional black stork
10. Shibuya Crossing
Shibuya Crossing is the Tokyo you’ve seen in the movies – neon canyons, giant video screens and streets teeming with humanity. It’s an electric setting for a spectacle of epic proportions. This is one of the world’s busiest pedestrian crossings, where five roads meet and up to 1000 people cross from every direction.
When the man goes green, the scramble begins. But what should resemble a battle-charge of armies from The Lord Of The Rings is instead an elegant dance of people dodging their way through the throng. Anywhere else in the world things could get ugly, but such are the good manners of the Japanese that it goes off without a hitch. No sooner has the crossing cleared than all sides are replenished again. And so the shows go on; one you can star in or view from the wings.
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