The South American country of Uruguay is home to a unique eucalyptus plantation with a very distinct shape that can only by admired from high above.

Up until a few years ago, few people even knew that the Florida Goblet existed. It wasn’t until Google Earth became a thing that people discovered its unusual shape. To some, it looks like a goblet with a crown on top of it, while others see a chandelier, but the thing that everyone can agree on it its massive size. The plantation measures about 500 meters long by 235 wide and the lines that make up the top and bottom of the design are around 13-meters-wide. It’s so large that from the ground, you could never tell it has this peculiar shape.

Read More »

The Salar de Arizaro, Argentina’s second largest salt flat, is home to one of the world’s most mysterious natural formations – Cono de Arita, a 200-meter-tall conical pyramid that’s so perfectly shaped that it appears man-made.

In fact, all through the early twentieth century, everyone was convinced that Cono de Arita, like the actual pyramids of Egypt, had been built my man. However, scientific research has since showed that this imposing formation is actually the tip of a small volcano that lacked the power to burst through the Earth’s curst and spew lava or develop a crater. Today it is considered the most perfect natural cone in the world.

Read More »

Burj Al Babas is an abandoned housing development in Turkey, which consists of hundreds of miniature Disney-like chateaus stretching out almost as far as the eye can see.

It was supposed to be a bustling holiday retreat for the world’s super-rich, a neighborhood of castle-inspired villas spread around in a picturesque valley, near the the historic village of Mudurnu, in northwestern Turkey. Instead, today Burj Al Babas is one of the world’s largest ghost towns, featuring hundreds of unfinished villas, some of which have already started to deteriorate. It’s a story of big ambitions, sky-high property prices and economic woes that ultimately spelled the end of the dream that was Burj Al Babas.

Read More »

Minami-daitojima, a small Japanese island surrounded by raised coral reef, has no beaches or docks, so the only way for people or boats to make it on the island is to be flung through the air by large industrial cranes.

A round uplifted coral island in the Okinawa archipelago, Minami-daitojima, aka Daito Island, has been using cranes to get people and small boats on and off for the last 50 years. Because of the coral reefs surrounding it, ships can only moor up to 4 to 6 meters away, so this method is the safest and fastest to reach or leave the island. Boats are secures with straps and chains, while people have to get in an elevator-like cage, fasten the door and then get flung through the air by an industrial crane on the island. The experience has been described both as “terrifying” and as “fun” as an amusement park ride.

Read More »

In the arid wastes of eastern Yemen lies a fascinating natural wonder called the Well of Barhout. Shrouded in mystery and folklore, this large hole in the ground said to be the most hated spot on Earth to God.

Located in the eponymous valley, Barhout Well is 30 meters wide and thought to be anywhere between 100 and 250 meters deep. The depth is just pure estimation, as no one has been down to the bottom of it, and considering the chilling legends and stories surrounding it, I doubt any of the locals would attempt a decent. Not even Yemeni scientists and explorers have been able to reach the bottom, as the low oxygen and strange odors emanating from the well forced them back to the surface.

Read More »

At the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains in northwest Azerbaijan, lies Parigala, one of the world’s most impressive archeological mysteries. Carved into the nearly vertical face of a rock cliff, the centuries-old structure remains a mystery that hardly anyone knows anything about.

The idea that an amazing site like Parigala (literally ‘Fairy Castle’ in Azerbaijani) is one of Azerbaijan’s lesser-known archeological treasures baffles the mind. That has to do both with the country’s still underdeveloped tourism industry, and the fact that you need to go off the beaten path to reach Parigala. That fits the general theme of the place, which is inaccessibility, but still, hopping into a four-wheel drive vehicle to navigate the narrow tracks leading up to it,  then climbing up a very slippery slope to a steep, leaf-covered and forested hillside just to reach the cliff it’s carved into, is definitely not for everyone.

Read More »

Surrounded by lush forest on all sides and untouched by human civilization, the heart-shaped Lake Toyoni is a hidden gem among Japan’s many tourism attractions.

Up until a few years ago, Lake Toyoni was virtually unknown to most Japanese, but a popular television commercial featuring an aerial view of the heart-shaped natural wonder turned it into a popular tourist spot virtually overnight. The internet is full of digitally-altered heart-shaped lakes, but Toyoni is one of the few, if not the only one, in the world that actually has this shape, so when people learned that it was real, they flocked to the island of Hokkaido to see the natural wonder for themselves.

Read More »

Muscle Girls is a Tokyo-based women’s gym that doubles as a fitness-themed bar staffed by a group of young, muscular women.

Japan is famous for its plethora of themed bars and cafes, from black cat cafes to cafes dedicated to women’s thighs, but Muscle Girls is the country’s first and only bar dedicated to female weightlifting. Founded by a young fitness enthusiast who goes by the name of Eri Muscle, Muscle Girls started out as a women’s gym, but recently transitioned into the entertainment industry, opening its own unique bar as well as a popular YouTube channel. Photos and videos of the venue started going viral earlier this year, mainly because of its staff, which is made up exclusively of muscular, fitness-loving girls.

Read More »

McGuire’s Irish Pub is a popular restaurant and local landmark in Pensacola, Florida, famous for having an estimated two million dollars in cash hanging from the ceiling.

The history of McGuire’s Irish Pub’s unique decoration can be traced back to 1977, when Martin McGuire and his wife, Molly opened the opened the business. He tended the bar while Molly waited tables, and when she made her first $1 tip, she celebrated by writing the date on it and tacking it to the back bar for good luck. Little did she know that this was the start of a longstanding tradition that is still being respected by patrons of the pub. The very next day after that first bill was tacked to the bar, people started adding to the collection, and they’ve been doing it ever since.

Read More »

BW Kafe is an unusual-looking cafe with venues in Moscow and Sankt Petersburg which look like the setting of A-ha’s famous “Take on Me” video.

BW Kafe first made international headlines last year, when photos of the Sankt Petersburg branch went viral online. Designed by Russian artist Anfisa Toshina, the interior of the cafe looks sketched with charcoal on a piece of white paper, creating the illusion that you are the only 3D “object” in a two-dimensional world. It’s a pretty nice trick, but one that might seem oddly familiar if you’ve been on the internet sometime in the last two years…

Read More »

A cedar forest in Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture is home to a couple of unusual crop circle-like patterns that are clearly not random in nature.

Photos of the bizarre patterns, which are visible only from above, made their way on the internet about three years ago and fueled all kinds of conspiracy theories that involved everything from aliens to secret government experiments. Well, that second one turned out to be quite close to the truth, only the experiments weren’t secret, and they weren’t conducted by some obscure outfit, but by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Back in 1973 an area of land near Nichinan City was designated as “experimental forestry” and the results of that experiment are visible today.

Read More »

The Dutch province of Utrecht is home to a bizarre-looking lake that seems to have been carved up with a giant knife, which sounds preposterous, but is actually fairly accurate.

Vinkeveense Plassen (Lakes of Vinkeveen) consists of a large body of water and bizarre strip-like sand-islands dotted with houses, wooden peers and trees. It’s the shape of these long strips of land stretching far into the water that first catches your attention, especially when seeing the lake from above. They don’t look like any lake islands I’ve ever seen, but then again, this is no ordinary lake. Vinkeveense Plassen may be a popular vacation area today, but it started out as as peat extracting site, and those long strips of land were used to dry the peat on.

Read More »

The Bulgarian St. Stephen Church in Istanbul, Turkey, has the detailed ornaments of an Orthodox stone church, but it’s actually made of prefabricated cast iron elements.

Sometimes referred to as ‘The Iron Church’, St. Stephen Church is considered the largest prefabricated cast iron building in the world. It consists of thousands of prefabricated pieces of cast iron, from large walls, to small, intricate decorations, all of which weigh over 500 tons. As almost the entire structure and its exquisite décor are cast out of iron, a close inspection reveals the heads of the large screws holding it together everywhere you look.

Read More »

The “Golden Arches” McDonald’s logo is one of the most recognized commercial symbols in the world, but there is one place where the arches are actually blue instead of yellow.

On the inside, the McDonald’s fast-food restaurant in Sedona, Arizona, looks just like the thousands of other McDonald’s eateries around the United States, but step outside and you’ll notice something odd. The iconic Golden Arches logo is blue instead of yellow. It’s actually the only McDonald’s in the world that doesn’t have a yellow logo, and it’s all because of the stunning natural beauty, particularly the red rock formations that surround Sedona.

Read More »

The Greek island of Rhodes is home to a special biome called Petaloudes Valley, or the Valley of Butterflies, after the millions of endemic moths that cover almost every surface during the summer months.

Located on the western side of Rhodes Island, about 10 kilometers from 10 km from the airport and 25 km from Rhodes City, Petaloudes Valley hosts the only natural forest of Oriental Sweetgum trees (Liquidambar orientalis) in Europe. It’s the scent given off by these trees that attracts an endemic subspecies of Jersey Tiger moths called Euplagia quadripunctaria rhodosensis; huge numbers of moths congregate in this small valley, covering almost every visible surface almost as a living blanket.

Read More »