Located on a small island, in the middle of Wanfeng Lake in southwestern China’s Guizhou Province, is one of the most stunning fairytale castles on Earth. Only it’s not actually a castle, but a four-star resort.

Built in 2011, the Jilong Castle Country Club, aka Jilongbao Resort, is one of the most impressive, yet unusual sights in all of China. On one hand, the location, the attention to detail and bridge linking it to the mainland are breathtaking, but on the other, it looks like something you would expect to find in a European country like Germany or France, where medieval castles actually still exist. Although China’s fascination with castles, and European architecture in general is well-known, it’s still a bit of an unusual tourist attraction.

Read More »

Mount Fanjing, in southwestern China’s Wuling mountain range, is home to one of the most otherworldly sights on the planet: two small temples built atop a split rock spire, connected by an arched bridge, overlooking a stunning natural paradise.

Perched at the top of the natural rock spire known as the Red Clouds Golden Peak, the two small Buddhist temples have a history that goes back over 500 years, to the Ming Dynasty. How Buddhists managed to carry the needed materials up that precarious rock formation without modern technology remains a mystery, but the temple complex we see todays has been rebuilt according to its original look, only using sturdier materials like iron tiles, in order to resist the strong winds and overall harsh environment.

Read More »

The crew of a Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter flying over a forested region near Kaipara Falls, in New Zealand, spotted a bunch of trees planted in the shape of a heart, in the middle of a small forest.

Dubbed the “heart of the forest”, the unusual find went viral on social media last month, after a photo of it taken by helicopter crew chief Mark “Tinny” Cannell was shared on Facebook. This was the first time a Westpac Rescue team spotted the tree heart, so they didn’t have any story to share, but a number of comments on the original Facebook post claimed that it was the work of a certain Wayne Barnes, who also built a dwelling nearby, as a romantic gesture for his wife, Rosie.

Read More »

In the last decade and a half, the Bosnian town of Visoko has become a popular tourist attraction thanks to several “energy pyramids”, tree covered hills that some claim are actually part of the largest pyramid complex ever built.

The 350-foot-high Pljesevica Hill, aka the Pyramid of the Moon and the 720-foot-high Visocica Hill, or the Pyramid of the Sun, which border Visoko, are two very controversial landmarks in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Along with a third so-called “pyramid” in the nearby hills, they allegedly make up an ancient man-made complex that gives off massive levels of “energy force” that have a positive influence on people’s lives. Although scientists have been trying to debunk these new-age claims for many years, believers include a number of high-profile names, including Bosnian officials and even tennis world no.1, Novak Djokovic.

Read More »

Every year, at the end of October, tens of thousands of people flock to a Buddhist temple in China to see a majestic gingko biloba tree shed its foliage and turn the temple compound from green to gold.

The Gu Guanyin Buddhist temple in the Zhongnan Mountains of China’s Shaanxi Province is home to a 1,400-year-old gingko biloba tree that some say was planted for the Tang dynasty (618–907) emperor Li Shimin, one of the greatest rulers in Chinese history. It towers majestically over the temple, and for a few days every autumn, it rains down a gold carpet of leaves that stands out against the muted tones of the season. Because of its striking appearance, it has been called the world’s most beautiful gingko biloba tree, and has become a tourist attraction in it own right.

Read More »

Waterfalls are notoriously slippery, so trying to climb them without specialized gear is usually a bad idea, but at the Bua Thong Waterfalls in Thailand’s Chiang Mai province visitors can climb almost vertical falls using only their hands and feet.

The so-called Sticky Waterfalls get their name from the incredibly grippy limestone rocks that the water runs over. They feel like a very hard sponge to the touch and even though they can be described as prickly, you can easily climb them barefoot without hurting yourself. Because no algae or slimes adheres to this callous rock surface, the limestone creates enough friction to prevent slipping, allowing anyone in decent physical shape to climb even the steepest parts of the waterfalls.

Read More »

Developed during the 1980’s in Soviet Russia, the futuristic looking MD-160 Lun-class ekranoplan had been sitting unused at a Russian naval base since the late 1990’s, but has now been beached on the shores of the Caspian Sea, as part of a plan to turn it into an ocean-side tourist attraction.

Known as the Caspian Sea Monster, the giant ekranoplan was designed in 1975 by Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeyev, a prominent developer of of hydrofoil ships and ground effect vehicles. It used a cushion of air beneath its giant wings to hover at about 13 feet above water, making it hard to detect. It was built as part of the Soviet WIG program, which dated back to the 1960’s Cold War, and was the only Lun-class ekranoplan to ever be completed and equipped with supersonic missiles.

Read More »

La Casa en el Aire (literally ‘The House in the Air’ in Spanish) is a unique hostel perched on a cliff face, about 30 meters above ground, in the Colombian mountains.

Built primarily out of wood and featuring a tin roof, Casa en el Aire is attached to Cerro San Vicente, a monumental rock formation that rises up among the coffee landscape in rural Abejorral, Colombia’s Antioquia region. It is held in place by several steel wires connected to the cliff and supported by a long wooden pole also placed against the cliff. It stands about 20 meters above ground, at an altitude of about 2,500 meters above sea level. It is connected to a more stable-looking cable via a hanging bridge along the cliff face.

Read More »

The Japanese castle town of Himeji is home to the only known black cat café in the world, Nekobiyaka, where you can enjoy a refreshing drink in the company of about a dozen black felines.

There are hundreds of cat cafes all over Japan, but only one dedicated exclusively to black cats. Nekobiyaka opened in 2013 and has since become somewhat of a tourist attraction in Himeji. The owner, Ms. Yagi, came up with idea of a black cat café as a way of increasing the felines’ chances of finding a forever home. As in most places around the world, the rate of adoption for black cats in Japan is significantly lower than for all other colors, and many of them end up euthanized. At Nekobiyaka, visitors get to interact with black felines and discover that the stigma and superstition surrounding them is simply ridiculous.

Read More »

The Meikleour Beech Hedge, located near the village of Meikleour, in Scotland, measures 30 meters (98 feet) in height, making it the tallest hedge in the world.

Planted in 1745, the Meikleour Beech Hedge now lies alongside the A93 Perth-Blairgowrie Road and can be viewed all year round. It is recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the highest hedge in the world, and is most impressive to behold during Spring, when the young green leaves reflect the light, as well as in Fall, when the trees turn russet and gold.

Read More »

There are some long golf courses out there, some covering over 8,000 yards, but they all seem tiny when compared to the world’s longest golf course, which spans a whopping 1,365 kilometers.

Nullabor Links is an 8-hole par-72 golf course that stretches along the Eyre Highway, from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia to Ceduna in South Australia. Legend has it that the course was created to give truck drivers something to do on this remote stretch of road, but according to several sources, it was just a wacky idea born over a few bottles of wine between two golf enthusiasts looking for a way to keep tourists along Eyre Highway in the area for longer. Their concept, to create the world’s longest golf course proved a huge hit, one that continues to grow in popularity.

Read More »

Imagine walking into the most pompously adorned room at Versailles to buy a piece of cheese or some yogurt. That’s probably the feeling you get when you step into the Pfunds Molkerei, officially the most beautiful dairy shop in the world.

Located at Bautzner Straße 79, in Dresden, Germany, Pfunds Molkerei is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the German city, with over 500,000 tourists stopping by every year. That’s fairly unusual for a dairy shop, but then again, this isn’t your average dairy shop; it has more of a palace vibe, although some say it looks much better than most palace interiors. The whole place is decorated with ceramic tiles produced by Villeroy & Boch and hand-painted in the Neo-Renaissance style by local artists. In 1998, Pfunds Molkerei was awarded the title of “World’s Most Beautiful Dairy Shop” by Guinness Records.

Read More »

A Vietnamese man obsessed with traditional porcelain dishes and antiques has spent the last 25 years of his life decorating his house with almost 10,000 porcelain bowls, plates and urns.

Nguien Van Truong first fell in love with porcelain antiques in 1986, a year after being discharged from the army and returning to his home village of Kieu Son, in Vietnam’s Vinh Phuc province. He was making a living as a carpenter at a time and got the chance to paint the table and chairs of a local antique collector who first introduced him to the beauty of traditional porcelain dishes. Truong was so impressed that he decided to become a collector himself, and scoured all of Vietnam’s northern provinces in search of traditional porcelain objects, and spent all of his money trying to acquire as much of it as possible.

Read More »

The former Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York is home to a rare herd of white-tailed deer, all of which carry a recessive gene for all-white coats.

The Seneca white deer are not albinos, they are a natural variation of the white-tailed deer, which are usually a brown color. These rare deer are leucistic, meaning they lack pigmentation in the fur, but their eyes are the normal brown color. In the wild, the very visible white coat makes these rare creatures easy targets for both human hunters and predators like coyotes, but this particular herd was protected by a 24-mile (39 km) fence erected around the Seneca Army Depot in 1941. They were isolated inside the depot perimeter and since the military commander there forbade soldiers from shooting the white deer, their number grew into the hundreds.

Read More »

Wat Pariwat, in Bangkok, Thailand, gets its famous nickname – “David Beckham Temple” – from a gold-plated statue of the English former football player holding up a statue of Buddha. But that’s just one of the unexpected characters you’re bound to notice visiting this unusual holy place.

David Beckham’s statue was installed at Pariwat Temple in 1999, when the sculptor, who happened to be a die-hard Manchester United fan, was allowed to include it as a permanent temple decoration as a symbol of his love for the club. It has since become famous all over the world and has even given the temple its nickname. But this statue isn’t all that’s unusual about this Buddhist temple, not even close. Among Buddhist-themed artworks and representations of mythical creatures, you’ll notice some characters that don’t quite belong, like Batman or Albert Einstein…

Read More »