The steppes of Kazakhstan’s Almaty region are not the most inviting place, especially in winter time, but one unusual phenomenon has been attracting a lot of tourists there lately.

Located between the villages of Kegen and Shyrganak in the middle of a snow-covered plateau is a 14-meter-high ice tower that continuously spouts water which turns to ice almost instantly. The unique structure looks like a miniature volcano, only instead of hot lava, it spouts water. The sight has become popular both among locals, but also Instagram fans and influencers looking for special backgrounds for their social media posts.

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A coal seam approximately 30 meters under Australia’s Mount Wingen has been burning continuously for approximately 6,000 years, earning the place its famous nickname, Burning Mountain.

Underground coal seam fires are not at all uncommon, in fact it’s estimated that about 1,000 coal seams are burning around the world at any one point. Such fires usually occur in coal-rich but less-developed countries, and are usually put out in a matter of days, a month at most. That’s not always the case though, and India’s Jharia coalfield, which has been burning continuously for over 100 years, is a perfect example. But even this century-old fire pales in comparison with the world’s oldest coal fire, an underground coal seem that has been smoldering for about six millennia.

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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.

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Photos of a mysterious solitary white house on the side of a green hill, on a small, deserted island surrounded by ocean as far as the eye can see have been doing the rounds on the internet for years, earning the place the unofficial title of “loneliest house in the world”.

The Vestmannaeyjar  archipelago consists of a cluster of small islands off the southern coast of Iceland. Elliðaey (or Ellirey) is the most northeastern of these islands, and home to the iconic single house siting alone on a grassy, sloping pasture. It’s an idyllic place that has remained uninhabited since the 1930s, which only makes the existence of this seemingly well-maintained man-made building even more mind-boggling.

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The Broomway, a 600-year-old footpath connecting the coast of Essex to Foulness Island, in the UK, is rumored to have claimed over 100 lives over the centuries, which has earned it the reputation of Britain’s deadliest path and the eerie nickname “The Doomway”.

For centuries, the Broomway was the only way to access Foulness Island on foot. Recorded as early as 1419, the footpath runs for about 6 miles through vast sand flats and mud flats that look deceptively easy to navigate in good weather, but that can prove deadly in less than ideal conditions. Named after the hundreds of “brooms” – bundles of twigs attached to short poles – which once marked the path, the Broomway is now outlined by wooden poles that are easy to miss in fog and heavy rain. And getting lost in the treacherous sand flats can be deadly, for a number of reasons.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Once every 7 to 10 years, Nevada’s Lake Pyramid experiences an algae boom so significant that its color changes from dark blue to a vibrant turquoise. This phenomenon is known as “whiting”.

Located in a remote desert area of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribes’ Reservation, about 40 miles northeast of Reno, Lake Pyramid is famous for the whiting events that occur there every decade or so. Over the course of a few weeks, the water turns light blue, turquoise, and, in rare cases, even white. This spontaneous precipitation of calcium carbonate is well documented, but not very well understood. All scientists know is that contributing factors include high water temperatures, algae bloom and increased calcium concentrations. Interestingly, whiting events are not dangerous to the aquatic life. However the same cannot be said for land life, including humans…

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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…

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A unique tourist attraction in southeastern China’s Fujian province lets wuxia fans fulfill their dream of experiencing the flying techniques of the kung-fu masters they used to watch on TV growing up.

If you’re a fan of popular wuxia films like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or “House of Flying Daggers”, you’ve probably fantasized or even tried reenacting scenes where protagonists soared through the air or battled their rivals while defying gravity. Not the easiest thing to do without the right props, but luckily there is now a place where you can reproduce all your favorite kung-fu movie techniques to a stunning backdrop of traditional Chinese architecture and waterfalls.

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There are plenty of interesting places to visit in South Korea, but if you’re all about adding new and exciting content to your Instagram feed, the you simply must add the Purple Island on your itinerary.

With the Covid-19 wreaking havoc around the world, South Korea included, international travel isn’t what it used to be just a few months ago, but that just means more time to plan your next great adventure. And if you have your sights set on Instagram-worthy destinations, South Korea’s new Purple Island is a must-visit. As the name suggests, this place is a purple paradise complete with vast fields of lavender, empress trees that bloom purple, purple painted houses, bridges and even purple roads.

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Vladimir Ilich Lenin, the founder and first leader of the Soviet Union, lives on in the hearts and minds of the Russian people, but also in one little-known geoglyph in the country’s Siberia region – pine tree forest that spells “Lenin” in Cyrillic letters.

Russian photographer Slava Stepanov was planning a business trip to the city of Omsk, when he remembered a fascinating Google Earth satellite image captured in that region a few years earlier. Taking a day off from work, Stepanov decided to drive to the town of Tyukalinsk and look for a very common-looking grove on the outskirts of the settlement. Planted in straight rows, typical for man-made forests, the pine grove only revealed its secret when Stepanov released his drone to get a view from high above.

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