If you love to travel and fond of mother nature then here are the list of places you should never miss.
1. Virunga Volcanoes
Africa's Green and Fiery Heart
Perhaps nowhere
on Earth is the dual creative and destructive nature of volcanoes more
evident than in central Africa’s Virunga Volcanoes Massif. Straddling the borders between Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the eight-volcano chain is one of Earth’s most active volcanic regions and a veritable salad bowl for mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, and other wildlife. Landscapes in all three countries conjure visions of both Eden and hell.
In Congo, the swirling plume of the active Nyiragongo Volcano (above) beckons. Check on the security situation in the troubled country before going, but those who make the steep five-hour hike up Nyiragongo are rewarded with heady vistas of the world’s largest lava lake. Spend the night on the rim to fully experience the crater’s fiery light and sound spectacle.
In Congo, the swirling plume of the active Nyiragongo Volcano (above) beckons. Check on the security situation in the troubled country before going, but those who make the steep five-hour hike up Nyiragongo are rewarded with heady vistas of the world’s largest lava lake. Spend the night on the rim to fully experience the crater’s fiery light and sound spectacle.
2. Costa Brava Coast
Tossa de Mar
Tossa de Mar is perched on the Mediterranean in Catalonia, a province in
northeastern Spain. The Costa Brava coastal region is a popular tourist
destination, thanks to its moderate climate, beautiful beaches, and
charming towns.
The best activities to do among many others are camping Costa Brava
and bike tour. If you are looking for holiday trips, the experience of
going to Portbou to La Bisbal within the region of Costa Brava is
splendid.
A tip for the travellers is to start your
ride right on the border of the country of Spain and France in Portbou,
the small fishing town that can be found in between these two countries.
There are many visitors come to Portbou because the sunshine is too
good to sense and more affordable in prices when you compare in France.
3. Guatemala
Modern Maya World
Every year countless travelers visit the ruins of once great Mayan cities: Chichén Itzá (Mexico), Tikal (Guatemala), Caracol (Belize), and Copán (Honduras). The pyramids and stelae are well worth seeing, especially at jungle-shrouded Tikal (above), but here’s the thing: Maya civilization isn’t long gone. Its apogee may have passed, but millions of Maya people and their culture remain alive and well, most vibrantly in Guatemala’s Western Highlands.The most alluring place in Maya Guatemala is Chichicastenango, a walkable town about three hours by road from Guatemala City where more than 95 percent of the people are indigenous. Each Thursday and Sunday, Maya vendors carry their goods on their backs at dawn to Chichi’s market, selling brilliantly hued textiles, fearsome wooden masks, golden and purple maize, necklaces, and produce arranged in Escher-like patterns. Smoke from grills perfumes the narrow aisles, and so many women briskly pat stone-ground tortillas into shape that it sounds like a standing ovation.
4. Iceland
Harmonic Convergence
Dusk falls on a primeval landscape on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula. A final relic from the world’s last ice age, this North Atlantic island nation is a world of knife-cut valleys, gargantuan fjords, monumental cliffs, black-sand beaches, thundering waterfalls, and silent white glaciers. Recent volcanic eruptions remind us that Iceland is still a country in the making, with changed landscapes that even Icelanders continue to discover.
Three years of financial recovery have made Iceland more affordable, with consumer prices now largely pegged to the euro. The country’s return to a humbler attitude stems from a thousand-year-old tradition of self-reliance—a tradition that has preserved one of the world’s oldest living languages and harnessed some of the cleanest energy on Earth.
5. New Zealand
Lake Tekapo
A violent struggle created this world, according to Maori mythology: Indigenous New Zealanders say Sky Father and Earth Mother were ripped from each other’s arms to make room for mountains, forests, and oceans. Around Rotorua, a Maori heartland and home of the mineral-rimmed Champagne Pool (above), it’s easy to believe the struggle continues, as the eerie landscape bubbles and churns like some primordial stew. Geysers erupt, mud boils, and steam seeps from cliffs and sidewalks, leaving a sulfurous scent in the air.
In a land where adrenaline lovers ride rockets suspended on wires and roll downhill inside giant plastic balls, biking seems one of the saner ways to plunge into a landscape that compels exploration: hot springs, glaciers, rain forests, and volcanoes, encircled by nearly 10,000 miles of coastline, packed into a country barely bigger than Colorado. New Zealand is made for journeys, physical and spiritual.
6. Machu Pichu
Trekker's paradise
When the explorer Hiram Bingham III encountered Machu Picchu in 1911, he was looking for a different city, known as Vilcabamba. This was a hidden capital to which the Inca had escaped after the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532. Over time it became famous as the legendary Lost City of the Inca. Bingham spent most of his life arguing that Machu Picchu and Vilcabamba were one and the same, a theory that wasn’t proved wrong until after his death in 1956. (The real Vilcabamba is now believed to have been built in the jungle about 50 miles west of Machu Picchu.) Recent research has cast doubt on whether Machu Picchu had ever been forgotten at all. When Bingham arrived, three families of farmers were living at the site.
For visitors conditioned to the explanatory signs at national parks, one of the strangest things about Machu Picchu is that the site provides virtually no information about the ruins. (This lack does have one advantage—the ruins remain uncluttered.) The excellent Museo de Sitio Manuel Chávez Ballón ($8 entry) fills in many of the blanks about how and why Machu Picchu was built (displays are in English and Spanish), and why the Inca chose such an extraordinary natural location for the citadel. First you have to find the museum, though. It’s inconveniently tucked at the end of a long dirt road near the base of Machu Picchu, about a 30-minute walk from the town of Aguas Calientes.
Trekker's paradise
When the explorer Hiram Bingham III encountered Machu Picchu in 1911, he was looking for a different city, known as Vilcabamba. This was a hidden capital to which the Inca had escaped after the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532. Over time it became famous as the legendary Lost City of the Inca. Bingham spent most of his life arguing that Machu Picchu and Vilcabamba were one and the same, a theory that wasn’t proved wrong until after his death in 1956. (The real Vilcabamba is now believed to have been built in the jungle about 50 miles west of Machu Picchu.) Recent research has cast doubt on whether Machu Picchu had ever been forgotten at all. When Bingham arrived, three families of farmers were living at the site.
For visitors conditioned to the explanatory signs at national parks, one of the strangest things about Machu Picchu is that the site provides virtually no information about the ruins. (This lack does have one advantage—the ruins remain uncluttered.) The excellent Museo de Sitio Manuel Chávez Ballón ($8 entry) fills in many of the blanks about how and why Machu Picchu was built (displays are in English and Spanish), and why the Inca chose such an extraordinary natural location for the citadel. First you have to find the museum, though. It’s inconveniently tucked at the end of a long dirt road near the base of Machu Picchu, about a 30-minute walk from the town of Aguas Calientes.
7. The Great wall of China
A wonder
China’s iconic Great Wall, actually a
network of fortifications rather than a single structure, is the product
of countless labors over a period of some two thousand years. Qin Shi
Huang took the remnants of truly ancient fortifications, walls, and
earthworks begun in the fifth century B.C. and linked them into a
unified wall circa 220 B.C. as part of a massive project to protect
China against marauding barbarians from the north.
By
the time construction on most of the stone-and-brick Great Wall, with
its turrets and watchtowers, was completed during the Ming dynasty
(1368-1644) the chang cheng had become the world’s largest human-made object.
A
recent government mapping project revealed that the entire Great Wall
structure spans some 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers) from the Korean
border west into the Gobi desert. Of that total 3,889 miles (6,259
kilometers) were actual wall, while 223 miles (359 kilometers) were
trenches and (1,387 miles) 2,232 kilometers were natural defensive
barriers, like rivers or steep hills, incorporated into the system.
Though
new sections of the wall have recently been uncovered, several sections
of the structure have vanished during the past half century or so. Mao
Zedong himself encouraged destruction of parts of the wall and reuse of
its materials in the 1950s, and rural farmers still make use of the
wall’s earth and stone for practical purposes.
Some
50 percent of the original ancient structure has already disappeared,
and perhaps another 30 percent lies crumbling into ruins—even as Chinese
and international organizations struggle to preserve what remains of
this unique treasure.
9. Lavaux Vineyard Terraces, Switzerland
The Lavaux Vineyard Terraces blanket the lower mountain slopes along the northern shores of Lake Geneva. Each autumn, the 2,050 acres of ancient vineyards—established by Benedictine and Cistercian monks in the 11th century and protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2007—attract hikers who walk and taste their way along the 21-mile Grand Traversée de Lavaux from Ouchy in Lausanne to Chateau de Chillon Castle. Yellow arrows mark the main path, which leads though working vineyards (Chasselas is the region’s predominant wine grape variety) and medieval villages, facilitating frequent refueling stops at local wine cellars, pubs, and restaurants. Saturdays through October 15, the Lavaux Panoramic wine tasting tourist train rolls—on tires, not tracks—through the villages of Chardonne, Chexbres, Rivaz, and St-Saphorin. A crisscross network of public and private railways makes it easy to explore the entire Lavaux region on foot or by bike. Or, if you’re up to the challenge, join the thousands of runners expected for the Lausanne Marathon on October 30, which follows the shore road between Lake Geneva and the terraced hillsides.
10. Banff National Park, Canada
Nature at its best
The first national park established in Canada, Banff National Park spans a region of unparalleled mountain scenery and is open year-round for wildlife viewing, sightseeing, and other outdoor activities.
Whether your fancy is glacial lakes, sandy beaches, rocky coasts, or lush forests, Canada has them all, in a national park system that’s one of the world’s best.
Nahanni National Park Reserve, Canada
Peace and Tranquility
In the summer of 1928, American adventurer Fenley
Hunter paddled up the South Nahanni River hoping to find a huge
waterfall that seemed largely the stuff of Dene legend at the time.
Hunter thought he would never make it. Halfway upstream he wrote: “The
Nahanni is unknown and will remain so until another age brings a change
in the conformation of these mountains. It is an impossible stream, and a
stiff rapid is met on average every mile, and they seem countless.”
source: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com
The
subsequent decades have proved Hunter wrong. Multiday canoeing,
kayaking, and rafting trips on the South Nahanni and to a lesser extent
on the Flat and Little Nahanni Rivers are now the main attractions in
Nahanni National Park Reserve.
source: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com
