The 12 Most Wondrous Places to Visit in 2017

The options are overwhelming, but we’re here to help  come up with 12 suggestions for your expedition-planning pleasure The following mind-blowing locations  found all around the globe




1. Navagio Beach

Zakinthos, Greece

My Turkish family would not be pleased with a Greek beach choice, but just look at that ship. Look at the beach. Who doesn’t want to see both, at the same time?

2. Digital Orca

Vancouver, Canada

What’s more majestic than a bus-sized orca leaping from the water, snout to the sky and fins outstretched? A bus-sized statue of an orca, leaping from the water, snout to the sky and fins outstretched and designed to look like it’s made entirely of pixels. Douglas Coupland’s “Digital Orca,” perpetually breaching next to the Vancouver Convention Centre, hits that cultural sweet spot between Free Willy and free wi-fi.

3. Castillo de Zafra

Castellar de la Muela, Spain

Spectacularly perched on a massive sandstone rock, this fantastical, 12th-century Spanish castle is slated to appear in the sixth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

4. Atlas Film Studios

Near Ouarzazate, Morocco

Filled with replicas of Rome’s Coliseum, fake ancient Egyptian tombs, and an atmospheric recreation of a Middle Eastern market, Atlas Film Studios in Morocco has been the go-to movie set for desert-based stories for over three decades. Spread over 322,000 square feet, the kitschy “Moroccan Hollywood” site touts itself as the largest film set in the world, and has provided a parched, dune-laden backdrop for films like Gladiator and many a miniseries of the Cleopatra-and-mummy variety

5. Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort

Kakslauttanen, Finland

Ice igloos are so rustic. If you are going to try to catch the Northern Lights, there is no better vantage point than from the cozy warmth of your own glass igloo at this luxury arctic hotel. It might look like the last human outpost after a deadly icepocalypse, but the Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort is one of the stranger and more luxurious accommodations on the planet.

6. Wat Rong Khun

Lan Dokmai Tok, Thailand

Wat Rong Khun, an all-white Buddhist temple known for its sculptural odes to comic book heroes and pop culture idols, was severely damaged in a 2014 earthquake. The restoration of the idiosyncratic mirror-trimmed temple, designed over many years by the artist Chalermchai Kositpipat, is expected to wrap up in 2016, once again providing visitors with a fine opportunity for communing (or taking selfies) with Superman and Buddha in the moonlight, a time when the White Temple looks particularly otherworldly.

7. The Thumb

Moka, Mauritius

Stroll to the top of this small, thumb-shaped peak, and you can spin around and gaze out upon the entire nation of Mauritius, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean whose mountains are the jagged remnants of a volcano that exploded some 10 or so million years ago. Verdant fields of sugar cane, tropical islands off the coast, and the capital city of Port Louis are all well within view.

8. Kizhi Island

Medvezhyegorsky District, Russia

On an island in a lake, in the middle of a Russian republic that was once part of Finland, these Eastern Orthodox churches, made from wood, are astonishing. (And who knows how much longer Americans will be welcome in Russia?)

9. The Lonely Castle

Saudi Arabia

With 1.69 miles of twists and turns, the Longleat Hedge Maze is the longest hedge maze in the world.  And it also happens to be on the grounds of the stately Longleat estate, so the scenery ain’t bad—assuming you can ever find your way out of the labyrinth.

10. The Dark Hedges

Armoy, Northern Ireland

When this tree tunnel appeared shrouded in mist on season two of Game of Thrones, it looked too fantastical to be real. But the spooky thoroughfare actually exists in Northern Ireland, where it is known as the Dark Hedges—or, more mundanely, Bregagh Road.

11. Mount Roraima

Gran Sabana, Venezuela

This mountain plateau became the scene of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World for good reason: it is home to flora and fauna found nowhere else, and some of the oldest known geological formations. You can scale it over two days on a natural footpath.

12. Montaña Magica Lodge

Panguipulli, Chile

Part waterfall, part hotel, and part man-made volcano, this lodge in the lush jungle of Panguipulli, Chile is straight out of a fairytale. Enter via a rope bridge, sink into hot tubs made of hollowed-out logs, and simply wait for the magical creatures to arrive.