Hundreds of thousands of concrete bunkers crowd Albania long after the fall of Communism.

The self-mummified monks of Japan.

A gargantuan crystal kingdom.

Construction of Barcelona's iconic (but controversial) church is expected to be completed in 2026—a century after the death of its architect.

A salt lake dotted with steaming limestone chimneys.

One of the most remote and isolated villages on the Arabian Peninsula.

The hottest place on the planet.

Ethiopia's "smoking mountain" is in one of the hottest regions on the planet and is home to two lava lakes.

The world's largest neutrino telescope searches for secrets of the universe at the South Pole.

The enigmatic and seldom visited ruins of a Mayan city-state.

For those with no fear of heights: a skywalk 4,700 feet up on a Chinese mountain.

The palace of the King of Kings, burned by Alexander the Great.

Russian Orthodox church built on an Antarctic island.

One of the world's southernmost bars.

A Cold War command center is hidden under an idyllic countryside.

A Prada store in the West Texas desert that is never open for business.

An urban laboratory.

America's post-nuclear-attack chambers of Congress.

A natural gas leak provides a flickering flame beneath a waterfall.

An island in the middle of a lake, in the middle of a volcano, in the middle of a bigger lake, in the middle of a bigger island, in an archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean.

An enormous concrete structure built over a nuclear crater.

Nature’s skyscraper launches out of the terrain with attitude.

The remains of diamond fever taken over by the desert.

An abandoned saucer-shaped monument in the Bulgarian mountains.