These passages carved from the Antarctic ice hold strange shrines to the harsh southernmost climes.

Naked scientists race around the pole in the frigid cold to try to join Antarctica's exclusive 300 Club.

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

The best place to send your postcards home from Antarctica.

Russian Orthodox church built on an Antarctic island.

One of the world's southernmost bars.

Fire meets ice at the southernmost volcano on Earth.

An abandoned whaling station on an active volcano offers hot springs in Antarctica, surrounded by ruined giants of industry.

Natural time capsule containing an alien ecosystem.

Sulphuric gases inhabit a beautiful Japanese island.

For two weeks every June, fireflies in the Smoky Mountains perform an astonishing light show.

A steam trawler with a whiskey-soaked history driven ashore in 1960 resides rusty but still standing on the shoreline.

This road in the Great Smoky Mountains was supposed to assuage a displaced community, but ended up a $52 million dead end.

A lake with hundreds of ancient skeletons surrounding it. The surprise is what killed them.

Perfectly preserved ancient monastery in an impossibly dramatic location on a rocky island in the Atlantic.

An ancient holy well said to be used by the patron saint of sailors and travelers, lost in the boggy west of Valentia Island.

This beautiful site is where the first transatlantic telegraph was sent from.

A strange egg in a mucky bog of western Ireland marks the spot of an aviation milestone.

The enchanting archway is the only surviving portal into Dublin's lost medieval wall.

Certain traditions prevail on the least-visited island of the Aran Islands.

While only two of the ancient buildings at this site are actually churches this was one of the earliest Irish pilgrimage sites ever.

Mortarless walls that stretch for miles are a lovely solution for creating grazing land in the harsh terrain of the Aran Islands.

Just another ancient, mysterious Irish stone circle.

Petrified footprints of one of the very first vertebrates to walk on land.