Bioluminescent firefly squid light up this Japanese fishing port.

A desert ghost town—occupied for only 12 years—was once home to more than 500 silver mines.

A historic freight system that found the true gold rush is in tourism.

An abandoned town is hidden in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This ramshackle ghost town is comprised of mining-era buildings collected from around the region.

A living snapshot of a different time in America is preserved and maintained by a community of volunteers.

A mining town, now abandoned, was built in a canyon so narrow that the railroad ran right through the hotel lobby.

This former mining hub holds a surprising abundance of undisturbed relics from the Old West.

An ancient Chinese temple where even the emperor dressed like a farmer in the name of the harvest.

A collection of more than 12,000 shoes, displayed in a building shaped like a shoebox.

An exquisite tunnel of cascading flowers.

Thanks to the building of a life-giving reservoir, part of the Great Wall of China is now a dive site.

Stretching almost 2,000 feet, this painting is one of the longest pieces of Buddhist artwork in the world.

These layered sandstone mountains in China look like they are made of pressed crayons.

An enormous pair of straw sandals woven in the traditional way—to keep demons at bay.

Daikon radishes are offered to the Japanese Buddhist counterpart of the Hindu god Ganesha at this historic hilltop temple.

This is the oldest Roman-made bridge in the city still existing in its original state.

A Parisian exterminator's shop whose storefront displays stuffed rats hanging from traps.

A majestic lion statue guards this Parisian botanical garden, and feeds on an unsettling item.

Medieval museum built over Roman baths that features famous tapestries of a lady and a unicorn.

Behind the pink curtain, Au Bonheur du Jour, an art gallery of erotic archives.

Down a cobblestone alleyway is a museum dedicated to Romanticism, with a secret garden.

This museum houses an imposing skeleton army comprised of creatures great and small.

A scandalous Art Nouveau collaboration that set Paris all atwitter at the turn of the century.