The world is full of swimming holes, but few compare to Samoa’s idyllic To Sua ocean trench.

The watery grave of Captain Bligh's famous ship.

Site of James Cook's historic observations of the 1769 transit of Venus.

This was once the center of the Birdman cult, and is now a World Heritage Site.

One woman's dream became a train hotel in her backyard.

A trading post in the North Pole where children send letters.

Massive mounds of golden sand look like a desert landscape randomly plopped in an Arctic forest.

The "Gateway to the Arctic" connects Barrow's indigenous population with the sea and its traditional industry: whaling.

This ghostly Alaska village still clings to a steep cliffside despite having been abandoned for over 50 years.

This WWII plane died a quiet death, and is now a garden eel playground.

Hiding in plane sight.

A war relic that has sat undisturbed since it crash-landed near Arno Atoll.

Amelia Earhart's possible place of death.

The ruins of a lighthouse on the island Amelia Earhart never reached.

A natural swimming hole that was once a ceremonial center for Mayan priests.

This Czar-funded, onion-domed, lavishly muraled Orthodox Church played a starring role in "The Deer Hunter."

An unassuming 13-acre park is home to over 12,000 roses.

A 2,000-year-old Adena burial mound located along a busy street in Columbus, Ohio.

Beside a busy highway, a colony of Great Blue Herons raises hundreds of offspring each year.

An abandoned stretch of highway, deteriorating next to the operational one.

A rare kind of blue bear can be found chiefly in the national park that shares their name.

The oldest original lighthouse in Alaska that was born out of a tragic shipwreck.

Every summer, the Mendenhall River greenbelt comes alive with an explosion of magenta flowers.

Upside-down trees serve as natural flower pots in this hanging garden of Alaska.