Rubbing salt on this small stone dog is said to make wishes come true.

A flight of this "ghost staircase" has 40 steps on the way up, but only 39 steps on the way down.

Weighing nearly 7 tons, this massive sculpture was carved out of 500-year-old wood and decorated with thousands of jewels.

A bibliophile's heaven that contains hundreds of bookstores, offering over a third of secondhand books for sale in Tokyo.

A railway station takeout shop sells boxed meals in containers shaped like trains and snowmen that hold the country’s abundant regional delicacies.

Tokyo’s only Ainu restaurant serves Indigenous food from northern Japan.

Shrine to Japanese water-goblins, complete with their preserved body parts.

The legendary birthplace of the Japanese maneki-neko is dotted with hundreds of lucky beckoning cats.

A collection of more than 1,000 teddies from nearly any profession.

The divine septet of Japanese fortune gods are rendered in 1,000 year old wood at this peaceful site.

This isolated Japanese mountain village untouched by time showcases unique and stunning traditional architecture.

A train ride to the middle of nowhere gives its passengers some of the most iconic views of Japan's seasons.

With over 12,000 different species of plants, this botanical garden is Japan's oldest and most diverse.

Twelve hundred stone carvings guard this off-the-beaten-path Buddhist temple.

Travelers leave tea kettles in a remote part of Death Valley as part of a mysterious, decades-old tradition.

The oldest surviving presidential residence in the United States.

An art-filled botanical garden and former dyeworks hiding in plain sight.

Sacked by Vikings, blessed by William the Conqueror, dealt a fatal blow during the French Revolution—these ruins have seen it all.

Rows of multicolored bathing huts paint the sand dunes with pops of color.

A passage grave used in neolithic rituals.

A perfectly circular lake is formed by the crater of an ancient underwater volcano.

This fairy-tale, neo-Gothic church in the Azores is a world of magical realism.

This mountaintop mariner’s church is packed with model ships and nautical art while hosting an annual maritime festivity for the townsfolk below.

A fantastical 13th-century fortification sandwiched by a modern hotel in central Brussels.