Dr. Strangelove-esque tours reveal the inside a bunker once reserved for Stalin himself.

Stunning examples of Russia's 18th-century wooden architecture.

World's first "penitentiary," meant to be humane, drove men insane.

This ancient village and its adjoining cemetery have a beautiful history of death and remembrance.

The ghost town left by the worst nuclear disaster of all time is being taken over by nature and urban explorers.

A 605-page Quran penned in the blood of a dictator is locked away in a mosque.

A series of five defunct panopticon prisons in Cuba.

This beautifully deceptive waterfall is something far different from what it appears to be.

This mountaintop lake bubbles and steams in a perpetual boil, thanks to its direct link to the Earth's interior.

A desert that rolls right up to the ocean, where it's so dry animals live off the fog.

This "dead marsh" sits among the largest sand dunes in the world, a forest frozen in time.

The entire length of the border is marked by a 20-foot-wide slash through the trees.

A 24-hour vending machine restocked daily with homemade full-sized pecan pies.

A rare pod of derelict midcentury Futuro and Venturo houses lines a semi-abandoned beachfront resort outside Taipei.

The Arctic Archipelago is home to world's largest third order island: an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island.

There was a top secret plan during World War II to seal a group of soldiers inside the rock.

A slingshot from this delightful collection is awarded each year to someone who has "pulled metaphorical slings in favor of the weak and marginalized."

The world’s oldest and biggest bookstore stocking only mystery, crime fiction, espionage, and thrillers.

Under a glass sidewalk lie the remains of some of Manhattan's oldest buildings.

This natural wonder drops 16 stories straight down through rare flora and streaming waterfalls.

The U.S. Air Force has an anti-satellite laser weapon.

A rapidly disappearing glacier filled with extinct grasshoppers, perfectly preserved in the ice.

The abandoned mine where American troops discovered a treasure trove of art and artifacts hidden by the Nazis.

About 80% of all U.S. avocados are descendants of Rudolph Hass's glorious tree.