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.

Home of the "true" equator.

A sculpture of a giant hand reaches for the stars in the middle of the Atacama desert.

Eurasia's most difficult place to hang out, and farthest point from sea access.

The oceanic dumping ground where spaceships go to die.

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.

This uninhabited volcanic island is the most remote in the world.

While this is positively the smallest library in Canada, it aspires to be the smallest in the world.

One of the world's southernmost bars.

An organ located deep within a cave, whose "pipes" are the geological features of the cave itself.

The largest self-built castle in the U.S., six decades in the making.

The 1936 Summer Olympics site is a crumbling remnant of sportsmanship and a history its host country would like to forget.

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.

During the Industrial Revolution this “Temple of Invention” was full of intricate miniature machines and gadgets.

The underground hideout of a Japanese soldier for whom World War II ended in 1972.

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

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

One of the world's largest model railroads is a mind-boggling achievement.

Beautiful stained glass depictions of the history of human flight fill this surprising chapel.

Centuries before the modern seismograph, Armenian monks measured quakes with this tilting pillar.

An obscure public service from the U.S. government that redeems burnt, moldy, and soiled old greenbacks.