Bucket List: 14 Amazing Trips
By Frommer's Staff
We all take simple vacations, but when was the last time you traveled somewhere that changed who you are and how you see the world?
These 14 places, while not always easy to reach, inspire travelers to rethink -- and perhaps better appreciate -- the world around us.
Photo Caption: A monk at Angkor Wat near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Photo by dkosta/Frommers.com Community
We all take simple vacations, but when was the last time you traveled somewhere that changed who you are and how you see the world?
These 14 places, while not always easy to reach, inspire travelers to rethink -- and perhaps better appreciate -- the world around us.
Photo Caption: A monk at Angkor Wat near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Photo by dkosta/Frommers.com Community
Trips of a Lifetime
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Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Nothing says "ultimate honeymoon" like Bora Bora. Lush mountains slope down to a lagoon striped with bands of clear water ranging from deep blue-green to neon-turquoise. Around the lagoon, palm-fringed atolls and coral reefs trace a wispy pentagon, and everywhere, suspended boardwalks lead like tentacles to overwater bungalows for newlyweds and other romantics. Too perfect a tropical getaway to be a secret, Bora Bora is nevertheless remote and expensive enough that the island's luxurious mystique has remained intact.
Less touristy and even more stunning is Moorea -- inspiration for the mythical island of Bali Ha'i in James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, made popular by the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. Once you behold its beauty in person, you may find it hard to believe the scenery isn't computer-generated: Jagged mountain contours are so dramatically faceted as to seem man-made, and the dense vegetation blanketing every surface of the island has the soft, rich look of green velvet. If the landscape isn't dreamy enough, visitors can learn the art of growing black pearls or traditional tattooing at Moorea's Tiki Theatre Village, a reconstructed Polynesian village. Or visit a vanilla plantation in cliff-bounded Opunohu Valley. Or simply make friends with local residents, who still have time to stop and chat with inquisitive visitors.
Photo Caption: Overwater bungalows in Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Less touristy and even more stunning is Moorea -- inspiration for the mythical island of Bali Ha'i in James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, made popular by the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical. Once you behold its beauty in person, you may find it hard to believe the scenery isn't computer-generated: Jagged mountain contours are so dramatically faceted as to seem man-made, and the dense vegetation blanketing every surface of the island has the soft, rich look of green velvet. If the landscape isn't dreamy enough, visitors can learn the art of growing black pearls or traditional tattooing at Moorea's Tiki Theatre Village, a reconstructed Polynesian village. Or visit a vanilla plantation in cliff-bounded Opunohu Valley. Or simply make friends with local residents, who still have time to stop and chat with inquisitive visitors.
Photo Caption: Overwater bungalows in Bora Bora, French Polynesia
Trips of a Lifetime
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Cappadocia, Turkey
Three volcanoes created the hauntingly beautiful landscape of Cappadocia, in central Turkey, 515km (320 miles) southeast of Istanbul. The first eruption spread delicate tufa, which wind and water sculpted into ever-evolving domes, hollows, clefts, and cones. Later eruptions scattered harder lava. Now, as the soft underbelly erodes, huge boulders teeter upon slender tufa towers known as "fairy chimneys." Locals still burrow homes into the soft rock, as they have since the Paleolithic era. Some have opened these singular dwellings as guest houses, extending genuine hospitality to travelers about to venture to the region's top sights.
South of Nevsehir are Derinkuyu and Kaymakli -- two of the most impressive underground cities dug by invaders as early as 2000 B.C. as they traversed this crucial crossroads between the East and the West. From the Christian era, the Goreme Open Air Museum encompasses 30 painted churches from the 2nd century A.D. near Goreme. More recent additions to the landscape are the medieval caravansaries, such as the Agzikarahan (now a carpet market), where traveling merchants lodged as they traveled the Silk Road in the 13th century. Now a carpet market, Agzikarahan draws today's weary travelers for a glass of tea, some haggling, and a glimpse of Ottoman architecture at its height.
Photo Caption: Hot-air ballooning in Cappadocia, Turkey
South of Nevsehir are Derinkuyu and Kaymakli -- two of the most impressive underground cities dug by invaders as early as 2000 B.C. as they traversed this crucial crossroads between the East and the West. From the Christian era, the Goreme Open Air Museum encompasses 30 painted churches from the 2nd century A.D. near Goreme. More recent additions to the landscape are the medieval caravansaries, such as the Agzikarahan (now a carpet market), where traveling merchants lodged as they traveled the Silk Road in the 13th century. Now a carpet market, Agzikarahan draws today's weary travelers for a glass of tea, some haggling, and a glimpse of Ottoman architecture at its height.
Photo Caption: Hot-air ballooning in Cappadocia, Turkey
Trips of a Lifetime
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Iceland
The terrain of Iceland, among the world's most dynamic and otherworldly, is still in the process of being created before your eyes. The earth steams and bubbles. Volcanoes rise like islands in a sea of sand. Lava cracks and cools into thousands of never-before-seen shapes. Waterfalls drop from heath-covered mountains with spiked ridges and snowcapped peaks. Cows, sheep, and ponies graze on velvety green pastures. Daylight never ends in summer, with alternating periods of rain and sunshine, marble skies, and heavy mists made for romantics who know that only on a misty day can you see forever.
And then there are the Icelanders: 100% literate, with Europe 's lowest infant mortality rate and the highest rate of births outside marriage; and the vibrant nightlife in Reykjavik. The force of life in the people of Iceland -- as in the landscape -- is incomparable.
And then there are the Icelanders: 100% literate, with Europe 's lowest infant mortality rate and the highest rate of births outside marriage; and the vibrant nightlife in Reykjavik. The force of life in the people of Iceland -- as in the landscape -- is incomparable.
Trips of a Lifetime
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Bhutan
The captivating kingdom of Bhutan, rooted in the traditions and beliefs of a fast-disappearing Buddhist universe, opened its doors warily to the outside world only little more than a quarter-century ago. Those who trickled in found a place like no other. Its mountain landscapes, with holy peaks unclimbed to avoid disturbing the gods, are as pristine as its primeval forests, a naturalist's dream. Roads are few and precipitous, but at almost every turn there is something to see: traditional half-timbered farmhouses in sheltered valleys, arresting fortress monasteries on hilltops, rare animals and birds, and groves of blooming trees and earthbound flowers.
Valleys are colorful (sometimes raucous) places, suffused with the scent of butter lamps and enlivened by flocks of unruly novices, disputatious monks, and altars piled high with offerings from the rural poor, who come to spin prayer wheels, finger beads, or seek advice.
Never colonized by Western powers, Bhutan remains deeply independent, the last Tibetan Buddhist monarchy not swallowed up by China, to the north, or India, to the south. Despite the arrival of the country's first luxury spa resorts, one visits Bhutan on Bhutanese terms, in limited numbers, for immersion in an encompassing Buddhism that touches everything.
Photo Caption: The Tiger's Nest Monastery near Paro, Bhutan
Valleys are colorful (sometimes raucous) places, suffused with the scent of butter lamps and enlivened by flocks of unruly novices, disputatious monks, and altars piled high with offerings from the rural poor, who come to spin prayer wheels, finger beads, or seek advice.
Never colonized by Western powers, Bhutan remains deeply independent, the last Tibetan Buddhist monarchy not swallowed up by China, to the north, or India, to the south. Despite the arrival of the country's first luxury spa resorts, one visits Bhutan on Bhutanese terms, in limited numbers, for immersion in an encompassing Buddhism that touches everything.
Photo Caption: The Tiger's Nest Monastery near Paro, Bhutan
Trips of a Lifetime
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Machu Picchu, Peru
The Inca Trail footpath is an ancient Andean passage from Cusco, capital of the Incan empire, through the Sacred Valley, to the 15th-century ruins of the civilization's crown jewel, Machu Picchu. Cleared from centuries of thick forest growth since historian Hiram Bingham introduced it to the world in 1911, this fabled lost city of the Incas defiantly guards its mystique.
Did it serve as a citadel? An astronomical observatory? A ceremonial city or sacred retreat for the emperor? Why did the Incas construct, inhabit, and then deliberately abandon it in less than a century? How did the Spanish conquistadors miss it? Whatever its intended purpose, Machu Picchu remains the world's greatest example of landscape art, sitting gracefully like a proud saddle between two enormous Andean peaks.
Visitors come to run their hands over the massive, smoothly cut stone, which fit together seamlessly without mortar. Other travelers make it a point to experience daybreak, when the light creeps over Machu Picchu's jagged silhouette and slowly, with great drama, illuminates the ruins row by row, building by building. Most spectacular is the winter solstice sunrise, when sunrays stream through the Temple of the Sun window, setting the stone at the center of the temple ablaze.
Photo Caption: View of Machu Picchu in Peru's Sacred Valley.
Did it serve as a citadel? An astronomical observatory? A ceremonial city or sacred retreat for the emperor? Why did the Incas construct, inhabit, and then deliberately abandon it in less than a century? How did the Spanish conquistadors miss it? Whatever its intended purpose, Machu Picchu remains the world's greatest example of landscape art, sitting gracefully like a proud saddle between two enormous Andean peaks.
Visitors come to run their hands over the massive, smoothly cut stone, which fit together seamlessly without mortar. Other travelers make it a point to experience daybreak, when the light creeps over Machu Picchu's jagged silhouette and slowly, with great drama, illuminates the ruins row by row, building by building. Most spectacular is the winter solstice sunrise, when sunrays stream through the Temple of the Sun window, setting the stone at the center of the temple ablaze.
Photo Caption: View of Machu Picchu in Peru's Sacred Valley.
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