23 most amazing places to travel to before you die: Part 2

We all have a bucket list, a list of places that we want to see before we die. The human life, however, is too short for most of us to tick everything off the list. Not everyone has the courage to quit their job and wonder the world in a quest to complete his/her bucket list. Our planet is a beautiful place that has countless breathtaking sights and life-changing experiences that are waiting out there for you to discover them. I covered some of these places in the first part of this story. I’ll cover the second part of ‘the most amazing places to travel to before you die’.

13. Explore the driest place on earth: Atacama Desert

The driest place on Earth has 41,000 square miles of diverse terrain includes spurting geysers, golden dunes, and cliffs of colorfully striped strata known as Rainbow Valley. Atacama also has the best view on the Milky Way’s glittering collection of stars, with April through September being the best time to see it. Therefore, Atacama is the place to be for the Lunar Eclipse. You surely will be stunned by the most amazing natural light shows our planet has to offer.

14. Set a foot in Antarctica

Antarctica is one of the most amazing places on Earth and a place that a lot of adventurists want to travel to, but very few actually are lucky enough to experience that. It has always been the ultimate endurance test for me that I know I need to pass at least once in my lifetime.

Surviving in the extreme cold, kayaking, hiking and exploring the most unexplored area on our planet is something that had always been a dream for me. One might even say it seems like walking on another planet. It’s all ice and rocks everywhere with trees and plants nowhere to be found (and I was really surprised when I heard that some people actually choose it as their wedding destination)!

15. Climb Mount Everest

I can wax poetically about this mountaintop for hours, but the truth is I just love the mountains. Besides, being on top of the world always brings a certain sense of achievement. This list of most amazing places to travel to couldn’t be complete without Mount Everest. Since 1969, at least one person died every year trying to conquer the magnificent Mount Everest. Call me crazy, but this makes me want to conquer the top even more.

16. Walk the Great Wall of China

This architectural masterpiece made up of 13,000 miles of walls is much more than an impressive achievement of engineering. The wall has a timeless feeling onnly a few other places on Earth have. It gives you a glimpse at Chinese history and the reasons behind this marvelous creation. As we all know, Chinese culture is very different from anything you saw before with the Great Wall is one of the main reasons for it and visiting it is one of the first steps to understanding the local culture and way of doing things.

17. Hike in Kashmir

The mountains are the most amazing story keepers. They keep the stories we read, they keep the stories we dream about and they keep the stories we create.  And the Kashmir mountains hide a lot of those. This is one of the few places on this list that I actually crossed off the list. And I must say, it’s one of the most amazing places I’ve seen in my life.

18. The wildlife of Galapagos

Galapagos was the island that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution. Uninhabited by people, visiting Galapagos is a rare opportunity to see endemic species that you probably have never seen before. You can’t get so close to animals without threatening their territories anywhere else on this planet.

But animals here are much more relaxed because the island is protected by UNESCO and besides the increased number of tourists, they don’t have any kind of violent interaction with humans. If this isn’t enough, Galapagos has some amazing beaches, and yes there won’t be many tourists around.

Are you planning to visit the Galapagos Islands soon? Check out this tour if you want to make the most out of your trip without breaking the bank.

19. Explore the largest cave in the world: Hang Son Doong

Since 2009, this has been the biggest cave in the world. Hang Son Doong can easily fit a Boing 747 inside of it and it’s vastly unexplored. When British explorers were exploring the cave in 2009, they hit a large 60 meters high calcite wall, later named the Vietnamese Great Wall.

Behind this wall, there was a cave passage that uncovered what today is the biggest cave in the world. The only way to approach the cave as of now is to pay for a tour that costs a whopping $6,000 for one week.

This cave was definitely one of the things I wish I knew before visiting Vietnam.

20. Witness the sunset at Angkor Wat

There’s not much that needs to be said about the world’s largest single religious monument. Not only is Angkor Wat an architectural masterpiece and a full expression of Hindu symbolism, but the sunset over Angkor Wat is one of the most amazing sights in this world.

Since I first got to know about it in the history books, I dreamed about seeing the sunset over Angkor Wat. It looked like something different, out of this world. And the experience didn’t fall short of the expectation either. Watching the sun go down behind Angkor Wat is something everyone should experience at least once in their lifetime.

Related: travel Cambodia in two weeks

21. See the timeless pyramids

No travel bucket list can be complete without one of the greatest mysteries of all time. Even today we aren’t sure how did the ancient people with their limited tools manage to build these marvelous architecture creations. Just looking at the pyramids leaves you in awe and is enough to fill your head with questions like who built it, when, why, etc?

22. Visit Easter Island Places you need to see before you die

Located in the Chilean sea, at the end of the world, its giant head statues really makes you wonder who put those heads there and why. And more importantly, how did they do it 1000s of years ago? Some archaeologists recently claimed that the giant heads have their bodies buried underground, which makes these creations even more mysterious. Seeing things like these really makes me wonder about human beginnings and all of the ancient mysteries.

23. Take a swing at the end of the world

Deep in the forests of Ecuador lies a seismic monitoring station located in a tree house, known as Casa del Arbol. It’s here that adventurers from all around the world come to take a swing at the end of the world at Banos in Ecuador. This seems like an ultimate adrenaline rush, as the only thing separating you from the canyon is the swing beneath your waist that’s holding on to one of the tree’s skinny branches.

Did you like this list of the most amazing places to travel to? Which places are at the top of your travel bucket list? Let me know in the comments 🙂