Canola Flower Fields, China

The fields of canola — also known as rapeseed — are used in the production of cooking oil. They're also as popular with bees as tourists and photographers, so beekeepers set up tents among the flowers during their February to March bloom. While most anywhere outside the limits of the small town of Luoping is drenched in the sunny hues, the most surreal places to view them are with the towering mountains like the Golden Rooster Hill (aka Jinjifeng) and Hundred Thousand Hills spiking up from the floral fields. In some areas they also form otherworldly shapes in the terraced farms. In early spring you can witness an amazing “Golden Sea” of canola flowers. The canola flower fields in China are one of the world’s beautiful sight’s in small Luoping (Yunnan, China). Vast farmlands get covered in golden, yellow rapeseed flowers stretching as far as the eyes can see, all the way to the horizon. The best time to visit Luoping for this visual fiesta is February through March, by June the show is over.

Mount Roraima, Venezuela/Brazil/Guyana

Since long before the arrival of European explorers, the mountain has held a special significance for the indigenous people of the region, and it is central to many of their myths and legends. The Pemon and Kapon natives of the Gran Sabana see Mount Roraima as the stump of a mighty tree that once held all the fruits and tuberous vegetables in the world. Felled by Makunaima, their mythical trickster, the tree crashed to the ground, unleashing a terrible flood.Roroi in the Pemon language means blue-green and ma means great.

In 2006, Mount Roraima was the destination for the award-winning Gryphon Productions two-hour television documentary The Real Lost World. The program was shown on Animal Planet, Discovery HD Theater and OLN (Canada). Directed by Peter von Puttkamer, this travel/adventure documentary featured a modern team of explorers—Rick West, Dr. Hazel Barton, Seth Heald, Dean Harrison and Peter Sprouse—who followed in the footsteps of British explorers Im Thurn and Harry Perkinswho sought the flora and fauna of Roraima in the mid-19th century. The adventures of those explorers may have inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's seminal book about people and dinosaurs, The Lost World, published in 1912. In 2006, The Real Lost World team were the first scientific team to explore the caves of Roraima, only recently discovered. Inside they found intriguing "carrot" formations growing in the 2 billion year old caves. Dr. Hazel Barton returned in 2007 on a NASA funded expedition to investigate the features growing on the cave walls and ceiling: evidence of extremophile cave microbes eating the silica-based walls of the cave and leaving dusty deposits on ancient spiderwebs, forming these unique stalactite type shapes.

In 2009, Mount Roraima served as inspiration for a location in the Disney/Pixar animated movie Up. The Blu-ray version of the movie disc bonus footage features a short film (called Adventure Is Out There) about some of the Pixar production team going to Mount Roraima and climbing it for inspiration and ideas for the making of Up.

Bamboo Forest, Japan

Sagano Bamboo Forest is located in Arashiyama, a district on the west outskirts of Kyoto, Japan.
Sagano Bamboo Forest is one of the most amazing natural sites in Japan.

One of the most interesting facts about Sagano Bamboo Forest is the sound which the wind makes while it blows amongst the bamboo. Amazingly enough, this sound has been voted on as one of the “one hundred must-be-preserved sounds of Japan” by the Japanese government.

As mentioned he Sagano Bamboo Forest is not too far from Kyoto’s main streets – (30 minutes by train).
Another interesting fact – the railing on the sides of the road is composed out of old, dry and fallen parts of bamboo.

Dunnottar Castle

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope") is a ruined medieval fortresslocated upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south ofStonehaven. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715. The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to theNorth Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse. The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

Beachy Head – England

Beachy Head is a chalk headland in Southern England, close to the town of Eastbourne in the county of East Sussex, immediately east of the Seven Sisters. Beachy Head is located within the administrative area of Eastbourne Borough Council which owns the land. The cliff there is the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising to 162 metres (531 ft) above sea level. The peak allows views of the south east coast from Dungeness in the east, to Selsey Bill in the west. Its height has also made it one of the most notorious suicide spots in the world.

There are an estimated 20 deaths a year at Beachy Head. The Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team conducts regular day and evening patrols of the area in attempts to locate and stop potential jumpers. Workers at the pub and taxi drivers are also on the look-out for people contemplating suicide, and there are posted signs with the telephone number of the Samaritans urging potential jumpers to call them.

Deaths at the site are well-covered by the media; Ross Hardy, the founder of the chaplaincy team, said this encouraged people to come and jump off. Worldwide, the landmark’s suicide rate is surpassed only by the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Aokigahara Woods in Japan, according to Thomas Meaney of The Wall Street Journal (although this claim is challenged by other data on famous suicide spots around the world).

Gaiola Bridge, Naples, Italy

The island takes its name from the cavities that dot the coast of Posillipo (from the Latin cavea, "little cave", and then through the dialect "Caviola"). Originally, the small island was known as Euplea, protector of safe navigation, and was the site of a small temple.

The island is very close to the coast, reachable with a few strokes of swimming. It is assumed that originally it was nothing more than an extension of the promontory opposite and was artificially separated only at a later time at the behest of Lucullus.

In the 17th century the island was virtually littered with Roman factories, while, two centuries later, the island served as a battery in defense of the Gulf of Naples. Newspapers talked again about the "Gaiola Malediction" in 2009, after the murder of Franco Ambrosio and his wife Giovanna Sacco, who owned a villa opposite the island.

The island is now property of the Campania region.

Palau - Republic of Palau

The country was originally settled around 3,000 years ago by migrants from the Philippines and sustained a Negrito population until around 900 years ago. The islands were first visited by Europeans in the 18th century, and were made part of the Spanish East Indies in 1885. Following Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War in 1898, the islands were sold to Imperial Germany in 1899 under the terms of the German–Spanish Treaty, where they were administered as part of German New Guinea. The Imperial Japanese Navy conquered Palau during World War I, and the islands were later made a part of the Japanese-ruled South Pacific Mandate by the League of Nations. 

During World War II, skirmishes, including the major Battle of Peleliu, were fought between American and Japanese troops as part of the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign. Along with other Pacific Islands, Palau was made a part of the United States-governed Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in 1947. Having voted against joining the Federated States of Micronesia in 1979, the islands gained full sovereignty in 1994 under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.

Palau was originally settled between the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, most likely from the Philippines or Indonesia.

Sonsorol, part of the Southwest Islands, an island chain approximately 600 kilometres (370 mi) from the main island chain of Palau, was sighted by Europeans as early as 1522, when the Spanish mission of the Trinidad, the flagship of Ferdinand Magellan's voyage of circumnavigation, sighted two small islands around the 5th parallel north, naming them "San Juan".

British traders became prominent visitors to Palau in the 18th century, followed by expanding Spanish influence in the 19th century. Following its defeat in the Spanish–American War, Spain sold Palau and most of the rest of the Caroline Islands to Germany in 1899. Control passed to Japan in 1914 and during World War II the islands were taken by the United States in 1944, with the costly Battle of Peleliu between 15 September and 25 November when more than 2,000 Americans and 10,000 Japanese were killed. The islands passed formally to the United States under United Nations auspices in 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

Santorini - Greece

In 1956 a major earthquake near Amorgos island resulted in the demolishing of many buildings in the north of Santorini, leading to the desertion of many of its villages. The expansion of tourism has resulted in the growth of the economy and population. The major settlements include Fira (Phira), Oia, Emporio, Kamari,Perissa, Imerovigli, Pyrgos, and Therasia. Akrotiri is a major archaeological site, with ruins from the Minoan era. Santorini's primary industry is tourism, particularly in the summer months. 

In 2007, the cruise ship MS Sea Diamond ran aground and sank inside the caldera. The island's pumice quarries have been closed since 1986, in order to preserve the caldera. Santorini was ranked world's top island for many other magazines and travel sites, including the Travel+Leisure Magazine, theBBC, as well as the US News.

Glow Worm Cave - New Zealand

Geological and volcanic activity has created around 300 known limestone caves in the Waitomo region over the last 30 million years.

The limestone formations in the Waitomo Glowworm Caves were formed when the region was still under the ocean about 30 million years ago. The limestone is composed of fossilized corals, seashells, fish skeletons, and many small marine organisms on the sea beds. Over millions of years, these fossilized rocks have been layered upon each other and compressed to create limestone and within the Waitomo region the limestone can be over 200 m thick.

The caves began to form when earth movement caused the hard limestone to bend and buckle under the ocean and rise above the sea floor. As the rock was exposed to air, it separated and created cracks and weaknesses that allowed for water to flow through them dissolving the limestone and over millions of years large caves were formed.