Explore the wild
Natural Places of the World
A curated, growing atlas of the planet’s great natural places — from national parks and fjords to reefs and deserts. Find one that calls to you, then plan a trip in a click.
Showing 59 of 59 places
Amazon Rainforest
The largest tropical rainforest on Earth, drained by the mighty Amazon River and holding a tenth of all known species.
Annapurna Massif
A Himalayan massif of peaks over 7,000 and 8,000 metres, encircled by one of the world’s classic long-distance trekking circuits.
Antarctic Peninsula
The northernmost, most accessible arm of Antarctica, a realm of glaciers, icebergs and vast penguin, seal and whale populations.
Arenal Volcano
A near-perfect conical volcano rising above rainforest, hot springs and a lake in Costa Rica’s northern highlands.
Atacama Desert
The driest non-polar desert on Earth, a high plateau of salt flats, geysers and lagoons prized for some of the clearest night skies anywhere.
Banff
Canada’s oldest national park in the Rockies, with glacier-fed turquoise lakes, jagged peaks and abundant alpine wildlife.
Bay of Fundy
Home to the highest tides on Earth, rising up to 16 metres and exposing the sculpted Hopewell Rocks flowerpot formations twice daily.
Blue Mountains
A dissected sandstone plateau of eucalyptus forests, dramatic escarpments and the Three Sisters rock formation west of Sydney.
Bora Bora
A volcanic island ringed by a turquoise lagoon and coral reef, dominated by the twin peaks of Mount Otemanu.
Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
A dense, ancient montane rainforest sheltering roughly half the world’s remaining mountain gorillas.
Cappadocia
A soft-rock landscape of "fairy chimney" pinnacles, carved cave dwellings and underground cities, famously surveyed from hot-air balloons at dawn.
Cliffs of Moher
Sea cliffs rising up to 214 metres above the Atlantic on the west coast of Ireland, part of the Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark.
Daintree Rainforest
One of the oldest continuously surviving tropical rainforests on Earth, meeting the Great Barrier Reef where forest fringes the coast.
Denali
North America’s highest peak at 6,190 metres, centrepiece of a subarctic wilderness of tundra, glaciers and grizzly bears.
Erg Chebbi
A sea of wind-sculpted Saharan dunes rising up to 150 metres near Merzouga, glowing orange at sunrise and sunset.
Galápagos Islands
A volcanic archipelago on the equator whose fearless, highly endemic wildlife helped shape the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Geirangerfjord
A deep blue-green fjord flanked by near-vertical cliffs and cascading waterfalls such as the Seven Sisters, among the best known of the West Norwegian Fjords.
Gorges du Verdon
A turquoise river canyon up to 700 metres deep in south-eastern France, popular for kayaking, climbing and the clifftop Route des Crêtes.
Grand Canyon
A mile-deep, 446-kilometre-long canyon carved by the Colorado River, exposing two billion years of layered rock.
Great Barrier Reef
The largest coral reef system on Earth, stretching over 2,300 kilometres and visible from space, home to thousands of marine species.
Ha Long Bay
Thousands of limestone karst islands and islets rising from emerald waters in the Gulf of Tonkin, riddled with grottoes and hidden lagoons.
Iguazú Falls
A system of some 275 waterfalls spanning nearly three kilometres of subtropical rainforest, crowned by the thunderous Devil’s Throat.
Jiuzhaigou Valley
A high-altitude valley on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau known for multi-coloured lakes, layered waterfalls and snow-capped peaks.
Lake Baikal
The world’s deepest and oldest freshwater lake, holding a fifth of the planet’s unfrozen fresh water and freezing into turquoise ice in winter.
Lake Bled
An alpine glacial lake with a small island church and a clifftop castle, ringed by the Julian Alps.
Lauterbrunnen Valley
A glacial U-shaped valley in the Bernese Oberland framed by sheer walls and 72 waterfalls, including the free-falling Staubbach Falls.
Lemaire Channel
A narrow, steep-sided channel off the Antarctic Peninsula, its mirror-still water and towering glacial walls earning it the nickname "Kodak Gap".
Loch Lomond
The largest lake in Great Britain by surface area, dotted with wooded islands and bounded by the Highland Boundary Fault.
Milford Sound
A fjord of sheer rainforest-clad cliffs and plunging waterfalls beneath Mitre Peak, within the Fiordland wilderness of Te Wāhipounamu.
Monument Valley
A high desert of towering sandstone buttes and mesas on the Navajo Nation, an enduring emblem of the American West.
Mount Bromo
An active volcano set within the vast Tengger caldera, its smoking cone reached across a sea of volcanic sand and best seen at sunrise.
Mount Fuji
Japan’s highest and most iconic mountain, a symmetrical active volcano rising to 3,776 metres and long revered as a sacred site.
Mount Kilimanjaro
Africa’s highest peak at 5,895 metres, a free-standing dormant volcano rising from savanna through rainforest to an arctic summit.
Mount Kinabalu
The highest peak in Borneo at 4,095 metres, rising from tropical rainforest to a granite summit and harbouring exceptional plant diversity.
Mount Nyiragongo
An active stratovolcano in Virunga National Park holding one of the world’s largest and most persistent lava lakes.
Mount Roraima
A sheer-sided tabletop mountain (tepui) rising above the cloud forest at the meeting of three nations, with an otherworldly rocky summit.
Nā Pali Coast
A rugged coastline of emerald cliffs, sea caves and hanging valleys along the north-west shore of Kauai, reachable only by trail, boat or air.
Okavango Delta
A vast inland delta where the Okavango River fans into the Kalahari, creating seasonal channels and islands teeming with wildlife.
Perito Moreno Glacier
A 5-kilometre-wide advancing glacier in Los Glaciares National Park whose towering ice front regularly calves into Lake Argentino.
Plitvice Lakes
A chain of sixteen terraced lakes joined by waterfalls and travertine barriers, set in dense forest — Croatia’s oldest national park.
Salar de Uyuni
The world’s largest salt flat, a blinding white expanse that becomes a vast mirror when a thin layer of water sits on its surface.
Samaria Gorge
A 16-kilometre gorge cutting through the White Mountains of Crete to the Libyan Sea, narrowing to the three-metre-wide "Iron Gates".
Saxon Switzerland
A sandstone landscape of eroded pillars, gorges and table mountains above the Elbe, famous for the Bastei rock formation and its bridge.
Serengeti
Vast tropical grassland plains hosting the annual Great Migration of wildebeest and zebra, and one of the densest predator populations on Earth.
Sossusvlei
Towering red dunes and the cracked white clay pan of Deadvlei in the ancient Namib Sand Sea, home to some of the tallest dunes on Earth.
Sundarbans
The world’s largest mangrove forest, a tidal labyrinth at the mouth of the Ganges delta and a stronghold of the Bengal tiger.
Table Mountain
A flat-topped massif overlooking Cape Town, cloaked in the endemic-rich fynbos of the Cape Floral Kingdom and reached by hiking trails or a rotating cableway.
The Dolomites
A dramatic range of pale limestone peaks, spires and plateaus in the northern Italian Alps, celebrated for its via ferrata and alpenglow.
Timanfaya
A stark field of volcanic cones and lava fields on Lanzarote formed by 18th-century eruptions, where geothermal heat still lingers just below the surface.
Tongariro
A volcanic plateau of steaming craters, emerald lakes and lava flows, crossed by the celebrated Tongariro Alpine Crossing day hike.
Torres del Paine
A Patagonian park of granite towers, hanging glaciers, windswept lakes and roaming guanacos, threaded by the famous "W" and "O" treks.
Uluru
A colossal sandstone monolith rising from the arid Red Centre, sacred to the Anangu people and shifting through deep reds at sunrise and sunset.
Vatnajökull
Europe’s largest ice cap by volume, covering active volcanoes and feeding glacier tongues, ice caves and the Jökulsárlón lagoon.
Victoria Falls
One of the world’s largest waterfalls, where the Zambezi plunges 108 metres across a 1.7-kilometre width, locally known as Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders".
Wadi Rum
A desert valley of sandstone and granite mountains, natural arches and red sand in southern Jordan, long inhabited by Bedouin.
Yellowstone
The world’s first national park, sitting atop a supervolcano with geysers, hot springs and travertine terraces alongside bison and wolves.
Yosemite
A glacier-carved Sierra Nevada valley of granite monoliths, giant sequoias and some of the tallest waterfalls in North America.
Yucatán Cenotes
Thousands of natural limestone sinkholes across the Yucatán Peninsula opening onto crystal-clear groundwater and flooded cave systems.
Zhangjiajie
A forest of thousands of quartzite sandstone pillars rising through mist in Wulingyuan, an inspiration for the floating peaks in popular film.