A Swiss board game museum housed inside a picture-perfect castle.

This remote research station sits amid the second-largest ice sheet on the planet.

Crouch down, stretch tall, and be sure to flail your legs to pay homage to the Monty Python classic.

The villagers of the coldest inhabited place on Earth adjust to unique challenges presented by day-to-day living.

If there is one thing you don't want to be in Sweden during Christmas, it's a Yule Goat.

An exotic jungle hideaway run entirely by indigenous Kichwa women.

Foragers once flocked to this big beautiful bayou to hunt for pearls.

These colossal desert barcodes have been fine-tuning spy satellites for decades.

Coastal dunes, site of buried Egyptian movie set and former utopian colony.

A walkable map of the world, made from soil and stone by one man.

A whimsical village of unique treehouses resides in a Washington forest.

At the United Kingdom's only residential library you can sleep among the books.

Monuments don't get much more metal than these three giant viking swords planted in a Nordic hill.

A Japanese corporation has turned this small island town into living modern art gallery.

A museum which takes visitors to the côté obscure of Paris.

A museum on the history of Paris, including a set of Napoleon's toiletries, Proust's room, and relics of the Revolution.

France's most famous cemetery, with some of its most curious tombs.

The curious underground history of keeping Paris clean.

"the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well . . . The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges."

Centuries-old bridges grown from tangled roots.

The small family-run business has kept alive the fading art of creating beautiful handmade book covers.

A common entry point to the Griffith Observatory trail holds its own wonders.

This "synagogue" is not what it seems to be.

Malibu's first beach home features an astonishing trove of ceramic tiles.