The 100 Best Adventures in The World

An expedition by ice-strengthened ship across the Drake Passage to a continent of blue-white icebergs, breaching whales, and penguin rookeries numbering in the thousands.

Zodiac landings put passengers ashore on the peninsula itself, among seals hauled out on ice floes.

Days run on near-24-hour summer light, and the silence between engine shutdowns is near-total.

Few journeys anywhere feel as genuinely remote.

Established in 1885, Banff is Canada's oldest national park and one of the world's most spectacular.

Turquoise lakes, ancient glaciers, hot springs, abundant wildlife, and the postcard town of Banff itself make this an unmissable destination in the Canadian Rockies.

Yellowstone is the world's first national park and still its strangest, sitting atop a supervolcano that surfaces as thousands of geysers, hot springs, and mudpots.

Old Faithful erupts on a near-hourly schedule, while the Grand Prismatic Spring's rainbow colours come from heat-loving bacteria.

Beyond the geothermal basins, the park holds free-roaming bison, elk, wolves, and grizzly bears across nearly 9,000 square kilometres of forest and canyon.

The Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat, covering 10,582 square kilometres of the Bolivian altiplano at 3,656 metres above sea level.

When covered by a thin layer of water after the rainy season, it becomes a perfect mirror reflection of the sky and one of the most surreal landscapes on earth.

The Matterhorn's near-perfect pyramidal peak has made it one of the most recognised mountains in the world and the symbol of the Swiss Alps.

Rising 4,478 metres above the car-free village of Zermatt, it is reflected in the Riffelsee lake during clear summer mornings.

Japan's highest mountain and most enduring symbol rises 3,776 metres in near-perfect symmetry above Honshu's coastal plain.

The classic view of Fuji reflected in the still waters of Lake Kawaguchiko, or framed by cherry blossoms in spring or maple leaves in autumn, has inspired Japanese art for centuries.

A vast valley of red sand and towering sandstone mountains so otherworldly it has stood in for Mars in multiple films, including The Martian and The Rise of Skywalker.

Bedouin-guided 4x4 tours and camel treks weave between weathered rock arches, ancient petroglyphs, and canyons, ending most days at a Bedouin camp under some of the darkest skies in the Middle East.

The scale and silence of the place are as striking as its colour.

The Maroon Bells are two peaks — Maroon Peak and North Maroon Peak — in the Elk Mountains of Colorado, rising to 4,317 and 4,273 metres respectively.

The reflection of the burgundy-coloured peaks in the still waters of Maroon Lake, particularly in autumn when the surrounding aspen trees turn gold, is one of the classic sights of the American Rockies.

Yosemite Valley is a granite gorge cut by glaciers, with El Capitan and Half Dome rising thousands of feet above the valley floor and waterfalls dropping straight off the rim.

Beyond the valley, the park holds giant sequoia groves, alpine meadows, and high-country lakes reached by the seasonal Tioga Road.

It's one of the birthplaces of American rock climbing, and climbers on El Capitan's face are visible from the valley floor with binoculars.

The Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls trades Argentina's up-close catwalks for one long panoramic circuit, sweeping across nearly the entire 2.

7km curtain of over 250 individual falls at once.

A short walkway leads out to a platform inside the spray of the Devil's Throat, with boat trips for those who want to get soaked.

It's compact enough to see in half a day, unlike the sprawling park across the border.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system, stretching 2,300 kilometres along the Queensland coast and visible from space.

Home to over 1,500 species of fish, 4,000 types of mollusc, and 600 types of coral, it is the largest living structure on earth and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Three granite towers punch straight up out of Chilean Patagonia, reflected in turquoise glacial lakes that change colour with the light.

The full W trek links the towers with glaciers, wind-battered forests and the vivid blue of the Grey Glacier over several days.

Even a single day at the base-of-the-towers viewpoint delivers one of South America's most dramatic landscapes.

Cinque Terre is a string of five centuries-old fishing villages clinging to the cliffs of the Italian Riviera, connected by scenic hiking trails above the Ligurian Sea.

Manarola, Vernazza, Corniglia, Monterosso, and Riomaggiore tumble down their respective cliff faces in a cascade of colourful buildings.

The Grand Canyon is one of the world's great natural wonders — 446 kilometres long, up to 29 kilometres wide, and over 1,800 metres deep, carved over millions of years by the Colorado River.

The layered bands of red rock reveal two billion years of geological history and glow with extraordinary colour at sunrise and sunset.

Granite pillars draped in twisted pines rise out of a sea of cloud at Yellow Mountain, the landscape that inspired centuries of Chinese ink painting.

Cable cars reach several viewpoints directly, so the classic misty-peaks view doesn't require a demanding climb.

Sunrise and sunset, when the cloud sea forms below the summits, are when the mountain looks most like the paintings it inspired.

Sossusvlei is a salt and clay pan in the Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia, surrounded by massive red sand dunes — among the tallest in the world at over 300 metres.

The dead white camelthorn trees in the Deadvlei pan, set against deep orange sand and cobalt sky, have become one of Africa's most iconic landscapes.

The Wave is a sandstone rock formation in the Coyote Buttes area of the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness in Arizona, famous for its colourful, undulating forms created by 190-million-year-old Jurassic sand dunes.

The swirling bands of red, orange, and pink sandstone make it one of the world's most extraordinary geological formations.

Mount Fitz Roy is a serrated granite peak on the border of Argentina and Chile in Patagonia, rising 3,405 metres above the Patagonian steppe.

Its distinctive jagged silhouette, often wreathed in cloud, inspired the Patagonia clothing brand logo and is considered one of the most technically challenging climbs in the world.

Six hundred miles off the Ecuadorian coast, the Galápagos archipelago is a living laboratory of evolution where wildlife shows no fear of humans.

Charles Darwin's observations here inspired his theory of natural selection, and today visitors can snorkel with sea lions and walk alongside giant tortoises.

An active, smoking crater rising from the middle of a vast ash-grey "Sea of Sand" caldera in East Java, ringed by the taller peaks of the Tengger massif.

The classic sunrise viewpoint at Mount Penanjakan looks out over Bromo's smoking cone and several neighbouring volcanoes at once, one of Southeast Asia's most celebrated views.

Horses and jeeps ferry visitors across the sand sea to the crater's base, from which several hundred stairs climb to the smoking rim itself.

Aoraki/Mount Cook is New Zealand's highest peak at 3,724 metres, rising above the Mackenzie Basin surrounded by glaciers and turquoise lakes.

The Hooker Valley Track provides one of the most accessible and rewarding walks in the country, leading to views of the mountain across three swing bridges.

Trolltunga, meaning Troll's Tongue, is a spectacular horizontal rock formation that juts 700 metres above Lake Ringedalsvatnet in western Norway.

The 27-kilometre return hike to reach it passes through some of Norway's most dramatic fjord landscape, ascending over 1,000 metres in elevation.

A four-day trek along Inca-built stone steps, climbing over the 4,215m Dead Woman's Pass and threading cloud forest to reach ruins at Sayacmarca and Winay Wayna.

The final pre-dawn push through the Sun Gate delivers the classic first view of Machu Picchu below.

Campsites sit on terraced mountainsides ringed by snow-streaked Andean peaks.

Permits are capped at 500 a day, and a guide is mandatory.

Sheer limestone karsts rise straight out of turquoise lagoons around this Palawan town, often ranked among the world's most beautiful island landscapes.

Hidden lagoons reachable only by kayak or narrow swim-throughs open onto still, mirror-flat water walled in by cliffs.

Island-hopping boat tours string together beaches, lagoons, and reefs that are rarely anything less than spectacular.

Lake Baikal holds a fifth of the planet's unfrozen fresh water and is both the world's deepest and oldest lake, ringed by taiga forest and mountains in Siberia.

Its clarity lets you see many metres down in summer, while in winter the surface freezes into clear blue ice sheets thick enough to drive on.

Most visitors base themselves in Listvyanka or on Olkhon Island to explore the shoreline and villages.

The Teton Range rises abruptly and without foothills from the flat valley floor of Jackson Hole, creating one of the most dramatic mountain frontages in the Americas.

Below it, the Snake River, a chain of glacial lakes and open sagebrush flats hold moose, elk, bison and both black and grizzly bears.

Trails range from flat lakeshore loops to serious alpine climbs within the same few miles of road.

Water drops 979 metres off a sheer tabletop mountain in the middle of remote Venezuelan jungle, making this the tallest waterfall on Earth by a wide margin.

The fall is so tall that much of the water disperses into mist before ever reaching the pool below.

Reaching it means days of river travel by dugout canoe through Canaima National Park, so the sheer remoteness is part of what keeps the view unspoiled.

Roughly 900 moai, the monumental stone figures carved by the Rapa Nui between the 13th and 16th centuries, are scattered across this small volcanic island 3,700km from mainland Chile.

The best-known cluster, fifteen restored moai at Ahu Tongariki, catches the sunrise directly behind it.

Elsewhere, the Rano Raraku quarry has dozens of unfinished statues still half-buried in the hillside where their carvers left them.

Raja Ampat's four main islands and hundreds of smaller limestone islets sit at the heart of the Coral Triangle, the most biodiverse marine environment on Earth, with reefs holding far more coral and fish species than the Caribbean.

Above water, karst islands draped in jungle ring turquoise lagoons; below, divers and snorkelers find manta rays, reef sharks, and dense coral gardens largely undamaged by mass tourism.

Reaching it takes real commitment, but few marine destinations compare.

A massive tidewater glacier advancing into Lago Argentino, calving house-sized chunks of ice with a thunderous crack several times a day.

One of the few glaciers on Earth still growing, its brilliant blue ice face and extensive boardwalk system make it Patagonia's signature sight.

Volcanic islands rise steeply out of turquoise water in this remote Indonesian archipelago, the only place on Earth with wild Komodo dragons.

Padar Island's ridge walk looks down on three separate curved bays at once, and Pink Beach takes its colour from crushed red coral mixed through the sand.

The surrounding waters are among Indonesia's best for manta rays and drift diving.

A sea of orange dunes rising up to 150 metres at the edge of the Sahara, the most accessible major dune field in Morocco and the base for camel treks and overnight desert camps.

The dunes shift constantly with the wind, and sunrise and sunset turn the sand from deep gold to burnt red.

Nights in a Berber camp under an unpolluted sky are as much the draw as the dunes themselves.

A flat granite plateau juts out 604 metres above the Lysefjord, ending in a sheer drop with the fjord stretching away beyond it.

The hike climbs around 350 metres over four kilometres, steep and rocky in places but manageable for most reasonably fit walkers in a few hours.

Nothing about the scale of the drop registers properly until you are standing at the edge of it.

Svalbard is a remote Norwegian archipelago deep in the Arctic Ocean, roughly 60% covered by glaciers and home to more polar bears than people.

Longyearbyen, the main settlement, is the base for dog-sledding, snowmobiling and boat trips past calving glaciers and drifting sea ice, with the midnight sun in summer and polar night and northern lights in winter.

Almost everything beyond town requires an armed guide, which shapes the whole experience.

A cogwheel railway climbs through solid rock to a saddle between the Eiger and Mönch, 3,454 metres up, where the "Top of Europe" station opens onto the Aletsch Glacier, the largest ice stream in the Alps.

An ice palace, observation deck, and snow terrace fill out the visit, though thin air and shifting weather can erase the view without warning.

North America's tallest waterfall drops in three tiers down a granite cliff face in Yosemite Valley, at its thunderous peak each spring when snowmelt sends it roaring.

By late summer it can slow to a trickle or vanish entirely, so timing genuinely changes what you see.

The valley floor meadow below offers an open, unobstructed view, with El Capitan and Half Dome in sight at the same time.

Zion's main canyon is a half-mile-deep slot of red and cream sandstone carved by the Virgin River, with the Narrows letting visitors wade upriver between walls that close in overhead.

The valley floor is reached only by a free shuttle in peak season, keeping the canyon quieter than the crowded parking lots suggest.

Angels Landing's chained final pitch is the park's signature scramble, but most of the canyon is accessible on flat paved trails.

A sub-Arctic town on the Hudson Bay coast known as the polar bear capital of the world, where bears gather each autumn waiting for the sea ice to freeze.

Specially built tundra vehicles bring visitors safely within metres of wild bears, and the same stretch of coast offers beluga whale watching in summer and reliable northern lights viewing in winter.

No road connects Churchill to the rest of Manitoba.

A volcanic archipelago 350km off Brazil's coast, this is regularly ranked among the world's best beaches, with clear water that reveals reef sharks and sea turtles from the shoreline.

A strict daily visitor cap and environmental tax keep the beaches close to empty even in high season.

Morro Dois Irmaos, twin volcanic peaks rising from the sea, anchor the view from almost every beach.

A small-ship cruise through the Galapagos archipelago, landing daily by dinghy on islands where sea lions, marine iguanas, and blue-footed boobies show no fear of visitors.

Charles Darwin's living laboratory looks much as it did when he arrived, thanks to strict limits on visitor numbers and permitted routes.

Snorkeling brings penguins and hammerhead sharks within arm's reach.

Each island differs sharply from the last in wildlife and landscape.

A 12-14 day teahouse trek from Lukla through Namche Bazaar and Sherpa villages to Everest Base Camp at 5,364m, past the prayer-flagged memorial cairns at Thukla.

Everest itself is hidden from Base Camp, so the trek is paired with a pre-dawn climb of Kala Patthar, where the summit catches the first light above Ama Dablam and Nuptse.

Altitude, not distance, is the real challenge, so itineraries build in acclimatisation days.

The steep peak rising behind Machu Picchu is a climbable mountain in its own right, with narrow Inca-built stone steps switchbacking up its face.

From the summit the entire citadel unfolds below, terraces and all, with the Urubamba river winding through the valley beyond.

Only 200 permits are issued per morning slot, which keeps the trail genuinely uncrowded but means booking months ahead.

A 4-5 day traverse of Torres del Paine's signature sights: the granite Torres themselves, the sheer Cuernos horns, French Valley's hanging glaciers, and Grey Glacier's blue ice.

Refugios and campsites break the route into manageable days, though Patagonian wind can turn brutal without warning.

The reward is one of the most consistently spectacular multi-day trails in South America, from lenga forest to turquoise glacial lakes.

Haleakala's summit on Maui sits at 3,055 metres above sea level, placing it above the clouds for one of the world's most famous sunrise experiences.

The volcanic crater contains a moonlike landscape of cinder cones and lava flows extending 11 kilometres across and 800 metres deep.

Railay is a small peninsula near Krabi cut off from the mainland by sheer limestone cliffs, reachable only by longtail boat despite technically being attached to the mainland.

Towering karst formations ring beaches of soft white sand and clear water, and the cliffs themselves have made Railay one of the world's best-known rock-climbing destinations, with routes for complete beginners up to experienced climbers.

The steel arch Sydneysiders call the Coathanger, carrying eight lanes, two rail tracks and a pedestrian walkway high above the harbour.

The classic view pairs it with the Opera House from Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

Climbers can walk the outer arch on a harnessed BridgeClimb, 134 metres above the water.

A vast, shimmering salt pan visible from space anchors this national park, where waterholes along its edges concentrate wildlife in a way few other African parks match, especially in the dry season when animals converge to drink.

Self-drive visitors can park at floodlit waterholes after dark and watch elephants, rhinos and predators arrive, without needing a guide.

The pan itself is striking even without the wildlife around its rim.

The world's largest intact volcanic caldera holds an entire self-contained ecosystem within its walls, its crater floor packed with one of Africa's densest concentrations of wildlife, including the 'Big Five' all visible on a single day's game drive.

Unlike the Serengeti's open plains, animals here rarely migrate beyond the crater's rim, making sightings unusually reliable year-round.

Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the ancient world, and its two great pyramids — the Sun and the Moon — still dominate the Mexican plateau just outside the capital.

The Avenue of the Dead runs more than two kilometres between them, past palace complexes decorated with faded murals.

Both main pyramids can be climbed, and the view from the top of the Pyramid of the Sun takes in the whole site and the mountains beyond.

Phang Nga Bay is scattered with hundreds of limestone karst towers rising sheer out of shallow emerald water, including Ko Tapu, the needle-thin rock made famous by a 1974 James Bond film.

Longtail boats and sea kayaks weave between the islands and into hidden lagoons through partly submerged caves called hongs, some passable only at certain tides, alongside mangrove-fringed fishing villages including one built entirely on stilts.

The Grossglockner High Alpine Road climbs through 36 hairpin bends to over 2,500 metres, threading past Austria's highest peak and ending at a viewpoint over the Pasterze, the country's largest glacier.

Marmots and ibex are a common sight along the route, and a dozen or so panoramic pull-offs give reason to stop every few kilometres.

The road is only open from May to October, closing once snow makes the high pass impassable.

Phong Nha-Ke Bang protects one of the world's largest karst regions, its jungle-covered limestone hiding thousands of caves, including Son Doong, the largest cave passage on Earth, and Paradise Cave's vast chambers of stalactites.

Most visitors explore by boat along the Son River into Phong Nha Cave itself, or walk the lit boardwalks of Paradise Cave.

It's Vietnam's premier caving destination, still largely undeveloped outside the main sites.

Blyde River Canyon is one of the largest canyons in the world, the centrepiece of South Africa's Panorama Route, a red-rock gorge cut through the Mpumalanga escarpment.

Viewpoints along the rim look down on the Three Rondavels rock formations and the canyon's dammed river bend, while short walks lead to Bourke's Luck Potholes and God's Window.

It is a self-drive destination best covered over a full day of short stops rather than one overlook.

A surreal expanse of chalk-white rock formations near Farafra Oasis, carved by millennia of sand-wind erosion into shapes resembling mushrooms, camels, and icebergs scattered across pale desert sand.

Camping overnight among the formations, with no artificial light for miles, is the main way to see it - the white rock glows almost blue under a full moon.

It remains one of the least-visited major landscapes in Egypt outside the Nile corridor.

The second-largest canyon on Earth cuts a 160km gash through the Namibian desert, its layered rock walls dropping 550 metres to the seasonal Fish River below.

A multi-day hike along the canyon floor is one of Southern Africa's classic treks, but the main viewpoint at Hobas delivers the scale in a single sweeping look without any walking required.

Sunset turns the canyon's rust-red rock a deep orange.

Mount Rainier is an active stratovolcano rising 4,392 metres above the Puget Sound lowlands of Washington State, making it the most topographically prominent peak in the contiguous United States.

In summer, its slopes are carpeted with wildflower meadows and it is reflected in the lakes of Paradise and Reflection Lakes.

Peninsula Valdes juts into the South Atlantic off Argentine Patagonia and holds one of the continent's great wildlife spectacles: southern right whales calving close to shore, orcas that beach themselves hunting sea lion pups, and colonies of elephant seals and penguins.

A UNESCO site reached from Puerto Madryn, it's linked by unpaved roads between viewing points.

Sightings are seasonal, so timing matters.

A volcanic island in the mid-Atlantic nicknamed the "floating garden," Madeira packs cloud forest, terraced vineyards, and sea cliffs over 500 metres tall into an area smaller than greater London.

A 19th-century irrigation network of levadas laces the interior with walking trails through laurel forest and past hidden waterfalls, while a glass skywalk cantilevers out over Cabo Girão, one of Europe's highest sea cliffs.

Bay of Islands is a sheltered stretch of Northland coastline scattered with around 144 subtropical islands, sandy coves and clear, sailable water.

Paihia and Russell serve as bases for game fishing, dolphin cruises and trips through the natural archway at Piercy Island, and the nearby Waitangi Treaty Grounds mark where New Zealand's founding document was signed in 1840.

It rewards a slower visit by boat rather than a quick stop on shore.

Aconcagua rises 6,961 metres in Mendoza Province, the highest peak in both the Western and Southern Hemispheres and one of the Seven Summits.

Serious climbers spend two to three weeks on the standard Normal Route to the summit, but the mountain rewards a much shorter visit too: a half-day trek from the Horcones trailhead reaches Laguna de los Horcones, a glacial lake with a full view of the south face and glacier.

Aconcagua Provincial Park protects the surrounding high-altitude terrain.

One of the world's deepest canyons slices through the Peruvian Andes, its terraced walls farmed by local communities for centuries before the Incas ever arrived.

Andean condors ride the morning thermals at Cruz del Condor, often gliding within metres of the viewpoint's edge.

Traditional villages along the canyon rim still weave and dress in pre-Columbian styles rarely seen elsewhere in Peru.

Table Mountain's flat-topped summit, draped in its famous tablecloth of cloud, presides over Cape Town and offers 360-degree panoramas stretching from the Cape of Good Hope to the Winelands.

The mountain is home to an extraordinary number of endemic plant species found nowhere else on earth.

Africa's highest mountain stands alone on the Tanzanian plains, rising 5,895 metres above sea level as the world's tallest free-standing mountain.

Its snow-capped volcanic summit, increasingly threatened by climate change, can be reached by non-technical trekkers via several routes through dramatically changing ecosystems.

A steep 2.

5-mile round trip up Zion Canyon's sandstone spine, finishing on a knife-edge ridge with chain handholds and 1,200-foot drops on both sides.

The switchbacking approach up Walter's Wiggles gives way to an exposed scramble that rewards climbers with a sweeping view down Zion Canyon.

A permit lottery now limits how many hikers tackle the chains at once, since it's not for anyone uneasy with heights.

Ölüdeniz's Blue Lagoon is a sheltered curve of turquoise water pinched off from the open Mediterranean by a long sand spit, backed by pine-covered mountains rising straight from the shore.

It's one of Turkey's most photographed beaches and also its paragliding capital — hundreds of tandem flights launch daily from Babadağ mountain and drift down over the bay.

The beach itself is calm and shallow, better for swimming than surf.

Jebel Fihrayn, known as the Edge of the World, is a sheer escarpment roughly 1,100 metres above the desert floor, part of the Tuwaiq Mountains that once formed the shoreline of an ancient sea.

A rough 4x4 track and a short walk lead to a cliff edge with no barriers, looking out over a flat desert plain stretching to the horizon, and it has become one of the most visited natural landmarks near Riyadh since the country opened to tourism.

One of the world's highest active volcanoes, a near-symmetrical glacier-capped cone rising over 5,800 metres above the Andean paramo grasslands south of Quito.

Most visitors don't summit - that requires technical mountaineering and acclimatisation - but a hike or horseback ride to the refuge at around 4,800 metres gets close enough to stand at the glacier's edge, with wild llamas often grazing the surrounding slopes.

Its perfect-cone silhouette is one of the most recognisable mountain shapes in South America.

One of the hottest, lowest, and strangest inhabited places on Earth, a volcanic depression over 100 metres below sea level where sulphur springs bubble in acid-yellow and electric-green pools beside the active Erta Ale lava lake.

Camel caravans still cross the adjoining Danakil salt flats to mine slabs of salt by hand, much as they have for centuries.

The colours and scale look almost entirely artificial, which is exactly why people make the brutal trip.

Mineral bands of red, gold, turquoise and lavender stripe this Andean ridge, exposed by erosion after centuries of livestock trampling stripped the surface soil.

Sitting above 5,000 metres, the colours are more vivid in person than in most photos, especially just after rain.

Its rapid rise from local secret to must-see spot in under a decade has brought heavy foot traffic to a genuinely fragile landscape.

A navigable underground river winds more than 8 kilometers through a limestone karst cave system before reaching the sea, its chambers hung with stalactite formations and home to colonies of bats and swiftlets.

Paddled by small boat with a guide, the first kilometer open to visitors passes through cavernous chambers where the ceiling occasionally opens into shafts of light.

Its scale earned it a spot among the New7Wonders of Nature.

The Sa Calobra climb switchbacks up 26 hairpins through the limestone Serra de Tramuntana, including a spiralling loop where the road passes beneath itself, before dropping to a hidden cove on Mallorca's northwest coast.

Wider routes through the range link terraced olive groves, the monastery at Lluc and the ridge-top village of Deia.

The road is a pilgrimage climb for road cyclists and one of Europe's most celebrated stretches of tarmac.

Al Soudah sits near Jabal Sawda, Saudi Arabia's highest point, in the green, cool Asir highlands near Abha — a striking contrast to the desert most visitors expect.

Juniper forests cling to terraced mountainsides, mist regularly rolls through the valleys, and a cable car descends from the plateau edge down toward the valley floor thousands of metres below.

Despite the name, this isn't a desert: seasonal rains fill the valleys between hundreds of square kilometres of white dunes with clear turquoise lagoons, usually June to September.

Outside that window, the dunes stretch out bone-dry and empty.

Reaching the interior means a 4x4 or a walk across shifting sand from the gateway town of Barreirinhas, but the landscape has no real equivalent on the Brazilian coast.

The Atlantic Road links a scatter of skerries and islets off Norway's west coast on an 8km run of bridges and causeways, built to look like it dives straight into the sea.

The Storseisundet Bridge is the famous shot, but the whole stretch is a slow, low-lying drive between open ocean on both sides, with fishing hamlets and pull-offs for scrambling over the rocks.

Storms send waves over the road, which locals treat as a spectator sport in autumn.

Marketed as the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia sits on the Beagle Channel in Tierra del Fuego, snow-capped peaks rising directly behind its harbour.

It is the main departure point for Antarctica cruises, and shorter boat trips from the same harbour pass the red-and-white Les Eclaireurs lighthouse and islands crowded with sea lions, cormorants and penguins.

Tierra del Fuego National Park lies a short drive west for subantarctic forest and coastal trails.