Old Mill in Eastern Bavaria, Germany. (Photo by Kilian Schönberger) For generations, people believed the European countryside was populated by elves and fairies, goblins, witches and wizards. While those characters might be no more than myth and legend today, the eerie forests and foggy fields they populated continue to enchant modern dreamers. Kilian Schönberger is a German photographer and geographer who said he someday hopes to shoot a cover story for National Geographic. For now, he brings his viewers into...

Brownfield's souvenir and outdoor store in Elkhorn Avenue in Estes Park, Colo. suffered damage from the devastating floods on September 2013. The Colorado mountain town was cut off for days by the massive flooding. (Estes Park News) In September 2013, the Rocky Mountain resort town of Estes Park, Colo. was ravaged by the state's worst flooding in almost 50 years. Roads were washed away, businesses were flooded, and homeowners displaced. For a town that relies heavily on tourism — Estes...

The world's biggest tea drinkers are found in Turkey and Ireland, but one of the world's biggest tea producers is hidden off the southern coast of India. For a foreign and fragrant vacation, consider visiting the tea plantations of Sri Lanka. With a warm climate, a number of tropical forests, and fields upon fields of tea, coffee, coconuts and cinnamon, it's no surprise Sri Lanka is sometimes called "the nation of smiling people." Sri Lanka is the third largest exporter...

Galapagos Islands For the traveler who's seen it all and done it all, who feels a bit blasé about discovering the world, Natural World Safaris recently proposed a new kind of venture. The 111-day tour will cover 12 countries, multiple continents, and bring the participants close to some of the world's most magnificent endangered species. The only catch? It's $1 million for two people. The trip includes plenty of luxuries, including first class flying to and from the destinations and...

'Trains at Night' is a photo series that consists of large scale strobe lighting of trains in America's northeastern landscape. (William Gill) Photographer William Gill brings locomotives to light in his stunning photo series on trains cruising through the night sky. “Railroads are not particularly remote nor are they rare – they pass through most sizable towns in America. However, they have been pushed from the center of life to outside the periphery,” Gill says on his website. Gill, who...

Anyone who has experienced the headaches of air travel would probably agree it's cruel and unusual punishment to be trapped on an aircraft for 34 consecutive hours. It happened to 256 passengers aboard a Cathay Pacific flight from New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Hong Kong, according to NBC News. The flight took off March 29 from the United States, and encountered severe weather, among other factors, that forced the lengthy layover in Zhuhai, China. The unscheduled...

'Poolside Tanning,' East Boston, Mass. 2012. (Alex S. MacLean) Everything may seem chaotic while on the ground, but from high above the United States, landscapes — from fields to flyovers — appear perfectly organized into grids. This unique perspective is what Alex MacLean’s photo series of aerial landscapes aims to convey. “I try to understand what underlies the patterns within a photograph, which often tells a story about an environmental process or cultural values,” MacLean told weather.com. An architect-turned-photographer, MacLean...

Conquer Your Fear of Heights It takes a heavy dose of fearlessness and nerve to stand atop these monuments and look down. Some of the world's most incredible viewpoints are thousands of feet above the ground in locations most of us will never get to visit. These images can give perspective to a few of the most breathtaking landscapes on the planet. Hopefully, they won't make you dizzy at your desk, but we can't make any promises. Let's get started...

With the approach of summer, plenty of Americans will be hitting the road or taking to the skies for a vacation. In 2013, around 77 percent planned for vacation during the summer, reported the Wall Street Journal. The travel industry provides 14.9 million jobs, impacting one out of nine workers in America, says the U.S. Travel Association. By the sounds of it, Americans should be rather worldly with all the traveling we do. But according to the Huffington Post, most...

Thirteen-year-old Ashol Pan with her eagle. Despite her young age, Ashol had the amazing ability to control and be able to caress her eagle, almost as if she had been with it for years. (Asher Svidensky/ Caters News Agency) When photographer Asher Svidensky embarked on a four-month trek through western Mongolia, his goal was to document the region’s celebrated eagle hunters. He got a big surprise when he discovered a 13-year-old girl practicing the ancient tradition. Ashol Pan, described as...

Santa Monica Beach from Hotel Arcadia, 1893. (Charles C. Pierce (1861–1946, albumen print, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens) The Huntington Library has acquired a treasure trove of original photographs that depict the city of Los Angeles and the beach suburb of Santa Monica from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The rarely seen photos show Los Angeles' early landscapes and structures consisting of beach shacks, hotels and early signs of the city's tourism trade — long...

A California teenager was so desperate to run away from home, he was willing to brave the cold and a lack of oxygen to get out. The 16-year-old climbed into the wheel well of a Hawaiian Airlines plane and endured the California-to-Maui flight halfway across the Pacific Ocean in an effort to get away. After he was discovered on the tarmac at Maui Airport on Sunday with no identification, he was questioned by the FBI. "Doesn't even remember the flight,"...

A Buddhist monk lights the funeral pyre of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, during his funeral ceremony in Katmandu, Nepal, Monday, April 21, 2014. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha) After an avalanche killed 16 of their colleagues, dozens of Sherpa guides packed their belongings and left Mount Everest's base camp Wednesday, putting the rest of climbing season in limbo. The tragedy brought Sherpa issues back to the surface, as the guides have long been upset...