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...

25. Uruguay Uruguay is known for its beach towns and tourism is an important facet of the nation's economy, but due to high interest rates, it earned a misery index of 23.8, making it the 25th most miserable country in the world, according to the Cato Institute's study. (MIGUEL ROJO/AFP/Getty Images) As some of the world's most popular tourist destinations, Greece, Costa Rica and Spain have many things in common, including sun-kissed beaches, stunning natural wonders and an abundance of...

Where do the Flying Fox and the Honeyeater live together? It sounds like a riddle from a Dr. Seuss story, but both species are endemic to the Ogasawara Islands – also known as the Bonin Islands – off the coast of Japan. The variety of unique species on the islands has earned them World Heritage recognition and the nickname "Galapagos of the Orient." The islands attract visitors from around the world who come to explore the breathtaking landscapes and experience...

The North Shore of Oahu in Hawaii on March 9, 2014. (Kenji Croman) When photographer Kenji Croman realized words can’t describe what it feels to be inside the barrel of a wave when bodysurfing, he decided he would have to show people what it felt like. “I love bodysurfing because it’s just you, the wave and fins, nothing else. It’s so pure,” Croman, who lives in Hawaii, told weather.com. But when he would try to explain the feeling to his...

Middle Eastern airliner Etihad Airways wants you to ride in the lap of luxury, if you can scrape together the cash. The quickly growing airliner revealed plans Sunday to provide first-class passengers with closed-off bedrooms, private bathrooms and even a butler for their highest-paying customers. The cost? About $21,000 for a trip from Abu Dhabi to London. One way. It's the latest example in a worldwide trend for airliners to cater to their customers willing to spend top dollar for...

Travel winner in the Professional competition of the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards. 'Roads of Grains.' (Ricardo Teles, Brazil) More than 100,000 photographers from 166 countries submitted photos into the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards. The subjects range from a series of beautiful Israeli landscapes to a pride of lions stalking across the Serengeti. Now, after several months of narrowing down the selection, the World Photography Organization has revealed American photographer Sara Naomi Lewkowicz as the winner of L’Iris d’Or/Sony...

A salt mine in the Nullarbor Plain of southwestern Australia. (Emma Phillips) Australian photographer Emma Phillips was in search of something new to photograph, when she stumbled upon salt mines in the Nullarbor Plain, a semi-arid region in western Australia. “I had decided that I wanted to take some pictures of industry in Australia, but I’d been finding it difficult to get access to certain industrial plants,” Phillips told weather.com. “I was in the desert on a trip through Australia...

Moldavian photographer Sasha Leahovenco captured photos of people from an indigenous tribe in the Chukotka region of Russia. (Sasha Leahovenco) What is it like to live at the end of the earth? Photographer Sasha Leahovenco battled sub-zero temperatures to photograph isolated reindeer herders, who are located so far from civilization they had never had their pictures taken before. Leahovenco, who grew up in Moldova, traveled to remote Chukotka, Russia to photograph the indigenous people and share his photos with the...

Abandoned Crying Baby Hospital in the Northern region of Italy. (Gaz Mather/Caters News Agency) British urban explorer Gaz Mather primarily photographs abandoned buildings in the U.K., but he discovered a whole new world of deserted, decaying buildings when he traveled to Italy. “After exploring the U.K. for a few years it was only a matter of time before I had to venture further afield and Europe was the next destination,” Mather told Caters News Agency. The Manchester-based photographer trekked to...

1906: San Francisco in ruins, seen from Lawrence Captive Airship, 2000 feet above San Francisco Bay. George Lawrence used aerial kites to photograph San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. His photos appeared in newspapers around the world made him famous. (George R. Lawrence/Library of Congress) In 1906, weeks after a devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, photography pioneer George R. Lawrence captured stunning images of the city in ruins from thousands of feet in the air. One of the photographs (first...