20. Los Angeles Los Angeles, Calif. ranks 20 in the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index. It is expected to attract 4.84 million international visitors in 2013. (Credit: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images) With summer approaching, thoughts of vacation become inevitable. Should one flee the heat by heading to some cooler clime? Or perhaps one should head to beach and luxuriate in the sun (but be careful!). Well, if current travel trends persist, you can follow the millions who are heading to 2013's...

Ken Nedimyer, president of the Coral Restoration Foundation, poses in the organization's coral nursery off Key Largo, Fla., with juvenile coral cuttings. (AP Photo/Coral Restoration Foundation via the Florida Keys News Bureau, Kevin Gaines) KEY LARGO, Fla. — Ken Nedimyer likes to say that he breathes new life into coral reefs. In fact, he's been doing it for more than a decade, and recreational divers are volunteering in the effort. "We are trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again,"...

A group of orphaned boys from the Dr. Barnardo's Homes leave Waterloo Station in London for a new life in Canada, April 1923. (Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) s for rail travel in the 1940sdeclared: “” And for the most part, that hasn’t changed, according to train historian and author . “Today, trains often roll when weather delays or cancels flights and snarls traffic on the highways,” Zimmermann said in an interview with Weather.com. “Weather can occasionally devastate rail service,...

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images) NEW YORK — A group of about 100 high school students traveling from New York to Atlanta were thrown off a flight, along with their chaperones, after the pilot and crew lost patience with some kids who wouldn't sit down and put away their cellphones. The teenagers, all seniors at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, in Brooklyn, were ordered off the AirTran flight around 6 a.m. Monday as it sat at a gate at LaGuardia Airport. AirTran's parent...

Dinner in the Sky patrons are strapped in and hoisted up into the air to enjoy the sights and dinner in Portugal. (Dinner in the Sky) Throwing a dinner party or a wedding reception? For some people, the sky’s the limit. And Events in the Sky, an Australian-based company, is catering to those people’s “high” standards. organizes dinners for everything from business meetings and poker tournaments to weddings and birthday parties, while suspended up to 164 feet high in the...

Hoover Dam, Nev. In recent years, countries have been coming up with new and innovative ways to generate energy. The UK is currently constructing the world's biggest fat-fueled power station, set to produce 130 gigawatt hours a year of renewable electricity--enough to run 39,000 average-sized homes, according to the BBC. But while new power plants are being constructed, there are some standing today--from a geothermal power plant in Iceland to a tidal power station in Canada--worth touring. Some are burrowed...

Circa 1930: Under the spotlight in a circus ring two elephants balance on their hind legs. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images) In the 19th century, there was one sure sign summer had arrived: the circus pulled into town, unpacking its canvas tents and wild animals from the trains that carried it around the country. "Oftentimes, in small, remote locations, a visiting circus was the only entertainment (in terms of performing arts) the audience had on a given year," said Dominique Jando,...

Cambodia/Thailand:PreahVihearTemple A 'Danger' sign warns visitors about a fragile structure within the grounds of the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple. (Paula Bronstein/ Getty Images) Borders existed before humans appeared on earth -- the high mountains and wide rivers and vast deserts of the world that divide one location from another. Although today's borders are determined by politics, ethnicity, resources and wars, we continue to rely on natural formations to delineatewhere one country ends and another one starts. Whether because of the...

Balloon pilot Edcar Vermeulen, fires the burner as he prepares for a tethered ballon to rise up at the 3rd Taiwan International Balloon Fiesta at Luye Highland on June 12, 2013, in Taitung, Taiwan. (Ashley Pon/Getty Images) After last year's record-setting International Hot Air Balloon Festival in Taiwan, the Taiwanese government is working to make the 2013 festival even bigger. According to The China Post, last year the festival attracted 880,000 visitors from 14 different countries. This year the festival...

Peking Man Site atZhoukoudian- China The perpetual forces of the weather have produced some of the most breathtaking sites in the world, from high mountains to eroded buttes and deserts. The processes of deposition and erosion -- when sediments are laid down and then swept away by wind and water -- have also allowed us to look back into the Earth's past and study the fossils of ancient organisms. Some of our most exciting discoveries have been the uncovering of...

The Los Roques islands off the coast of Venezuela are beautiful destinations for tourists -- up to 70,000 people visit each year, dwarfing the 1,500 people who live on the archipelago -- but the islands are also the site of mysterious disappearances that might be caused by strange weather phenomena. In January 2013, a plane carrying Italian fashion mogul Vittorio Missoni and five other passengers and crew vanished without a trace. And the airplane is hardly the first to go...

CRH380A, China An increasing number of countries are turning to high-speed rail to link cities, citing its advantages over air travel for mid-distance trips. With well-designed and well-operated systems, weather conditions are less likely to affect journeys, proponents such as the US High Speed Rail Association say. It's not surprising that countries are pushing technological limits to provide the most efficient (and fastest) ways to travel by rail. In 2012, China launched the world's first-ever high-speed train capable of operating...