Aurora (Alaska, Yukon or anywhere else above about 60 degrees latitude)

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Your planet is being buffeted by the solar wind—some particles of protons and electrons that the sun spews into space. Some of charged particles get sucked into earth's magnetic field and flow toward the pole until they collide with our atmosphere. Then, the aurora borealis or aurora australis will be.

The best times to see the aurora borealis are around the spring and fall equinoxes, when geomagnetic storms (disturbances in the earth's magnetic field) are strongest. It helps if the sun is near a peak of activity in its 11 year sunspot cycle. You can sign up for aurora alerts online on NOAA's geomagnetic storm forecast. But most of all you need a flask of something warm and bracing, a cloudless night, and pepper spray in case a grizzly tries to join you for the show.

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Taj Mahal (India)

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Every year for the past decade, more than four million travelers have visited Taj Mahal in India. The white marble monument which completed over some 15 years by Shah Jahan, the emperor, as a memorial to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died in childbirth in 1631. It rises on a three-acre site on the Yamuna River in the northern city of Agra.

In the mid 1990, the Taj's splendors surrounded by a walled garden and fronted by a reflecting pool, prompting a millions dollar restoration effort spearheaded by the Indian government. The massive undertaking includes a restoration of the massive red sandstone main gates and scrubbing the marble exterior, including the replacement of semiprecious inlay.

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The Golden Pavilion (Japan)

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The pavilion is the most recognizable temple in Japan with entirely covered in gold. the Golden Pavilion, Shining in the light, or Kinkakuji, looks like a beautiful jewel box. In 1950, a disturbed Buddhist temple novice burned to its foundations. Within six years, the Golden Pavilion rose again. On new roof, appropriately, perches a phoenix. The pavilion was originally built as a retirement villa for the Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (a shogun), who after withdrawing from public life, exercised power in the background by installing his son as shogun.


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Incan Ruin – Machu Picchu (Peru)

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Machu Picchu is the lost city floating in a kingdom of clouds, a mysterious settlement that the Incas built, high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, deserted, and occupied, all in less than a century. For hundreds years that city was hidden in the jungle. In 1911, Hiram Bingham led a expedition to the Peruvian Andes. On a valley floor along the Urubamba River, he met a villager who guided him up to ruins of the hidden city, the only Incan site that had not been destroyed or looted during the previous three centuries.


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