Three coolest places you've visited

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador



Isle Royale



Darjeeling, India

1) ruins of Carthage, Tunisia

2) Priekestollen, Norway

3) DMZ, Korea

Forgive my ignorance

in the west of Norway, near Stavanger. I believe its close to a 2,000 foot drop.

The only way up is a walking path, takes about 2 hours at a moderate pace. But when you get to the top, what a view!

we had plans to visit their some day - guess we will not make it now

Sure seems like a beautiful area of the world

sorry no pix...

Why they are so cool?

Cuttyhunk is a small Island off the coast of Massachusetts. You can get there by plane or puddle jumper. On a clear day you can see Martha's Vineyard in the distance. There's a one room school house, a post office, and one restaurant. They have little bungalow cabins there, a beautiful nature trail, and rocky beaches to walk along.

I attended a retreat on the top of Mount Madonna at a Yoga institute. I was surrounded by Red Wood Trees and from the top you can look down and see the Pacific Ocean.

Grand Canyon
Toronto
Hot Springs NC during a blizzard

but just drove through it at 120 kph

I suppose my three would be Oberflacht, Deutschland, Konstanz, Deutschland, and Chur, Switzerland.

SOrry, as a Vancovuerite, I am bound to say it

Good stuff.

I have been there...I think it is pretty cool, The whole Columbia River Gorge is pretty cool too.

Certainly cooler than:
http://www.spokaneoutdoors.com/stonehg.htm

B-)

But it was built after WWI as a memorial to those who died over there and it is in a cool location overlooking the Columbia River Gorge.
If you are ever on the North side of the Gorge in that area it really is worth a visit.

If I'm in the area I'll stop by and pay my respects.

The place is kinda cheesy, no getting away from it. But cheesy can be cool to. We live in the 21 century, we get to be jaded because we see the real Stonehenge so often on tv or online. The builder never did know what the real Stonehenge was all about. He chose to build this monument to honor the dead Americans from WWI. The entire Columbia River Gorge is a great place to visit and spend some time.
Stonehenge Monument/Maryhill Museum is but a pit stop on the tour.

There is a lot of beauty there, and picnicking with the peacocks is cool, too.

Bonus.

Alpacas are cool.
And their wool makes nice sweaters for the ladies too.

:evilgrin:

Hey, no flames please! I can't think of a more descriptive term for my picks:

1. Disneyland right after September 11th. Had the park to myself. Rode the Indiana Jones ride 3 times in 15 minutes at one point.

2. Yavapai County Fair in Arizona. Saw a "Rally-Cross" race event, and it was right before the "Corky Romano" movie came out. The movie studio was giving away Corky masks. Virtually everyone at the fair was wearing or carrying one. Very surreal.

3. Grand Sumo wrestling in Las Vegas. Need I say more?

May 18, 1980, Rampart Ridge Mt. Rainier. (It was an especially eventful day)
and Germany. (anywhere and any-when I was, while there, was especially cool for me)

We lived there for 3 years - my daughter was born in Wiesbaden.

Sure do miss it this time of the year - with the beer fests, the wine fests and the Christmas - Nothing beats Christmas at Nurnburg.

I believe Nurnburg is called the Christmas capitol of the world, although I do not know why. I have lived close by to Nurnberg twice, 3 years in Erlangen (with a part of that in 2 differing nearby villages) and 3 years in Schwabach. you mentioned the fests...those Bavarians wrote the book on partying! Munich Octoberfest = biggest kegger in the world period!

It is important that you understand that Mt. Rainier is MY Mountain!
It's not like we have any formal contracts or deeds and the National Park Service might have a bit to say about my statement but: Mt. Rainier and I have this "thing" see. She knows that there is no one else who can feel the way I do about her...so she is my mountain and I am her human. We accept that.

Mt. St. Helens got plenty mad at me about this back on May 18, 1980.
What she threw my way was damned scary. If I would have been camped out at the same place I had camped out the weekend before, (May 11th) I could not be here in the big DU...I'd still be a crispy critter buried under a ton of ash.

Twice! And the of most of the other mountains in the Cascades.

Others:
Paris
London
The Bowron lake chain
The reefs off Cozumel
Saudi Arabia

... not for all those other cool places but for summiting Rainier.
Lot's of people do this every year but one needs to be in pretty good shape in order to do it AND enjoy the experience. When I was younger I smoked, heavily. Now that I am older I am lack the stamina I once had. I would have liked to see those steam vents in the crater icecap. I would have loved to spent a day and a night up there if that was possible.
BTW welcome to DU pokerfan. :toast:

Ice Bar, Swallow Street, Mayfair, London (except they make you wear these tin foil suits and gloves when drinking and throw you out after a dozen or so tequila slammers - sheeeeeeshhhhhhhhh!)
http://martin.hoffj.dk/bryllup/images/Ice%20Bar%20(1)_JPG.jpg

And currently my friend's hunting lodge in Scotland where the power failed last week and the generator blew up at the same time. Steady zero degrees celcius three days in a row.

It just didn't make my top three. Utardo, Baga, Anjuna, Bogmalo beaches. Stayed at the Cidade da Goa.

Your second pic is lovely!

-the Equator at sea

-watching the sunrise at the cliffs of Dover (once again from sea)

-Tierra del Fuego

Sorry, no photos because I am at work and the pics are at home.

Oh yeah, BTW I'm in to sailing.

Pyramids and Sphynx near Cairo (to include up-n-down the Nile)
the Game preserves of Kenya

yosemite park
key west florida
san francisco ca

all three fun, awesome trips

(which I climbed)

Rotorua



and Nimbin (especially the museum)


http://www.nimbinaustralia.com/museum/

The other two would have to be Tavarua Island, Fiji for the waves and warm people.
And last Florence Italy for the Art and architecture.

Edit to add pic

and the food . . . . mmmmmmmmmm

So much art in such a small space

this spring (our spring).
Any suggestions, hints etc would be greatly appreciated.

Never really done much sightseeing.
One thing to think about is the flight.
Non stops from LA taking 13-14 hrs are available as well as flights stopping in Hawaii or Tahiti.
The non stops are brutal. Thats a long time to be in a small chair.

I usually fly non stop due to time and money constraints. But my best trips have included stops in Hawaii. Much more relaxing. Just costs more. But I am flying from FL so I am usually exhausted by the time I get to LA.

I am indeed envious.
As in your case, time and money will require the non-stop flight. I am planning massive amounts of modern pharmaceuticals followed by sleep...blissful, time consuming sleep. :)
This is really going to freak the wife out. The furthest she has ever flown is from Kentucky to Daytona Beach, so the flight to LA will just be a warm-up.

TCN

we lived in Alice Springs in '73n & 74. Also walked around it and went into many of the caves that are apparently now off limits because of Tribal heritage and customs. I had a T-Shirt for years that said "I've climbed Ayers Rock" and another that said "I've been everywhere mate, including Alice Springs"

Been to the Acropolis in Athens also where the centerpiece is the Parthenon

and been to Venice, Italy and through San Marcos Square

The Amazon area of Peru (sort of near Iquitos but not quite), Venice, and, I've gotta say, the Grand Canyon.

:rofl:

I imagine it's about the same. Very nice scenery.

Ground Zero shortly after the collapse (life changing)

Under the Gulf of Mexico snorkling

Quebec City

sure had a good time - and what great people

wish my French was more reliable

Working on the side of a Norwegian fjord in western part of the country.

Living in the Negev Desert, 300 meters below sea level.

The trekking Nepal part.

.

That is what you meant, right?

My most prized position is my flag and donkey pin senator Durbin gave me.

East meets West in a head-on collision. Terrifying and fascinating at the same time. I'd go there again in a second.

I'd say Arches, Mount Saint Helens, and Southeast Arizona.

My wife and I were shocked at the extent of the damage - have to see it to believe it. I cannot imagine the force of the eruption.

also, there were many interpretive displays that I thought really added a lot to the visiting experience. I'm a bit of a geology nerd, and I was really impressed with the interpretation of the geology, natural history, and human stories about the blast.

Mt. St. Helens yet. We do plan on going camping close to there next summer.

Sorry, no photos either. There are some really cool photos on this thread, though! Thanks to all of you.

For a golf nut, playing the Old Course is difficult to top. Also returning there years later to watch the Open Championship.

I took a second trip thru the Alaskan passageways last May. Just awesome, although I preferred the stop-and-stay version of my '95 trip with my own car and camper on the Alaskan ferries to this year's big ticket cruise on the Norwegian Star. Simply based on time ashore.

My family roots are in Ireland. Hard to name a specific area as tops, just driving the green hills is wonderful along with the coast. Maybe Tipperary Town and the Connemara region if I had to isolate.

my favorites are the Badlands of North and South Dakota, the Black Hills, and Ontario, Canada!

I really want to go to Stonehenge, Roswell, the Great Pyramids, all of the Mediterranean, Machu Picchu, Nazca Lines in Peru, Petra, ancient Aztec sites of Mexico, the rain forests of S. America and Africa (including Madagascar), New Zealand, Australia, and Antarctica.

If only I had money to travel...sigh...

Here's a pic of the hummingbird, part of the Nazca lines:

Melissa 11th Grade

Mrs. Matcom (ongoing)

oh and Salzburg, Austria was nice too

Cave of the Mounds in Blue Mound, WI
Costello's Old Mill Gallery in Maquoketa, IA
and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

Amsterdam


Côte d'Azur


Toronto

Tofino and the Wandylin inn in Fredericton, New Brunswick (For reasons that decorum prevents speaking of here.)

Yellowstone

Dallas Divide Colorado

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

it's been a while since i've been to the black canyon of the gunnison, so that pic was cool to see ...

Great pics! Thanks for sharing! B-)

in NH

Summit of Mt Katahdin in ME

Pemigewasset wilderness

I'm glad someone mentioned it. I was there this summer and it was great, with incredibly varying weather. Pouring rain and zero visibility one minute to troops of hikers taking off down the mountain at other times. I kept my bumper sticker and CD but don't know what to do with them. Oh yeah, also the highest verified recorded wind speed ever on that peak.

as one of the "coolest" places ;)

I went to that area to escape the hellish Las Vegas summers but suddenly it was in the 90 range. That's what prompted my drive from western Maine to Mt Washington. I stayed much longer than typical at the summit, enjoying the lodge and the view.

They have a long tradition of time trial auto races up that mountain. The current times they post are incredible. I can't imagine whipping around those tight corners with the deadly dropoffs at that speed.

1. A Benedictine Monastary near the summit of Brenner Pass in December. The sound of the monks singing the Office amid the snowfall was magical.

2. Tierra Del Fuego, Chile
Literally the end of the earth. Massive storm in June had whales doing tail sailing for comic relief.

3. The Inside Passage from Seattle to Anchorage. Stunningly breathtaking coastlines, escorts of killer whale pods and gorgeous weather, from the comfort of a deck on a cruise ship with unlimited gourmet food.

Yellowstone...absolutely fabulous


Cozumel..snorkeling every day over that wonderful reef,
here represented by the east beaches.

since I don't have any reef photos in my photobucket.

and Spain in general, The Alhambra specifically.

Don't have any photos of that in my photobucket either.

hope to go sometime.

Las Vegas, NV


Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada


Provincetown, MA

Glacier National Park in Montana

http://www.olsztyn.mm.pl/~grzegorzg/gory/Swiftcurrent%20Lake,%20Glacier%20National%20Park,%20Montana~1.jpg

And, one of my favorite cities, Seattle, Washington!

Hi Bill :hi:

Hi back, Alarcojon :hi:

The last one almost looks unearthly. And Isle Royale, I thought, was a very small island in Lake Superior. This looks very large. I know some people who camped there and said you couldn't drink the water...parasites or something

Heavily wooded, as you see. A great hike.

1. Montreal
2. Mesa Verde
3. Medicine Wheel (in the Bighorn Mountains)

It is a great place ... one of those places which seems to encourage a sort of transcendent experience ... Of course, the pictures don't do it justice, and for those who've never been there, it's quite difficult to describe.

I wouldn't have thought to list that as one of my three, but I'm so glad that you mentioned it. I spent most of my younger days in Sheridan, the main town off the mountains to the east from the Big Horn Medicine Wheel.

Jim Morrison's grave in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.


Beddgelert in Wales.



Neuschwanstein in the German Alps.

Or
Mesa Verde, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon

Or
Yankee Stadium, Cooperstown, Fenway Park

Or
Kennedy Space Center, Disney World, South Beach


Too many to list.

Met Stadium (home of the Twins through 1980 season)
Wrigley Field
Dodger Stadium

I grew up on the North Side of Chicago, and I was a bleacher bum for a few summers.

OFF THE HOOK!!!! JUST GOT BACK DAMN I'M IN LOVE

Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico
http://www.omar.ca/mexico/Uxmal/images/Uxmal,_Maya_long_noses.jpg

New York City


Custer State Park, SD

generic photo of landscape







Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua Mexico
this is Julio Mora one of the potters of Mata Ortiz he makes beautiful miniatures. In this picture he is painting an animal on the bottom of larger vessel (kind of his trademark), using a brush made of a few hairs from on of his chidren. He also rodeos and has some FINE horses.







Coolest place still to see: Australia.

California Pines CA

California City CA

California Valley CA


...Tikki

1. Big Sur, California



2. Hidra, Greece



3. Zion National Park, Utah

The Bad Lands of North Dakota, and most of Arizona.

:

1) Ecola Beach State Park in Oregon. Of all the places on the oregon coast, which is phenomenal, this this is the best I experienced -- beachcomber's paradise and walks down that beach always give such intriguing perspective.

2) Venice, Italy. Gelato, romance, and the whole decrepit wonder of the place.

3) Wind River range in Wyoming. Maybe it's memories of too many times backpacking up and down those mountains that sway me, but they're modest yet gorgeous peaks. Felt absolute peace there.

Drift dive on the back wall of Molokini.

One side is the crater and the other is the big blue...awesome.

Ulapalakua, Maui.

The road from Valdez to Anchorage,Alaska .
Growing up and fishing the high lakes of Oregon, I thought I knew what "wilderness" was, turns out I didn't...

no car, so when we decided to go see Valdez we took the train - had to spend all day going back and forth 3 times before it went back to Anchorage. Somewhere I have some great winter shots of the small boats all frozen in thier docks. This must have been a year or two into the pipeline??? There sure were a lot of Texans up there!

Yellowstone



Glacier National Park
http://www.olsztyn.mm.pl/~grzegorzg/gory/Swiftcurrent%20Lake,%20Glacier%20National%20Park,%20Montana~1.jpg

The Golden Gate at sunrise

(I'm just glad I got to experience san francisco before o'reilly turned his minions loose on it :rofl:)

Thanks for sharing.

I forgot how lovely Frisco looks from that side.


on edit: Oh, and fuck O'Shithead!

the bridge/bay/city really are beautiful from that side, and sunrise there is like nothing else, imo. The light in the early morning there is just gorgeous :)

PDA, Huffington Post, the Daily Kos and Progmom's radio show which is on right now so don't argue with me...it is very cool!

The flight was very long, over the Andes and the Brazilian jungle. The approach to Rio, Sugar Loaf, Christ of the Andes, then closer with Rio's famous beach. Startlingly beautiful. I was 18 years old and very impressed.

especially the Na Pali coast. Drive to the end of the road, wade way out into the sea (it's quite shallow) and gaze at pointy green cliffs plunging straight down. Then drive up the center of the island from the south, passing through sugar cane fields, jungle, an evergreen belt, and the wettest spot on earth, which gets over 300" of rain a year. View the same Na Pali cliffs from the top.

2) Koya-san, a mountaintop town south of Kyoto whose industry is...Shingon Buddhist temples. Ride a series of trains up into mountains that look like the Appalachians except for the sago palms and bamboo. Stay overnight in a temple in a room like that in an expensive traditional inn, eat vegan cuisine, go to bed early (nothing else to do), sleep under a blanket with Buddhist scriptures woven into it, get up for 6AM chants, eat more vegan cuisine, walk around the town that serves the temples, walk through a forested cemetery where everyone who was anyone in Japanese history is buried, see the tomb of Kobo Daishi, who will supposedly come back when the new era dawns, see the kitschy tombs of the modern industrialists who are hoping for a front row seat, have some friendly locals take you to a temple that is not on the tourist maps but which features humongous rhododendron bushes...

3) Taroko Gorge, Taiwan. Imagine a river with a white riverbed, the color coming from marble. That's right, the entire gorge, which empties out at the east coast town of Hualien, is made of marble. You take a scary China Airlines flight down the coast (past more green cliffs--I guess I'm a sucker for those) and land at Hualien. Board a bus for a winding ride into the mountains, including stops at temples carved out of the rocks, presided over by Buddhist nuns. At the end of the trail, you can buy all sorts of stuff made of marble, but be careful--that stuff's heavy and will weigh your suitcase down like nothing you ever bought.

1) the Pyramid of the Sun outside Mexico City

2) the mountain caves in western Cuba where Fidel holed up during the october missile crisis

3) San Francisco and the bay area

1. Lago Maggiore in Italy
2. Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada
3. The Diablerets Glacier France/Switzerland
4. St. Kitts beaches

Sorry no piccies.

Closely followed by Elba (I stood in the spot where Napolean died), the high Sierra dessert of California and my home after a long day.