Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey

Hagia Sophia is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularized. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.

Alps, Europe

The Alps, one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretch approximately 1,200 kilometres across eight Alpine countries. The Alps were formed over hundreds of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,810.45 m is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains many peaks higher than 4,000 m, known as the "four-thousanders".

Pearl Shoal Waterfall, Jiuzhaigou, China

Pearl Shoal Waterfall is a waterfall located in Aba-Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northern Sichuan Province (China).

Located in Jiuzhaigou, at an altitude of 2,433 metres (7,982 ft), the top of the waterfall is 162.5 metres (533 ft) in width. It has a fall of 40 metres (130 ft).

Whitehaven Beach, Australia

Whitehaven Beach is a 7 km stretch along Whitsunday Island. The island is accessible by boat from the mainland tourist ports of Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour, as well as Hamilton Island. The Whitehaven Beach Ocean Swim is a 2 km open swimming competition held on the Beach in November each year as part of the Hamilton Island Triathlon Event. 

Venice, Italy

Venice is a city in northeastern Italy sited on a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. It is located in the marshy Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Venice is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. The city in its entirety is listed as a World Heritage Site, along with its lagoon.

Pulpit Rock, Preikestolen, Norway

Preikestolen or Prekestolen, also known by the English translations of Preacher's Pulpit or Pulpit Rock, and by the old name Hyvlatonnå, is a massive cliff 604 metres above Lysefjorden, opposite the Kjerag plateau, in Forsand, Ryfylke, Norway. The top of the cliff is approximately 25 by 25 metres, almost flat, and is a famous tourist attraction in Norway.

The Wave - Paria Canyon, Arizona, Colorado

The Wave is a sandstone rock formation located in the United States of America near the Arizona and Utah border on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes, in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, on the Colorado Plateau. It is famous among hikers and photographers for its colorful, undulating forms, and the rugged, trackless hike required to reach it.

W Retreat & Spa, Maldives

W Retreat & Spa – Maldives is a tropical playground in the Indian Ocean that’s perfect for relaxing, playing, and recharging for your next adventure.

Royal Hotel Clock Tower, Mecca, Saudi Arabia

The Abraj Al-Bait Towers, also known as the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower, is a building complex in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. These towers are a part of the King Abdulaziz Endowment Project that strives to modernize the holy city in catering to the pilgrims. The complex holds several world records, the tallest clock tower in the world, the world's largest clock face and the building with the world's largest floor area. The building complex is metres away from the world's largest mosque and Islam's most sacred site, the Masjid al Haram.

African Savannah

A stunning picture of zebras on the African savannah during sunset.

Puerto Princesa, Philippines

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park is located about 50 kilometres (30 mi) north of the city centre of Puerto Princesa, Palawan, The Philippines. The main attraction here is St. Pauls Underground River Cave - a more than 24 km long cave, which contains an 8.2-kilometer-long underground section of Cabayugan River. On November 11, 2011, Puerto Princesa Underground River was provisionally chosen as one of the New7Wonders of Nature. 

Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet

The Potala Palace is located in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It is named after Mount Potalaka. The Potala Palace was the chief residence of the Dalai Lama until the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India, during the 1959 Tibetan uprising. Today, the Potala Palace is a museum.

Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm is the capital and  the most populous city of Sweden, with a population of 871,952 in the municipality (2010), 1,372,565 in the urban area (2010), and 2,119,760 in the metropolitan area (2010). As of 2010, the Stockholm metropolitan area is home to approximately 22% of Sweden's population. Stockholm is known for its beauty, its buildings and architecture, its abundant clean and open water, and its many parks. It is sometimes referred to as Venice of the North.

Bastei Bridge, Germany

The Bastei is a rock formation towering 194 metres above the Elbe River in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains of Germany. Reaching a height of 305 metres above sea level, the jagged rocks of the Bastei were formed by water erosion over one million years ago. They are situated near Rathen, not far from Pirna southeast of the city of Dresden and are the major landmark of the Saxon Switzerland National Park.

Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The Petronas Towers, also known as the Petronas Twin Towers, are twin skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004 until surpassed by Taipei 101 in Taiwan. The buildings are the landmark of Kuala Lumpur with nearby Kuala Lumpur Tower. The height of both towers is 451.9 m (1,483 ft). 

The Maldives

Maldives, officially the Republic of the Maldives and also referred to as the Maldive Islands, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean consisting of twenty-six atolls. The Maldives atolls encompass a territory spread over roughly 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 sq mi), making the country one of the world's most geographically dispersed. Its population of 328,536 (2012) inhabits 192 of its 1,192 islands.

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

The Perito Moreno Glacier is a glacier located in the Los Glaciares National Park in south west Santa Cruz province, Argentina. It is one of the most important tourist attractions in the Argentine Patagonia. The 250 km² (97 sq mi) ice formation, and 30 km (19 mi) in length, is one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field located in the Andessystem shared with Chile. This icefield is the world's third largest reserve of fresh water.

Moraine Lake, Alberta, Canada

Moraine Lake is a glacially-fed lake in Banff National Park, 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) outside the Village of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. It is situated in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, at an elevation of approximately 6,183 feet (1,885 m). The lake has a surface area of .5 square kilometres (0.19 sq mi). 

The lake, being glacially fed, does not reach its crest until mid to late June. When it is full, it reflects a distinct shade of blue. The colour is due to the refraction of light off the rock flour deposited in the lake on a continual basis.

Mount Roraima, Venezuela & Brazil and Guyana

Mount Roraima (Spanish: Monte Roraima) is the highest of the Pakaraima chain of tepui plateau in South America. Its 31 km² summit area is defended by 400-metre-tall cliffs on all sides. The mountain includes the triple border point of Venezuela, Brazil and Guyana.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Victoria Falls (or Mosi-oa-Tunya (Tokaleya Tonga: the Smoke that Thunders) is a waterfall in southern Africa on the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. While it is neither the highest nor the widest waterfall in the world, it is claimed to be the largest. This claim is based on a width of 1,708 metres (5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft), forming the largest sheet of falling water in the world.

Alappuzha, India

Alappuzha, also known as Alleppey, is a city in the Alappuzha District of the Kerala state in southern India. Alappuzha is an important tourist destination in India. It is a town with beautiful, picturesque canals, backwaters, beaches and lagoons. Moreover, it is described as one of the places known as "Venice of the East". 

Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China in part to protect the Chinese Empire or its prototypical states against intrusions by various nomadic groups or military incursions by various warlike peoples or forces. An archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measure out to be 21,196 km (13,171 mi).

Petra, Jordan

Petra, meaning 'stone' in Greek, is a historical and archaeological city in the Jordanian governorate of Ma'an, that is famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit system. Established possibly as early as 312 BC as the capital city of the Nabataeans, it is a symbol of Jordan, as well as its most-visited tourist attraction. Petra has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985.

Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland

Lauterbrunnen is a municipality in the Interlaken-Oberhasli administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It lies in the Lauterbrunnen Valley and has a population of 2509 (Dec 2011). It is because of the extreme steepness of the valley that the village owes numerous waterfalls. The most famous of these are the Staubbach Falls within less than one kilometres of the village. The height of the cascade is between 800 and 900 feet (240 and 270 m), one of the highest in Europe formed of a single unbroken fall.

Porto, Portugal

The city that is build on the banks of the river Douro. Porto is the second city of Portugal with 240.000 inhabitants and a population of 1.3 million people in the metropolitan area. One of Portugal's internationally famous exports, port wine, is named for Porto, since the metropolitan area, and in particular the adegas of Vila Nova de Gaia, were responsible for the production and export of the fortified wine.

Overseas Highway, Florida

The Overseas Highway is a 127.5-mile (205.2 km) highway carrying U.S. Route 1 (US 1) through the Florida Keys. Large parts of it were built on the former right-of-way of the Overseas Railroad, the Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Completed in 1912, the Overseas Railroad was heavily damaged and partially destroyed in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The Florida East Coast Railway was financially unable to rebuild the destroyed sections, so the roadbed and remaining bridges were sold to the state of Florida for $640,000.

Sydney, Australia

Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia. It is on the south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. In June 2010 the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people. Inhabitants of Sydney are called Sydneysiders, comprising a cosmopolitan and international population.

Zhangjiajie Forest Park, China

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is a unique national forest park located in Zhangjiajie City in northern Hunan Province in the People's Republic of China. The most notable geographic features of the park are the pillar-like formations, some of which are over 800 metres (2,600 ft) in height. They are the result of many years of erosion. According to park officials, photographs from Zhangjiajie inspired the floating Hallelujah Mountains seen in the the movie Avatar. 

Urban Hills, Mexico City

The Mexico City metropolitan area population is 21.2 million people, making it the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere, the fifth largest agglomeration and the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world. As an "alpha" global city, Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers in North America.  It is located in the Valley of Mexico (Valle de México), a large valley in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico, at an altitude of 2,240 metres (7,350 ft).

Lake Baikal, Russia

The most voluminous freshwater lake in the world is Lake Baikal in Russia.  It is also among the clearest of all lakes, and thought to be the world's oldest lake at 25 million years. Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. 

Lake Nakuru, Kenya

Nakuru means "Dust or Dusty Place" in the Maasai language. The abundance of algae attracts thousands of flamingos and other animals. The lake's level dropped dramatically in the early 1990s but has since largely recovered.

The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, USA

The icon of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, USA. It has been declared as one of the Wonders of the Modern World and is certainly the most photographed bridge in the world!

Trango Towers, Pakistan

The Trango Towers in Pakistan offer some of the largest cliffs and is also one of the most challenging rock climbing mountains in the world. The highest point in the group is the summit of Great Trango Tower at 6,286 m (20,608 ft). The east face of the Great Trango Tower features the world's greatest nearly vertical drop.

Verdon Gorge, France

The Verdon is a 166 km long river in south-eastern France and is considered the be one of Europe's most beautiful. At some point, the river has cut a ravine up to 700 metres down through the limestone mass!

Burj al Arab, Dubai

The Burj al Arab is the fourth tallest hotel in the world, standing at a height of 321 meters (1,053 ft). It stands on an artificial island and is also the world's only seven-Star hotel. The shape of the structure is designed to mimic the sail of a ship. Staying one night in the Royal Suite will cost you US$18,716!

Atomium, Brussels

The signature of Brussels: the iconic Atomium. According to CNN, this 102 meters high (335 ft) structure is the most bizarre building in Europe. Its nine 18 m (59 ft) diameter stainless steel clad spheres are connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. 

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

Voted as one of the new 7 wonders of nature, Iguazu Falls definitely is a must-see waterfall complex. The total height is 82 meters (269 ft) and it is one of the biggest waterfalls in South America!

Geiranger, Norway

According to Lonely Planet, Geiranger in Norway is the best travel destination of Scandinavia. More than 700.000 tourists and over 150 cruise ships visit the little village each year, while the village itself has only a population of 300 people!

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world,  at 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 sq mi). It is located in the southern part of Bolivia near the Andes at an elevation of 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) above mean sea level. Moreover, it is a major breeding ground for several species of pink flamingos and contains 50 to 70% of the world's lithium reserves!

Central Park in New York City, USA

Central Park is a public park at the center of Manhatten in New York City. The park initially opened in 1857, on 843 acres (341 ha) of city-owned land. It is the most visited urban park in the United States with about 37.5 million visitors annually!