One of the most remote places you can visit on Earth is also one of the most mysterious: Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui in the native language. Dubbed Easter Island when the first Europeans landed here on Easter Day 1722, the island is the most isolated inhabited place on earth – farther from the next piece of land than any other settled place on our planet.

White sun-washed sand stretches for miles, against a backdrop of brilliant aquamarine ocean. You might think this is the Caribbean, but the Gulf Coast shore of Florida has some incredibly beautiful beaches that can give Caribbean ones a run for their money.

Some travelers are beach people, wanting the sand-and-water experience under palm trees. Others are city travelers, preferring the excitement and diversity of entertainment that a metropolitan vacation offers.

Coming in across the Serengeti plains for a landing in the small six-seater aircraft, I spotted a herd of something below. Gazelle? Impala? It was definitely some sort of antelope. And in the midst of them, something raised its long and graceful head far above the others. My heart skipped a beat — it was a giraffe! I was seeing a real, live giraffe in the wild, in its natural habitat in Tanzania, with my very own eyes!

As travelers, we've all been there: you're in a foreign country, you don't speak the language, and you're trying desperately to make yourself understood—and comprehend what someone else is telling you.

The longboat glided silently through the water, as the narrow channel opened up into the large expanse of Inle Lake. The shores seemed very far away, their green mountaintops disappearing into misty clouds. We passed other boats occasionally; mostly fishermen who swung their nets overhead and moved their wooden craft with a unique one-legged rowing method, their sinewy limb wrapped around the oar in a style not used anywhere else in the world.