CANYONLANDS NATIONAL PARK, UTAH A parade of dramatic rocks marches through Utah’s Canyonlands, where you can view the entire park as one dramatic sculpture. It’s a three-dimensional playground of smooth rock, twin rivers, narrow canyons, wildflower gardens, hidden meadows, and otherworldly colors. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREAS STRAUSS, LOOK/ROBERT HARDING WORLD IMAGERY SOUTHERN PERU Every year in the remote reaches of Peru, wild vicuñas are rounded up during Gran Chaccu, an annual shearing event rooted in Inca tradition. Andean herders surround these wild, long-necked cousins of llamas and alpacas, prized for their precious wool, considered one of the finest natural fibers in the world. Once the animals are shorn, they are let go and bound, one by one, for the hills, free again. PHOTOGRAPH BY BETH WALD, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE JUJUY PROVINCE, ARGENTINA Jujuy Province in northwest Argentina is the country’s interface with the desert: a land remote, arid, and dramatically handsome. An ever changing palette of light, shadow, and color transforms Jujuy (pronounced hoo-hooey) into a photographer’s paradise. The striking salt flats of Salinas Grandes, pictured here, are mined through rectangular pools. PHOTOGRAPH BY YADID LEVY, ANZENBERGER/REDUX FAROE ISLANDS, DENMARK Tucked away at the bottom of a mountain-enclosed inlet, a grass-roofed village occupies a mystical, moody realm in Denmark’s Faroe Islands. This island, Streymoy, is just one of 18 that make up the windblown and remote archipelago that sits about 200 miles off the coast of Scotland. PHOTOGRAPH BY KARINE AIGNER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE ENGADINE VALLEY, SWITZERLAND The special “diamond dust light” of the mighty Engadine Valley has been drawing visitors to this part of Switzerland for more than three centuries. The dazzling atmospheric display is created on cold winter days by innumerable many-faceted ice crystals lingering in the atmosphere and glittering in the sun. A snow-covered St. Moritz, pictured here, sparkles in the winter. MAX GALLI, LAIF/REDUX PLITVICE LAKES NATIONAL PARK, CROATIA Deep in central Croatia’s dark, primordial Dinaric Alps, water and rock create the shimmering “land of the falling lakes,” as Plitvice National Park is known. A network of trails and wooden boardwalks entices more than a million visitors a year to explore waterfalls, streams, caves, and interconnected lakes. PHOTOGRAPH BY JONATHAN IRISH, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE NILE VALLEY, EGYPT For much of its journey across northern Africa, the Nile Valley passes through desert, but the 130 miles of river between Aswan and Luxor—where the Karnak Temple, pictured here, was built beginning around 2000 B.C.—are the most striking of the Nile’s entire length. PHOTOGRAPH BY JEAN-CHRISTOPHE GODET, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO SAMBURU DISTRICT, KENYA North of Mount Kenya, the terrain of Kenya evolves from forested highlands into a rust-colored wilderness that stretches more than 150 miles across the country before bleeding into the Turkana Desert. This is the traditional homeland of the Samburu people, who still decorate their hair and faces with an ocher clay that matches their earthy surroundings. PHOTOGRAPH BY AMI VITALE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE SKELETON COAST, NAMIBIA One of the planet’s starkest, most unspoiled shorelines, the Skeleton Coast stretches more than 300 miles along Namibia’s northern seaboard. Considered a deadly wasteland in years gone by, the coast is now cherished for its rich wildlife, a blend of sea creatures, desert critters, and savanna animals. Here, African penguins forage in the gin-clear waters off Mercury Island. PHOTOGRAPH BY THOMAS P. PESCHAK, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE DAVIT GAREJA CAVES, GEORGIA High in the cliffs of eastern Georgia’s rugged and remote border with Azerbaijan, Davit Gareja is a complex of 19 medieval cave monasteries. Considered masterpieces of Georgian art, the caves once housed nearly 5,000 monk cells. One cave is still functioning as a monastery, and monks can sometimes be heard chanting in the eerie silence of the deserted steppe. PHOTOGRAPH BY JUERGEN RITTERBACH, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO GANGTEY VALLEY, BHUTAN Bhutan’s breathtaking and little known Gangtey Valley is situated on the sun-drenched western slopes of the Black Mountains. Lording over the gently hollowed, treeless valley is the 17th-century cloistered Gangtey Monastery, where mask dances are a highlight of the annual Tsechu religious festivals. PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN KOBER, AGE FOTOSTOCK BOHOL ISLAND CHOCOLATE HILLS, PHILIPPINES The conical Chocolate Hills of Bohol Island in the Philippines are a mystery of nature. The estimated 1,776 grass-covered, coral limestone karst domes are nearly uniform in shape. And though lush foliage paints the mounds a vibrant green much of the year, in the driest months the rain-starved landscape resembles row after row of giant chocolate drops. PHOTOGRAPH BY PER-ANDRE HOFFMANN, AGE FOTOSTOCK WAITOMO CAVES, NEW ZEALAND Eerie blue “stars” light up a cave known as the Glowworm Grotto along the Waitomo River on New Zealand’s North Island. A tourist attraction since the 1880s, the grotto and other caves remain a source of wonderment for visitors. The otherworldly glow comes from larval fungus gnats found only in parts of New Zealand and Australia. PHOTOGRAPH BY DYLAN TOH WEDDELL SEA, ANTARCTICA Visiting the Weddell Sea—at the bottom of the world—requires a healthy sense of adventure. Most tourists arrive by ship from the tip of South America across the notoriously stormy Drake Passage. The payoff is a once-in-a-lifetime experience in a sea full of solitude, witnessing the shifting power of vast sheets of ice, as well as unspoiled wildlife on one of the most remote places on Earth—South Georgia Island, pictured here. PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANS LANTING, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE PUBLISHED OCTOBER 25, 2016 Sign up for more inspiring photos, stories, and special offers from National Geographic:

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