10 natural wonders for adventure seekers around the world
Nature lovers and adventure seekers alike, look no further than these natural wonders of the world.
Travelling to new places is incomplete without immersing yourself in nature. If you love getting lost amongst towering trees, breathtaking landscapes and indelible vistas, pack your rucksack and make tracks for these natural paradises.
1. Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland, Canada
Travelling with: Alexis Buxton-Collins
At 700 metres above sea level, the aptly named Big Lookout gazes out from a flower-filled alpine bog over brooding mountain ranges, windswept volcanic beaches and glacier-carved fjords. Across the bay lies a tall granite dome erupting from a sea of trees. This is the mountain that gives the World Heritage-listed Gros Morne National Park its name.
Western Brook Pond is a spectacular glacier-cut freshwater fjord.
I’m visiting as part of World Expeditions’ Gros Morne Adventure, a week-long walking trip that takes me to the heart of this remote and staggeringly beautiful park perched high up on the north-western tip of Newfoundland. Adrift in the wild Atlantic Ocean, this remote island didn’t join Canada until 1949 and the locals still have a fiercely independent streak and take evident pride in the beauty of their surroundings. It is hard to express the remoteness of this place. Gros Morne doesn’t just feel like another planet; it contains multiple worlds, each of them somehow more beautiful than the last.
2. Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, USA
Travelling with: Katie Carlin
I am camped on the bow of Holland America Line’s Koningsdam, anticipating the thunderous crack of a tidewater glacier as we cut a path through the icy-cold waters of Glacier Bay National Park. “The brilliant blue of the ice will shine bright in this fog,” reassures the park ranger over the speaker as we journey closer to Margerie Glacier.
Snow-capped mountains surround Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park.
Alaska is warming twice as fast as the rest of the Earth and 95 per cent of its 100,000 glaciers are thinning, stagnating or retreating at an alarming rate. Jagged chunks of ice float past, a sea otter appears briefly and tufts of fog hover as we take the last bend. Margerie doesn’t disappoint. Her face towers 60 metres above sea level and stretches around 1.4 kilometres wide – but for how long? Even something this grand could disappear if we can’t correct our course in time.
Brown bears (Ursus Arctos) inhabit the Glacier Bay National Park.
3. Aareschlucht, Bernese Oberland, Switzerland
Travelling with: Emily Murphy
Dreamlike landscapes are the norm when traversing Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland region but even still, Aareschlucht (Aare Gorge) is a phenomenal outlier. Formed by glaciation over thousands of years, the limestone gorge and icy-blue glacial water of the Aare River are mystical and oddly enticing. But that 200-metre drop-off is somewhat of a disincentive. The hike through the gorge winds its way through 1.4 kilometres of footbridges and tunnels. Start in the east entrance and finish with a crescendo of waterfalls and rapids at the narrowest parts of the gorge.
The icy-blue glacial water of the Aare River is dreamlike.
4. Antarctica
Travelling with: Angela Saurine
Standing alone on the deck of an expedition ship admiring the reflection of jagged icebergs and snow-capped mountains cutting into a soft pastel sky in the silky water below, tears begin to stream down my face.
See a humpback whale breach the surface before your very eyes.
After days exploring the Antarctic Peninsula, with the roaring sound of glaciers calving, whales swimming beneath our Zodiac and penguins nibbling at our camera straps, the magnificence of the frozen continent has moved me like nowhere else on Earth.
Journey through the Antarctic with Expeditions – Zodiac cruises.
5. Great Blue Hole, Belize
Travelling with: Sarah Reid
It’s a thrillingly eerie feeling descending into the cobalt abyss of the Great Blue Hole, a giant marine sinkhole near the centre of Lighthouse Reef some 70 kilometres off mainland Belize.
Recreational dives descend to 40 metres, meaning most divers will experience the discombobulating effects of nitrogen narcosis as you make your way down, along and back up a section of the limestone sinkhole wall adorned with stalactites. If you’re lucky, you might spot some sharks patrolling the depths.
Off the coast of Belize lies the majestic Blue Hole.
6. Abisko National Park, Swedish Lapland, Sweden
Travelling with: Taylah Darnell
It’s 1am when I pull on my hiking boots. Abisko National Park in the heart of Swedish Lapland is only a two-kilometre walk from my accommodation and I’m taking advantage of summer’s midnight sun to hike part of its well-known but rarely trodden Kungsleden trail. The rushing of Abiskojåkka’s ice-laden water is the only sound I hear as I gaze up at Abisko Sky Station in the distance. It’s in this moment that I bookmark the spot in my mind; vowing to return for aurora borealis in winter.
Stroll along the scenic wooden path in Abisko National Park.
7. Waipoua Forest, New Zealand
Travelling with: Carla Grossetti
Admire the bark of the kauri trees twisting and curling on trunks that soar out of reach while walking among the giants of the Waipoua Forest. The mighty Tāne Mahuta (Lord of the Forest) stands an impressive 51 metres tall, presiding over a grove of kauri trees that is said to be among the oldest and largest in the world. The towering trees are intertwined with the lives of Māori in Aotearoa/New Zealand and part of the largest remaining tract of native forest in Northland.
A giant kauri tree in Tāne Mahuta, also called “God of the Forest”. (Image: Miles Holden)
8. Guyana, South America
Travelling with: Sarah Reid
It’s any wonder how one of the most biodiverse corners of the planet remained off our radars for so long. But now this English-speaking South American nation is becoming a go-to destination for wilderness adventure.
Kaieteur Falls is a wondrous sight to see in Guyana.
From hiking for days (or braving a small plane ride) to marvel at the thundering glory of Kaieteur Falls to spotting giant anteaters by horseback, Guyana’s dense tropical rainforests and sweeping savannahs, largely untouched by logging and mining, are ripe for exploration.
Scarlet Macaws are native to the evergreen forest of Guyana.
9. Scottish Highlands, Scotland
Travelling with: Elizabeth Whitehead
The Scottish Highlands have inspired countless folklore tales and poems. The landscape is as harsh and dramatic as it is beautiful, captivating humans throughout history with its green glens, glittering lochs and toothed mountains. Throughout the seasons, the landscape shifts.
Majestic sunrise views at Quiraing on the Isle of Skye, Scotland.
Come summer, flowering heather colours the hillsides with a dreamy purple hue. In winter, the stark mountains are frosted with porcelain-white snow. In all iterations, the Scottish Highlands enthral visitors with magic, magnificence and mysticism.
Meet the gentle giants of the Scottish Highlands.
10. Atacama Desert, Chile
Travelling with: Catherine Marshall
Miracles are visited upon this brittle wasteland stretched between the Andean Plateau and the pampas of northern Chile. Lakes blush with flamingos’ reflections; mesquite trees appear like sudden cloudbursts on the plains; quinces and pomegranates grow fat on snowmelt drifting down from the Andes.
Occasionally, wildflowers paint the desert in primary colours. There’s beauty, too, in the monochrome renditions of the world’s driest place (besides the polar regions): salt-crusted pans glittering in the sunlight, chalky wastes rippling towards a line of volcanoes, skies so unsullied the world’s leading astronomers use the desert as their terrestrial base for heavenly studies.
Spot pink-coloured flamingos at the Laguna Colorada.
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