Our Favorite Places in the World for Natural Beauty

This is our second post in our series about our favorite things about global nomadic living. In this post, we focus on the most memorable, enjoyable, and interesting places that we have visited from a natural perspective in the past four years of traveling around the world.

Mt Hua, China

This picturesque mountain offers some incredible views, great hiking, and interesting temples. We visited here twice so far and would go back again; we haven’t fully explored the entire mountain. It consists of five peaks; we have been to three of the five. You can get to the top either by hiking, it took us about four hours, or by cable car. We used the cable car on our second visit during January.

Mt Hua is about 120 km (75 miles) from Xian, China. You can get there by high-speed train in about 30 minutes. Our first trip there was intended to be a day trip from Xian. We hiked up and planned to take one of the last cable cars down, however, I got mixed up on what time the last cable car left and at about 7:00 pm we found ourselves stranded at the top of the mountain because the cable car had closed for the night. Not wanting to hike four hours down in the dark, we spent the night in a small hostel on the mountain. It turned out to be a great experience because we discovered that they light up many of the trails and temples on the mountain and shine lasers from the North Peak.

Mount Ijen – The Blue Volcano, Indonesia

We have visited quite a few volcanos in Iceland, Indonesia, and the Philippines so far during our four years of retirement. Mount Ijen is one of only two volcanos in the world where blue flames can be observed. The flames come from the ignition of sulfuric gas. The gas leaves the ground at about 600 degrees Celsius and ignites. You can only see the flame at night. It takes about two hours to hike to the crater.

Iguazu Falls, Brazil

Iguazu Falls straddle the border between Argentina and Brazil. They are also very close to Paraguay, we have visited the falls during our visits to Paraguay. Iguazu Falls are claimed to be the largest waterfall in the world. We have been to a few different waterfalls that claim to be the “largest in the world” and I guess it all depends on how you measure them; largest drop, the width of falls, amount of water flowing over the falls, etc. Iguazu is definitely one of the largest falls in the world. Niagara looks puny in comparison.

One of the things that we like about Iguazu Falls, especially compared to Niagara Falls, is the remote location and feel. It feels more like a National Park whereas Niagara Falls feels like a cheap amusement park to me. Of course, the sheer size of Iguazu is impressive.

Zhangjiajie, China

Zhangjiajie is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a collection of China National Parks. This is another place that we would probably go back to for a couple of reasons. One is that it is quite large and although we spent three days there, we didn’t get to see everything. The other is that due to weather, we only got partial views of many of the places we did visit due to heavy cloud cover. The park consists of forests in an area full of towering sandstone pinnacles. The landscape was the inspiration for the landscapes in the film Avatar and is sometimes advertised as the “Avatar Mountains”.

We were there in mid-May, just before the peak tourist season. Even then, the crowds were pretty large. I can only imagine how they would be in peak season. Due to the elevation and climate, clouds and fog are common throughout the site. On one hand, the clouds add to the images – peaks poking out through the clouds. On the other hand, clouds can obscure the view, especially when they are very thick.

Coral Reefs, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines

This experience for us is part natural wonder, part flora and fauna, and part experience. We love snorkeling in the warm waters and can often spend hours at a time in the ocean.

Many of the places we have snorkeled are in what is called the coral triangle covering 132,000 square km and taking in parts of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. The coral triangle contains 76% of the coral species in the world and many of these species are found only here. In addition to the coral, there is a huge variety of fish and other sea life. In addition to the many species of fish, we have seen a few varieties of sea turtles, reef sharks, crustaceans, and other sea life.

A few times we have hired a boat to take us to reefs, but most of the time we can just hop in the water from the beach and enjoy snorkeling. Although we could learn to scuba dive, for the time being, we are content to just snorkel. The ease of access and the low cost is tough to beat.

Zhangye National Geopark, China

This area in northwest China is a little reminiscent of the Badlands of South Dakota. However, the geopark is many times larger and much more varied and colorful than the Badlands. The landscape is made up of hills and mountains of colorful layers of sedimental rock that has been formed over millenniums. The park is quite large and has a bus that takes you from area to area where you can observe the mountains, pillars, cliffs, and valleys that make up this incredible landscape.

Caves in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia

Throughout Asia, we have seen many caves, some are man-made and have been carved for religious purposes, In Ipoh, Malaysia we went for a four-hour spelunking tour where we crawled through narrow passages, slid down rock slides, and waded through mud and underground streams. Other natural caves were interesting to see. Two of the most memorable caves we saw were in the state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo in Malaysia.

Niah Caves, about two hours from the city of Miri, Sarawak are very interesting because they are still actively used for the harvest of swiftlet nests to be used in bird’s nest soup and other products. We were not there during an actual harvest, but we saw many nests and the equipment and rigging used by the workers to harvest the nests. Even without the swiftlet harvesting aspect of the caves, they are still spectacular caves. The Grand Cave is huge. The caves also have evidence of the oldest human settlement in Malaysia thought to date back over 40,000 years. The Painted Cave has paintings that date back for 1200 years.

Guning Mulu National Park is a 35-minute flight from Miri. Flying in is the only practical way to get to the park. Caves are a big feature and we went on three cave tours. The most memorable cave to us is the Deer Cave. The cave is home to about four million bats and every night near sunset, all four million of them fly out of the cave to hunt in a very organized fashion over a period of about an hour. It is an incredible sight to watch.

Karst Landscapes of Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh, Vietnam

A few hours drive east from Hanoi lies Ha Long Bay. We took a two-night cruise through this area on a small ship, about 30 guests total. A few hours south of Hanoi is Ninh Binh. We hired a van for a day and explored this area with my dad, and my brother and his girlfriend. Both areas have similar landscapes of steep cliffs and island mountains of limestone. The landscapes have been featured in many movies. Most recently, “King Kong – Skull Island” was shot in the Ninh Binh area and you can visit some of the sites shown in the movie.

Cruising through the 1000 plus islands of Ha Long Bay and taking in the spectacular scenery is a memorable activity. The Ninh Binh area is explored by small boats or by hiking.

We have seen many locations of natural beauty in our four years of full-time travel. These are just a few of our top spots.