Best Places Visited in the 2020s (2025 Edition)

With the new decade came a global pandemic which would change the world as we knew it. After travel was shut down, I was worried that I may never get to see many of the places I had always dreamed of seeing. However, within the 2020s, I have had the opportunity to visit some of the most incredible places on the planet, and I’d love to be able to highlight some of them. By the end of 2029, this will be a list of the top 100 places I visited in the 2020s. In order to keep an ongoing list, I have decided to add 10 slots after each year, gradually working my way up to 100 places. These 10 additional slots do not have to come from the most recent year as I want this to ultimately be a “top 100” list without any restraints or exceptions. This could technically end up being 100 places all visited in one year, though that’s highly unlikely. With the end of 2025, the total number of places on this list is 60. Every place on here is worth spending time on, but to keep this from becoming too long, I’ll only include a short description alongside each one. So with all that said, here’s the top 60 places I have visited so far in the 2020s!

60. Emerald Coast 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020, 2023, 2024, 2025
[Not included on any year-end ranking]
Every fall, my family spends a weekend in Destin, Florida, on the Emerald Coast. Florida has a wide range of beaches, with some being nice and others being disappointing. Unfortunately the more popular parts of Florida are what many have in their minds to describe Florida’s beaches, but it’s the quieter areas like the Emerald Coast that are truly worth visiting. In my opinion, these are the best beaches in all of Florida, and they should not be missed!

59. Lookout Mountain 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020, 2023, 2024, 2025
Lookout Mountain is huge! It spans 3 US states and contains many cool places to visit. While I don’t think any singular spot would make this list, as a collection of unique places, they do. On the Tennessee side, you can visit Ruby Falls and Sunset Rock. In Georgia, you’ve got Cloudland Canyon and Pigeon Mountain. And then in Alabama, there’s Little River Gorge. I was impressed with each of these locations, so the fact that they’re all technically connected is pretty cool!

58. Golden Isles 🇺🇸
Visited: 2022, 2023
[Included on 2023 Ranking]
The Golden Isles of Georgia are a group of barrier islands that are very beautiful. My favorite of the group is Jekyll Island, which is home to Driftwood Beach. Here, you can see an ancient forest that has been overtaken by the Atlantic Ocean. The silhouettes of the remaining trees against the backdrop of a sunset or sunrise over the Atlantic creates an almost-magical experience that is perfect for photography!

57. Fort McHenry 🇺🇸
Visited: 2024
Fort McHenry, in Baltimore, Maryland, is a very important historic site for the United States. This was a key location in the War for Independence. It was at this fort that captured American Francis Scott Key wrote the “Star Spangled Banner” while looking out the widow from a British ship and seeing the American flag still waving in the sky. This would go on to become the national anthem of the United States, and that flag can be seen not too far away at the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington DC.

56. Paynes Prairie Preserve 🇺🇸
Visited: 2023, 2025
[Included on 2024 Ranking]
Paynes Prairie Preserve is a large open prairie found near Gainesville, Florida. This is a very unusual environment to find in Florida, and the wildlife here is very unique as well. Within this park, you can find wild horses and bison, though I only saw the horses. There’s a large alligator population here as well, which might be a little more expected, considering its location. This was a very nice surprise!

55. Okefenokee Swamp 🇺🇸
Visited: 2022, 2023
Okefenokee Swamp is the largest blackwater swamp in America and is large enough to fit both the New York City and Chicago metro areas inside. After visiting all 3 major entrances to the park, Stephen C Foster State Park was by far my favorite as I rented a small jon boat and took it out to explore this massive swamp, spotting alligators that were larger than the boat itself. This is a cool place to visit!

54. Niagara Falls 🇺🇸
Visited: 2024
Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls on the New York-Ontario border. I have visited the Canadian side before, but in 2024 I only visited the US side. Because I visited when much of the park was iced over, I couldn’t really get a full view of the falls, so it will get ranked a little lower than it probably should have for that reason. Winter in New York is miserable, by the way!

53. Congaree National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2022
Congaree National Park, near Columbia, South Carolina, is an underrated park for sure! In fact, it has often been labeled as the “worst national park” and certain reviews of it have led to memes within the national park community. However, after visiting it for myself, I grew to really love this park! Kayaking through Cedar Creek is one of the most scenic experiences I’ve had in a national park that didn’t involve grand views of mountains or canyons. Sure, I flipped my kayak and almost ran into a cottonmouth, but that’s part of the fun!

52. Panther Creek Falls 🇺🇸
Visited: 2023, 2025
Panther Creek Falls is my favorite hike in Georgia. It’s located in Clarksville, not too far away from Helen, and it’s an all-day event to hike. The trail leads to a beautiful waterfall, as the name would suggest, but what really makes it special is the giant natural pool at its base. Here, you can go for a swim all the way to the waterfall and then stand on the rocks underneath the falling water. This is an awesome trail, and the finale is so worth it!

51. Cumberland Island 🇺🇸
Visited: 2023
Cumberland Island is a barrier island off the coast of Georgia and right next to Florida. It’s home to a wild horse population and the Dungeness Ruins, an old mansion that was owned by the Carnegie family. This place is an awesome experience to visit, and there’s nothing like wandering along trails by the beach and then hearing a wild horse walk up from behind you!

50. Northern & Southernmost Points 🇺🇸
Visited: 2021
I combined these two sites because their inclusion goes hand-in-hand with each other. Basically, I wouldn’t have either one of these on this list individually, but because I visited both within a few months of each other, it made the experience more special. Many people are familiar with the Southernmost Point buoy in Key West, Florida, but not many people know it has a twin, the Northernmost Point buoy in Angle Inlet, Minnesota. This marks the northernmost point of the contiguous United States, an exclave that was created by accident when Benjamin Franklin used an incorrect map during the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

49. Gateway Arch 🇺🇸
Visited: 2021
I’ve been pretty harsh on the Gateway Arch’s status as a national park. If you look at my national park rankings, you’ll notice it’s in last place. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it! It just means that I don’t think it should be a national park. As a standalone site, I really enjoyed visiting this iconic landmark in St Louis! It’s symbolic of the westward expansion of the United States and the start of Louis & Clark’s expeditions into the unknown. Taking the elevator to the top for some incredible views of the city is one of the highlights, and I highly recommend visiting.

48. Daeryong Market 🇰🇷
Visited: 2025
Daeryong Market is a market built by North Koreans who were stranded on Gyodong Island in South Korea after the conclusion of the Korean War. They built their own society here, somewhat excluded from the rest of South Korea, and because not much has changed in the years since, coming here still feels like you’re visiting during the Korean War era in the 1950s. There’s definitely a Soviet inspiration to the architecture, which is cool to see. No English is spoken here, and foreign visitors are extremely rare, so it was a very unique opportunity for me to experience this.

47. Independence Hall/Liberty Bell 🇺🇸
Visited: 2025
Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, contains one of the most historic rooms in America. Both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed here, along with many other important documents over the years. And right across the street from it is the Liberty Bell, which is one of the most iconic symbols of America. Both of these are great sites to visit, and I was excited to be able to see them for myself.

46. Times Square 🇺🇸
Visited: 2024, 2025
I used to hate New York City, so if you had asked me a few years ago where Times Square would rank on any given list, it would’ve been toward the bottom. After two recent successful trips to the city, my opinion of it overall has improved drastically. And Times Square in general is such an iconic place that you can’t help but feel a certain energy when you visit it. Unlike the Walk of Fame in LA that gets worse with each visit, I think Times Square does the opposite.

45. Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto Shrine 🇵🇭
Visited: 2025
Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto Shrine is a large shrine/cathedral in San Jose del Monte, Philippines. It’s a significant site for Catholics in the Philippines as many people come here on pilgrimages, especially during the Holy Week and All Saints’ Day. It’s a very impressive structure, surrounded by a bustling Sunday market, and I’m glad I made the hike over to it from my hotel.

44. Hot Springs National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2025
[Will be included on 2026 ranking]
Hot Springs is an urban national park in the town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. The park protects natural thermal spring water that is 143° F. when it exits the ground. This water, considered to have medicinal properties by Native Americans, has been used for over a century in large bathhouses that line the main street of the city. While this is very different than the average national park, I really enjoyed visiting and would highly recommend checking it out!

43. French Quarter 🇺🇸
Visited: 2021
New Orleans, Louisiana, is one of my favorite cities to visit as a day trip. The French Quarter in particular is so colorful and energetic, and the food is incredible. As you’re walking along the streets surrounded by French and Spanish colonial architecture, the sounds of jazz performed by local musicians fills the air, and the smells of fresh Cajun food lure you onto the doorsteps of tiny restaurants with lines down the block. I’ve been here many times, but surprisingly (due to a pandemic followed by moving to Georgia), I have only been once so far in the 2020s. Hopefully I’ll find myself visiting this awesome place again in the future.

42. National Mall 🇺🇸
Visited: 2024
The National Mall in Washington DC contains many of the most important monuments in the United States. Here, you’ll find the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, White House, Library of Congress, and Capitol Building, plus much more all within a couple miles of each other. I spent a full day walking the entire mall and visiting the different monuments, and as an American, this is just such an iconic place to visit.

41. Las Vegas Strip 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020
I first visited the Vegas Strip in 2014 but then returned in 2020 in the middle of a global pandemic. While I don’t support the lifestyle often associated with this city, I can’t deny that the Vegas Strip is one of my favorite places to explore on foot. Each casino lining this strip is unique and worth visiting on its own, and the fact that you can walk from one impressive building to another to another is really cool. Highlights here are The Venetian, Bellagio, and Caesars Palace, but they’re all fun to visit!

40. Kapata Market 🇿🇲
Visited: 2021
Kapata Market is a random market in Chipata, Zambia. Here, you can find almost anything you can think of, and it was such a cool experience being able to explore its maze-like alleys. While this may seem high to be ranking this, I love visiting places that are so culturally different from what I’m used to in the US, so for me, it had to get ranked pretty highly.

39. Playas de Tijuana 🇲🇽
Visited: 2020
While attempting to visit the southwest corner of the United States, a park closure forced me to accept a ride from my Uber driver to cross the border into Tijuana (which was the most dangerous city in the world at the time). As a result, I got a free tour of the city, including a stop at Playas de Tijuana, where I was able to stick my foot through the gap in the border wall to claim my fourth corner of the country. Locals come here to paint the wall, turning what could be viewed as an eyesore into a large canvas for artists to express themselves with. The view of the border wall extending into the Pacific Ocean is iconic, and this whole area was really cool to visit.

38. Hacienda Casa Blanca 🇨🇴
Visited: 2024
If there’s one thing Colombia is known for (besides Pablo Escobar or drugs), it’s coffee. Colombia is one of the largest exporters of coffee in the world, and many consider Colombian coffee to be the best. Hacienda Casa Blanca is one of the most iconic coffee farms in Colombia, and it was a very cool experience to explore it. Unlike typical farms, coffee farms are found on the sides of mountains in an almost-jungle-like environment, so visiting it is pretty unique.

37. Catedral Nuevo 🇪🇨
Visited: 2022
I enjoy visiting religious buildings, and Catedral Nuevo is a standout location from the 2020s so far. Its full name is the Catedral de la Inmaculada Concepción, though locals call it Catedral Nuevo, which is much easier to say. It’s located in Cuenca, Ecuador (one of my favorite cities anywhere), and it’s basically the centerpiece of the city. This cathedral is very impressive, and you can even visit the roof via a secret side entrance to get stunning views of the city!

36. Intramuros 🇵🇭
Visited: 2025
Intramuros is the historic walled city that became what we now know as Manila. It was established by the Spanish and was used for many different things over the years, from an aquarium to a prison. I spent an afternoon biking from one section to another, and the views from this were really cool. I ended the Intramuros tour on a rooftop overlooking modern-day Manila with incredible views of the sunset over Manila Bay. This is a part of Manila that you’ve likely never heard of, but it’s worth the visit.

35. Hokitika Gorge 🇳🇿
Visited: 2024
Hokitika Gorge is a beautiful gorge in Kokatahi, New Zealand, known for its bright blue water. The water is so blue because it comes from melted glaciers, and it looks like it came from the Caribbean rather than the South Pacific. The hike down into the gorge is beautiful as well, and you get to cross a really cool suspension bridge. This is definitely a place to visit on the South Island, though it’s a little out of the way of the typical tourist sites.

34. Everglades National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2021
The Florida Everglades is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. It’s also considered a UNESCO World Heritage Site as it is an important ecosystem. The Everglades is essentially a giant river of grass, and it protects many endangered species. An airboat tour is essential here, and spotting alligators in the Florida Everglades is very exciting!

33. Arthur’s Pass 🇳🇿
Visited: 2024
Arthur’s Pass is a national park and town on the South Island of New Zealand. It’s located in a more remote, less visited section of the island, and you can sense the seclusion when you’re there. The park is home to some beautiful landscapes and was used as a filming location for several movies, including The Chronicles of Narnia. This probably isn’t what you come to New Zealand for, but it shouldn’t be missed when you come.

32. Lake Wānaka 🇳🇿
Visited: 2024
Wānaka is a town on New Zealand’s South Island that is named after the lake it was built around. This town was such a nice surprise and one of my favorite places in New Zealand. But the lake really is what the town is known for, and one of the most iconic picture opportunities in the entire country is found here where a tree sticks out of the lake, creating a cool scene. #ThatWanakaTree is a national treasure of New Zealand, and it had to be represented on this list.

31. Capitol Reef National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020
Spoiler Alert: All 5 of the Mighty 5 parks in Utah are on this list. Of these, Capitol Reef is the least impressive, but that doesn’t mean this park isn’t incredible: it made this list for a reason! Because this park is the least visited of the 5, it feels much more remote, and I felt as if I had the entire park to myself at times. It’s pure rugged nature, and that, along with the isolation, is what I really loved about Capitol Reef!

30. Mammoth Cave National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2024
Mammoth Cave is the largest known cave system in the world. This national park in Kentucky is a cool one to visit, but tours are required to enter the cave (probably for obvious reasons). While tours aren’t my favorite, it’s really cool getting to visit this massive cave, and the above-ground scenery is pretty too, so you can enjoy the park without going underground, if that bothers you.

29. Dry Tortugas National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2021
Dry Tortugas is a remote island group in the Gulf of Mexico and one of the most remote national parks in the United States. To get there, you have to travel 70 miles through dangerous waters littered with shipwrecks. On Garden Key, the main island, you’ll find Fort Jefferson, which had many uses over the years. This is a cool park to explore, but the journey of getting there and the remoteness of it are really what make the experience so special.

28. Great Smoky Mountains 🇺🇸
Visited: 2023
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States and for good reason! It’s located in both Tennessee and North Carolina, and there’s a road called the Newfound Gap Road that leads right through the middle of it. The crowds do take away from the experience at times, but the park is still a beautiful place to visit, especially in the fall.

27. Joshua Tree National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2023
Sure, this park is somewhat touristy, but I really enjoyed it! Joshua Tree National Park is found in the middle of the desert with most of the park being part of the Mojave Desert and part being in the Sonoran Desert. It’s near Palm Springs, California, so it has become pretty popular. The park is known for its many Joshua trees found throughout, and these make some really cool pictures! The heat in the middle of the summer is brutal though, so you may want to watch what time of year you visit.

26. Mount Aspiring National Park 🇳🇿
Visited: 2024
Mount Aspiring National Park is found along the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. This feels very remote because it’s in the middle of the Southern Alps mountain range, with no civilization anywhere nearby. Cell phone signal here is almost nonexistent, which forces you to focus on the incredible nature and countless waterfalls found throughout. (Watch out for sandflies though!)

25. Désert de Lompoul 🇸🇳
Visited: 2023
How often do you have the opportunity to ride a camel along the edge of the Sahara Desert? This place in Senegal was a dream destination for me. I first got to try surfing down the massive sand dunes, then I took a camel ride, and then I finally rode an ATV through a tiny village to the beach and back. From the desert to the sea, the bright golden sand in the direct sunlight made an incredible backdrop to all of it!

24. Lake of the Woods 🇨🇦 🇺🇸
Visited: 2021
Lake of the Woods is a large lake between Minnesota and Manitoba, and during the winter, it freezes over. This offered a unique opportunity to the town of Angle Inlet, Minnesota, during Covid when they were cut off from the rest of the United States due to the closure of the border. As a last resort, they plowed an ice road 20 miles across the lake to reach mainland Minnesota, and I flew up there to drive it myself. This was such a cool experience and one that likely won’t be possible again anytime soon now that the border is back open.

23. Pacific Coast Highway 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020, 2023
The Pacific Coast Highway is one of the most iconic road trips in the United States. While I haven’t driven it in its entirety, I’ve been to small sections of it. In 2020, I traveled the portion from San Diego up through La Jolla to Torrey Pines, and then in 2023, I went from Long Beach to Venice Beach to Santa Monica to Malibu. This is a beautiful part of the country, with some of the most incredible sunsets on the planet, and I enjoy it every time I return. In fact, the picture in my logo was taken here!

22. Goxu Mbaaj 🇸🇳
Visited: 2023
Goxu Mbaaj is a poor neighborhood/fishing village of Saint-Louis, Senegal in a more desert area. This is one of those places that tourists don’t go, and that’s why I loved it so much. I worked in an optical clinic here and got to personally interact with the locals. The poverty in this area is definitely eye-opening, but I’m so thankful I was able to come and experience this place. I know the word “authentic” is often looked down on when describing certain cultures, but it’s hard to think of another word that can accurately portray the feeling of visiting someplace like this that has truly been unaffected by Western culture as much of the world has at this point.

21. Historic Centre of San Salvador 🇸🇻
Visited: 2025
San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, was so much nicer than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised with it! It’s also considered one of the safest cities in the world, though the method of how this was achieved may be a highly controversial topic. There’s a lot of evidence of the city’s safety as you walk the streets at night and realize many families like to gather in public parks around the city to just hang out. There are so many cool monuments and buildings to explore, and I’d love to return to explore it in more detail sometime in the future.

20. Blue Mountains National Park 🇦🇺
Visited: 2024
Blue Mountains National Park is found in Australia near the start of the Outback. It’s a beautiful park, though it doesn’t really contain mountains, despite what its name implies. The views from the high plateaus of this park are incredible, with the Three Sisters Overlook being the most famous. It’s also an odd park as there are small towns scattered throughout it, and these are fun places to visit as you go from one overlook to the next.

19. Chicamocha Canyon 🇨🇴
Visited: 2024
Chicamocha Canyon, known as “Panachi” by locals, is a beautiful national park near Bucaramanga, Colombia, and the views here can rival many of the best national parks in the United States. To visit it, there’s a long cable car, which is considered one of the longest in the world, that you must take. You can also get on a swing that sends you out over the edge of the canyon, if you want to be real adventurous.

18. Canyonlands National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020
Canyonlands National Park is located just outside Moab, Utah. It’s a beautiful park with plenty of canyon overlooks to stop at. In order to properly visit this park, you would need a four-wheel drive vehicle, so I didn’t get to see as much of it as I’d like. But the view from Mesa Arch at sunrise is potentially my favorite view in any national park ever, and that alone makes this park worth visiting!

17. Rocky Mountain National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2021
Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado is iconic. The views from this park are some of the best in the United States, especially from Trail Ridge Road. I got stuck in the middle of a snow storm when I visited, but that doesn’t take away from the enjoyment I had because the nature here is just incredible!

16. Haedong Yonggungsa Temple 🇰🇷
Visited: 2025
Haedong Yonggungsa Temple is a beautiful Buddhist temple right on the coast in Busan, South Korea. The architecture here is incredible, and the views from the rocky shore just a short walk away are breathtaking. I visited during a prayer service, and the entire atmosphere was very heavy. As a Christian, it was very eye-opening seeing this in person as locals would bow to golden statues and perform other rituals in belief that this will bring good luck upon their families.

15. Chinggis Khaan Statue Complex 🇲🇳
Visited: 2022
This massive statue of Genghis Khan is found in the middle of a steppe in Tsonjin Boldog, Mongolia, basically in the middle of nowhere. It’s actually the largest equestrian statue in the world! There’s a lot of tradition behind the location of this and why it was constructed, but visiting it is really cool! I think the remoteness of it makes visiting it that much more special as it’s literally a giant statue with nothing else around it for miles.

14. North Korean Peace Observatories 🇰🇷
Visited: 2025
I visited two separate peace observatories on the border between North and South Korea that give excellent views of North Korea from across the river. While these are two separate locations, they are so similar that it made sense for me to combine them on this list. One was the Aegibong Peace Eco Park in Gimpo, and the other was the Ganghwa Peace Observatory on Ganghwa Island. Both of these offer amazing views of the country to the north, and they each have their own unique reasons for visiting. Seeing the hermit kingdom of North Korea with my own eyes was reason enough to go and reason enough for inclusion on this list.

13. Cerro Santa Ana 🇪🇨
Visited: 2022
Cerro Santa Ana is a mountain in Guayaquil, Ecuador, with many colorful houses and businesses along it. There’s a path of 465 steps up the mountain through the winding streets of this neighborhood, and it leads to a cool lighthouse and cathedral at the top. The top of the lighthouse offers stunning views of the surrounding area, and it was definitely worth the trip to Guayaquil!

12. Gyeongbokgung Palace 🇰🇷
Visited: 2025
Gyeongbokgung Palace is a massive palace complex in Seoul, South Korea. Visiting it feels like taking a step back in time as many visitors walking around are wearing hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing. This site was much bigger than I expected it to be, and there are so many great photo opportunities, even with the large volume of tourists visiting it at any given time. This is basically a city inside a city, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

11. Yaakaar Ju Sax 🇸🇳
Visited: 2023
Yaakaar Ju Sax is where we held our clinic for the majority of the week in Saint-Louis, Senegal. This is one of my favorite clinic locations ever, even though it was extremely hot the entire time. Our clinic was located on a rooftop inside a residential neighborhood and right next to a mosque which would ring out the Call to Prayer five times a day. The dirt alley below would become flooded with people during our clinics, and they would all be wearing colorful outfits. This was such a unique clinic setting that it really sticks out to me and had to make this list.

10. Gamcheon Culture Village 🇰🇷
Visited: 2025
Gamcheon Culture Village is a village in Busan, South Korea, made up of many colorful buildings. It’s a residential area with many shops and restaurants throughout, but it has become a popular tourist attraction in the city. I loved wandering through its maze-like streets and discovering random little corners. There’s also a unique fascination here with the book “The Little Prince,” and you can find many references to its characters through street art found throughout the village.

9. Muma 🇿🇲
Visited: 2021
This isn’t someplace you’ll find on a map or a travel guide or anywhere really… (The pinned location on these pictures in Google Photos even has no idea what to call it). It’s a remote village hidden deep within the deserts of Eastern Zambia, complete with mud huts and an arid climate. Wandering around this village, you’ll meet friendly locals shucking corn and run into countless cows and goats wandering around. I worked in a clinic here in this village, and it was so special to be able to witness the lifestyle here in person. This is about as opposite from my normal lifestyle as you can get, so it was a fascinating glimpse into how others live.

8. Zion National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020
Zion National Park in Utah is one of the most popular parks in the United States. It’s a beautiful park with two very popular hikes. One of them (Angel’s Landing) was closed when I visited, but the other (The Narrows) was open. The Narrows is a trail in a river that cuts through a narrow slot canyon. It’s probably my favorite hike I’ve ever hiked, even though I injured myself here pretty badly. (A walking stick is highly recommended!) Seriously though, the views along this trail are truly breathtaking!

7. Arches National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020
Arches National Park, right outside Moab, Utah, is a unique park because it’s basically a museum of many different rock formations. Delicate Arch in particular is very iconic and has become a symbol for the state of Utah, even being featured on state license plates. The hike to reach it can be dangerously hot during the summer, but it’s so worth the effort to visit. And there are many other arches and rock formations to see outside Delicate Arch. This park was my main reason for visiting the Mighty 5 parks of Utah, and it did not disappoint!

6. Lake Khövsgöl 🇲🇳
Visited: 2022
Lake Khövsgöl is a lake in northern Mongolia in the town of Khatgal. It’s a remote area, but it’s very beautiful. The town’s buildings all look like log cabins, and the surrounding landscape is nothing but steppe as far as you can see. The lake itself is a bright blue color, and it’s especially cool to see the wild horses and yaks wandering around and grazing alongside it. This is one of my favorite places in the world as it was just so peaceful and friendly.

5. Sydney Harbour 🇦🇺
Visited: 2024
Sydney Harbour is one of the most recognized locations on the planet thanks to the iconic Sydney Opera House. And visiting this area was just as awesome as I had hoped it would be! I walked from the opera house to the Harbour Bridge, enjoying all the cool vantage points of the city along the way, and it’s a beautiful area to explore. This is one of those places that I never thought I’d be able to visit, so seeing it with my own eyes was truly special.

4. Bryce Canyon National Park 🇺🇸
Visited: 2020
Bryce Canyon unexpectedly became my favorite national park in Utah. It came at just the perfect time of that trip- the weather was perfect, and I was needing a more relaxing day compared to the hiking-heavy days and long driving times leading up to it. Viewing the canyon from the top in amazing, but hiking down to the bottom really gives you a different perspective that set this one apart in my mind.

3. Fiordland National Park 🇳🇿
Visited: 2024
Fiordland National Park, near Queenstown, New Zealand, is a special place. It’s pure nature at its best! Driving up into the Southern Alps here offers some incredible views, and you can witness several different climate zones along the way while the endangered kea, the world’s only alpine parrot, flies overhead. The most iconic part of the park, of course, is Milford Sound, which was referred to as the “eighth wonder of the world” by Rudyard Kipling. Milford Sound is a must-see location in New Zealand, and taking a boat tour of it was one of the best decisions I made on the trip!

2. South Luangwa National Park 🇿🇲
Visited: 2021
One of the greatest travel experiences you can have is an African safari. There’s nothing quite like it anywhere else in the world! And South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia is one of the best safari locations in the entire continent of Africa. I can’t explain what it’s like to see wild elephants, giraffes, lions, buffalo, hippos, baboons, leopards, gazelle, and many other animals in their natural habitat, but it’s incredible! This is one of my favorite travel experiences of all time, and it’s (almost) tied for first place on not only this list but my mental list of favorite place of all time. The only reason it barely gets second place is because the fact that there are other great safari locations out there means it’s not as unique as the place I ranked in first.

1. Iguazu Falls 🇦🇷 🇧🇷
Visited: 2024
First place has to go to Iguazu Falls. I can’t think of any other time where I was this stunned by what I saw. Iguazu Falls is breathtaking! It’s a series of 275 waterfalls all side by side along a less-than-2-mile stretch of river, straddling the Brazil/Argentina border. I’ve never seen anywhere this beautiful anywhere else in the world, and it will be difficult to find someplace that tops it. Visiting the falls from both sides is necessary in order to fully experience it in my opinion, and I’m so glad that’s how I planned to see it when I visited! From a strictly-travel perspective, Iguazu Falls might be my favorite place on earth. When you take into account my faith, the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem edges it out, but that has an extremely unfair advantage that almost shouldn’t count on a list like this. Iguazu Falls is incredible, and there was no doubt that it would be ranked #1.