The 20 Most Beautiful Places In The World

What is the most beautiful place that you’ve ever seen in your life? It’s almost an impossible question. In my life so far, I have been to 40 of the 50 United States and seen some amazing things. I have also had the privilege to spend time in around 30 countries, about 2 years of my life outside of the USA. I am grateful for these experiences and it brings a big smile to my face whenever I reminisce.

Why Create a List of The 20 Most Beautiful Places In The World

I have cancer and am in the middle of chemotherapy right now and so it is not a bad time to do something that brings a big smile to my face.  Over the last week, I have been looking back over 19 years of photos from these experiences asking the impossible but fun question of what is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been?  What is the most beautiful photo I’ve ever taken?  And now I’m going to deliver the answers to you while enjoying the hell out of every minute of it. 

The Most Beautiful Places In The World: My Ranking Criteria

I’ll keep this brief so we can get on with gawking at photos.

• Striking beauty and grandeur. The view has to be a jaw dropper. You just know it when you see it. Preference given to views and landscapes rather than masterpiece artworks or engineering marvels.
• Historical or Cultural Significance. There are many beautiful emperor tombs in India but only one Taj Mahal. Preference was given to places of greater historical or cultural significance.
• Repeatable Experience. Sure I think the place where I got engaged is beautiful or the time that I caught the perfect snorkeling conditions off Captain Cook Monument, but to make this list it has to be easily repeatable to any visitor.

Without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the 20 most beautiful places I’ve ever been:

#1 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Halong Bay, Vietnam

Turquoise Waters, over 1,500 dramatic islands, caves, beaches, and small fishing villages of people living in boats on the water. Halong Bay is simply stunningly gorgeous. As a funny aside, my lady had her journal stolen at the market on Cat Ba island because it looked like a wallet. I was able to find the thief at the market who stole it and offer him a “reward” for locating the journal. After about a half hour of negotiating, he produced said journal and I gladly paid him about $12. Haha.

#2 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Forbidden City, Beijing, China.

This might be my favorite photo that I’ve ever taken and I just snapped it quick on a whim. An iconic and uniquely symbolic Chinese image. At almost 7.75 million square feet and 8,728 rooms, the Forbidden City is far and away the largest royal palace and the biggest collection of medieval wooden buildings in the world. Emperors and dynasties ran the ancient Chinese empire right here! As a bonus, climb Jingshan hill and check out the sprawling footprint of the Forbidden City from above.

#3 Most Beautiful Places In The World: El Tajo Gorge, Ronda, Spain

Sitting on this balcony in Andalusia, I could see birds hovering below me and then swoop down into the gorge. The sun sets off the walls of the buildings like a fire. The bridge is a medieval fairy tale. Hemingway loved this place and may have based a scene in For Whom The Bell Tolls on this bridge. Hundreds of people were thrown off the edge into this gorge during the Spanish Civil War. Gruesome to be sure but at least the last thing they saw was one of the most amazing vistas I have ever taken in.

#4 Most Beautiful Places In The World: ‘Akaka falls, Hilo, Hawaii

The big island in Hawaii has the most beautiful waterfalls that I have ever seen. Not only ‘Akaka falls shown above but as a sweet sweet two for one Hiilawe Falls is just down the road in the Waipiʻo Valley.

Getting to this 2nd waterfall is trickier and involves going down one of the steepest roads in the USA and then hiking. My uncles used to live in the Waipiʻo valley. While staying with them, I had the luxury of rolling out of bed, eating some fresh fruit off the tree, and then setting off on foot straight to the base of this 1450 foot tall stunner.

#5 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Taj Mahal, Agra, India

The Taj is an architectural masterpiece that just affects you on another level when you take in the white marble and fountains. There is also gardens and a mosque. The photo above was actually taken from gardens across the river which is still very beautiful but slower with no crowds.

#6 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Meteora, Greece

Monks who feared the occupying Turks built this series of monasteries on top of cliffs that tower over the plane. Visiting is like going through a time machine as the monks still study there, make their own wine, have libraries that look like Harry Potter, etc. Many of these monasteries were only accessible via a rope and Pulley until only a century ago. When I visited, I took a moped and a bunch of stairs. Why do monks seem to build communities in the most improbable of places? This place is one of a kind.

#7 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Giza, Egypt

Perhaps the most fascinating ancient empire was the Egyptians. Even 4000+ years after their construction, the pyramids and sphinx still dazzle and captivate the world. It is simply a must see.

#8 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Imperial Palace and Gardens (in fall), Tokyo, Japan.

The Imperial Palace and surrounding gardens is immaculate. I had the pleasure of being in Japan in the fall and it is the most stunning fall colors I have ever seen. Believe it or not, the photo below has not been color adjusted:

#9 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Hill Tribe Rice Paddies, Vietnam

The terraced rice paddies of the hillsides of Northern Vietnam look like a giant functional sculpture. They roll through the fog beautiful and bright green hill after hill. Tribe people still live traditional lives among the paddies.

I had the pleasure of being in Vietnam during the Tet holiday and still remember so many orange trees vertical on the backs of mopeds in Hanoi that it looked like a huge moving forest zipping by.

#10 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Angkor, Siem Reap, Cambodia

This is the most Indiana Jones place that I have ever been. Believe it or not, it was lost to the jungle until “re-discovered” in the 1840’s. Angkor is a sprawling 400 acre temple complex in the jungles of Cambodia. The Khmer empire of a thousand years ago was amazingly advanced. Today, trees grow out of the side of some temples and jungle encroaches on others. The juxtaposition of staggering temples in the middle of a jungle is unparalleled.

#11 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Santorini, Greece

Everyone snaps photos of the blue domed churches of Santorini but the real star is the Caldera view. I biked this whole island and loved every minute of it. Cute little piers, windmill houses, and the blue waters of the Aegean Sea. Believe it or not Santorini may have been the inspiration for Plato’s Atlantis! Also check out this bonus photo below of a Santorini sunset:

That turquoise hue in the lower left of the photo above is not photoshopped, it is an oil spill from a ship that sank while I was visiting. The boat is a scrubber boat and the ring is a containment attempt.

#12 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Rain Forest, Costa Rica

Costa Rica only takes up 0.03 percent of the earth’s surface but it contains nearly 6% of the worlds biodiversity. The rain forests are pristine and magical. This pic is from my first visit to Corcovado National Park but I had a blast introducing my kids to Costa Rica just a couple of months ago.

#13 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Great Wall, China

It’s like seeing an old castle…that keeps going along the mountainside as far as the eye can see. The landscape itself is almost beautiful enough to make this list but then the great wall overwhelms you with it’s scope as it snakes from peak to peak. It took almost 2 million people to build this thing!

#14 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Grand Canyon, USA

I have stood on the edge of so many canyons and the top of so many mountains and been in awe. Many of these would have fit inside the grand canyon. It wins by sheer size. The dramatic red rock layers and mesas tower over the Colorado River.

#15 Most Beautiful Places In The World: The Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok is a backpackers paradise. Everything you could want and all at prices you can afford. The Grand Palace is the most ornate palace for a ruler that I have ever seen. Loaded with gold, mosaics of color, artworks, and temples. It is one of those places that pictures don’t do justice to.

#16 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Victoria Peak, Hong Kong, China

Some may find this weird but I find city skylines to be beautiful. So beautiful that half way through making this list of the 20 most beautiful places, I decided to make a list of my top 10 favorite cities! The Hong Kong skyline is the most magnificent I have seen. Viewing it from Victoria Peak is like flying as a bird over the city and the bay where you can take it all in.

#17 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany

I have always loved castles and this is the most beautiful one in the world. This is the inspiration for the Disney castle and the most opulent of Ludwig the 2nd’s many castles and palaces. You can take in a couple in a day. Also, don’t miss hiking to the Queen Mary’s bridge to look down on the castle from where I snapped this photo.

#18 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Golden Pagoda, Kyoto, Japan

Kyoto is just jammed with amazing temples, the endless orange gates of the Fushimi Inari Shrine, the weight of the Kiyomizu-dera, the stacked pagodas and gardens of the Toji Temple. If I had to pick just one, it would be the Kinkaku-ji Golden Temple. It is just kind of perfect even though I snapped this picture in the rain.

#19 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Yangtze River, China.

I have to confess that I floated the Yangtze just before water levels were raised by hundreds of feet with the completion of the 3 Gorges Dam. It was crazy to see entire villages that would soon be underwater by over a hundred feet. However, I am told that it remains breathtaking. The river is just plain huge and the dramatic bluffs towering along it make for constant views around every bend.

#20 Most Beautiful Places In The World: Venice, Italy.

Where else are the streets made of water? Only Venice. It is singular and seemingly impossible. I could drink a whole bottle of wine just walking the bridges and walkways only to end up at Piazza San Marco and be reminded that this was once a rich maritime empire. See it before it sinks!

My Photos of The Most Beautiful Places Have Changed Over Time

Pulling these 20 places meant reviewing 19 years of digital photos for me. I even dusted off actual photo albums to go back a bit more. One thing that I noticed is that my photos got way worse as I went back in time. Some of my older Europe photos looked like they were just snapped as a memory reminder of that place but with no care as to what the photo looked like. They look that way because they were. I have written before about the risk of trying to portray a beautiful life when it becomes at the expense of actually focusing on living beautiful moments. I hope this is not what has happened to me. Rather, I hope that I have just become a better photographer who realizes that much of the value of experiences is in the anticipation of the experience and then the memory of it. I can say that looking through these photos has made me smile and laugh at a time when I need it most.

Searching For the Most Beautiful Place In The World vs. Being In The Most Beautiful Place

Having Cancer, has a way of clarifying what is important in life in a way that is tough to explain. It’s not the stresses that dominate our modern lives, material things, or success. It has nothing to do with your body or clothing or your social identity. It is all about having more time to be in moments and sharing as many of them as possible with people you love. Money is very important but only to the point that it enables this.

There’s a lyric in a song that I wrote that goes, “we live for so long but maybe life is short with long spaces in between.”  When I look back over my travels so far, the places above are some of my most vivid snapshots sprinkled between lots of mundane logistics.  It is worthwhile to maximize the vivid snapshots. At the same time, it is of course silly to call these or any 20 places the most beautiful in the world. 

Some of my best experiences in life are nowhere near picturesque enough to make this list.  My own deck, the tiny lake I grew up on, and the seat next to my wife are some of my favorite places in the world.  There is wisdom in that.  While it is good to plan and seek stunning experiences, it is just as important to be where you are and enjoy that moment.  May you find your own Most Beautiful Places and be inspired by these 🙂

What places would be on your list? Which was it a crime that I left out? Share in the comments below?

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