Vietnam
Bach Ma National Park
Ruined French hill-station villas slowly being swallowed by jungle on a cloud-shrouded peak.
The villa has no roof anymore. Strangler figs have prised apart the French colonial walls and driven roots through the concrete floors. The swimming pool is a fern garden. The ballroom is open to the sky. Cloud drifts through what was once someone's living room, and the jungle has reclaimed every surface.
Bach Ma was established as a French hill station in the 1930s, its summit at 1,450 metres offering relief from the coastal heat of nearby Hue and Da Nang. Over a hundred villas were built during the colonial period; most were destroyed during the wars and are now being consumed by the surrounding forest. The national park, established in 1991, protects one of Vietnam's most biodiverse stretches of forest — the Annamite Range here serves as a transition zone between northern and southern flora and fauna. The Rhododendron Trail passes through mossy elfin forest where pheasants and langurs inhabit the canopy. Do Quyen waterfall drops three hundred metres through jungle accessible by a maintained trail. The summit road climbs from sea-level tropical heat to cool mountain mist in under twenty kilometres.
Solo
Ruined French villas being consumed by jungle, cloud-wrapped summit trails, and a three-hundred-metre waterfall deep in primary forest — Bach Ma is Vietnam's most atmospheric solo hike.
Couple
The haunting beauty of colonial ruins overgrown by jungle, combined with cloud forest trails and a summit panorama stretching from the mountains to the East Sea.
- Abandoned French hill-station villas from the 1930s sit crumbling beneath strangler figs on a cloud-wrapped summit.
- The Rhododendron Trail passes through mossy elfin forest where pheasants and langurs move through the canopy.
- Do Quyen waterfall drops three hundred metres through pristine jungle accessible by a well-maintained trail.
- The summit road climbs from sea-level tropical heat to cool mountain mist in under twenty kilometres.
Forest-foraged mushroom soup served in the echoing dining rooms of restored villas.
Steamed sticky rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves for the trail.
N'Kob
Morocco
Forty-five kasbahs around an oasis where the road turns to piste toward the Sahara.
Isle of Lewis
Scotland
Standing stones older than Stonehenge arranged in a cross that nobody can explain, facing the sea.
Skoura
Morocco
A palm oasis sheltering crumbling kasbahs where storks nest and date palms outnumber people.
Arvidsjaur
Sweden
A Sami church town where wooden storage huts predate the reformation and the cold bites.
Cat Ba Island
Vietnam
Limestone overhangs where climbers free-solo directly above the open sea.
Ghenh Da Dia
Vietnam
Hexagonal basalt columns stacked like a giant's honeycomb crashing into the churning East Sea.
Ke Ga Cape
Vietnam
A granite French lighthouse standing on a rocky offshore islet reachable via a tidal causeway.
Hoang Su Phi
Vietnam
Rice terraces so vertiginous they look like topographical maps carved directly into the sky.