Iceland
Búðir
A solitary jet-black church standing between a golden beach and a vast lava field.
The black church stands alone. Behind it, a lava field stretches east in frozen waves; ahead, a golden beach curves towards the Atlantic. Búðir, on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, is three contrasts — black, gold and grey — composed with the deliberateness of a photograph.
Búðakirkja, the small black wooden church at Búðir, was first built in 1703 and reconstructed in 1987 on its old foundations. It stands where three landscapes meet: the protected Búðahraun lava field, roughly 5,000 years old and among Iceland's richest botanical sites with well over a hundred plant species in its hollows; a golden shell-sand beach, rare on this basalt coast; and the open Atlantic with Snæfellsjökull on the horizon. A marked circuit walks the lava, the old fishing-station ruins at Frambúðir and the shore, Hótel Búðir beside the church serves one of west Iceland's celebrated dinners behind floor-to-ceiling glacier views, and on dark winter nights the aurora can arc directly over the black spire.
Couple
The black church at golden hour, dinner at Hótel Búðir with glacier views and the elemental simplicity of the setting — Iceland's most effortlessly romantic composition.
Solo
Walking the lava circuit alone, the church as your anchor and the glacier ahead, produces the particular stillness solo travellers seek.
- The solitary black church against golden sand and lava is one of Iceland's most iconic images.
- Hótel Búðir beside it is a destination dinner with glacier views through floor-to-ceiling windows.
- The Búðahraun lava field is a protected reserve, botanically among Iceland's richest.
- Winter recomposes the scene — snow on the lava, and the chance of green light over the spire.
Pan-roasted arctic char with almond butter at the nearby historic hotel restaurant.
Traditional Icelandic skyr mousse with fresh blueberry coulis.
Skoura
Morocco
Water runs beneath twenty-five square kilometres of palms and a kasbah still occupied by its family.
Cristalino Private Reserve
Brazil
Climb 250 steps before five and watch the flying rivers lift off the canopy below you.
Oirase Gorge
Japan
A dozen waterfalls threading through autumn beech in a gorge carpeted with moss and ferns.
Clayoquot Sound
Canada
Whales work island channels below forest that has never been cut.
Látrabjarg
Iceland
Vertical sea cliffs swarming with puffins at the absolute western edge of Europe.
Vatnsnes Peninsula
Iceland
A dragon-shaped sea stack rising from shallows on Iceland's seal-watching coast.
Grjótagjá
Iceland
A steaming, sapphire-blue thermal pool hidden inside a deep, jagged lava fissure.
Raufarhöfn
Iceland
Monoliths of an Arctic Henge reaching for the midnight sun on a desolate tundra.