South Korea
Cheorwon
Rusted trains and crane migration routes trapped inside the heavily militarised northern border zone.
The train sits rusted on its tracks, bullet holes still visible in the carriage walls. Through the fence, red-crowned cranes stalk across frozen fields that have not been farmed, developed, or disturbed since 1953. The DMZ did not create a nature reserve on purpose. It created one anyway.
Cheorwon sits inside the Civilian Control Zone that buffers the Korean DMZ — entry requires permits and military escort for some areas. The restriction has created an accidental wildlife sanctuary: red-crowned cranes winter here in flocks exceeding 1,000, feeding on the Cheorwon Plain's frozen rice paddies. The ruins of the Korean Workers' Party headquarters stand untouched, a concrete shell blasted during the Korean War and preserved as a monument. The Baekma Highlands battlefield remains exactly as the 1953 ceasefire left it. The Woljeong-ri railway station displays a rusted train on tracks that once connected Seoul to Wonsan — the line was severed in 1950 and has never reopened. Odae rice, grown in fields irrigated by pristine DMZ water, is considered among Korea's finest.
Solo
The emotional weight of the DMZ sites — ruined buildings, severed railways, fenced borders — is best processed in solitude.
Friends
The crane migration in winter and the battlefield sites create a trip that balances natural spectacle with sobering history — best discussed over shared meals.
- The Civilian Control Zone restricts entry — creating an accidental wildlife sanctuary
- Red-crowned cranes winter on the frozen Cheorwon Plain in flocks of 1,000+
- Ruins of the old Korean Workers' Party headquarters stand untouched since 1953
- The Baekma Highlands battlefield is preserved exactly as the ceasefire left it
Odae rice, fed by pristine DMZ water, served glistening and sticky.
Pork belly grilled on iron plates at diners filled with off-duty soldiers.
Fort Sherman
Panama
Jungle warfare bunkers sinking into rainforest where monkeys colonised the barracks the Americans left behind.
Innamincka
Australia
Cooper Creek — where Burke and Wills perished and the outback still wins.
Wassu Stone Circles
Gambia
Laterite pillars arranged in concentric rings — Iron Age astronomy or burial rites, nobody is certain.
Drumheller
Canada
Martian hoodoos and T. rex bones jut from a badlands valley carved through Alberta wheat fields.
Busan
South Korea
Fish markets the size of aircraft hangars spilling onto beaches backed by neon-lit cliff temples.
Mungyeong Saejae
South Korea
Three stone gates guarding a dirt mountain pass that Joseon scholars walked to the capital.
Wolchulsan
South Korea
A bright orange suspension bridge swaying ninety metres above a jagged granite gorge.
Saryangdo
South Korea
A terrifying suspension bridge swaying between two knife-edge volcanic peaks surrounded by the southern sea.