Canada
A mining town named for a pulp sci-fi hero clings to Precambrian rock at Manitoba's border.
Streets ride the Shield's contours, front doors a storey above their neighbours'. The headframes stand over lakes that begin at the town's edge.
Flin Flon took its name from a dime-novel character and built itself directly onto some of Earth's oldest rock. Mining heritage, murals and a statue designed by a cartoonist keep the story cheerfully odd. Canoe country and fishing lakes start immediately beyond the last street.
Solo
The staircase streets, murals and mining story fill a curious half-day stop.
Friends
Canoe country beginning at the town's edge is the real group agenda.
The Orange Toad's fresh baking makes it the town's daily gathering spot.
A seasonal drive-in with an endless ice-cream list covers summer's other essential.

Kara-Suu
Kyrgyzstan
The Fergana Valley's largest market sprawling to the Uzbek border, languages shifting with every stall.

Orgosolo
Italy
A shepherds' village where the walls argue politics in hundreds of painted murals.

Tonowas
Micronesia
Jungle swallows the headquarters of Japan's Fourth Fleet: tunnels, guns and a bomb-proof command bunker.

Gwichʼin Settlement Region
Canada
Caribou country and delta channels spread across the western Arctic's Gwich'in homeland.

Drumheller
Canada
Hoodoos, coulees and the world's dinosaur museum share a badlands valley cut through wheat country.

Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park
Canada
Hoodoos guard the Great Plains' largest concentration of rock art above the Milk River.

Herschel Island
Canada
An Arctic island of whalers' relics and Inuvialuit continuity rides the Beaufort Sea.