South Korea
Maryang-ri
Five-hundred-year-old camellias bleed red flowers against the grey winter sea.
The trunks are gnarled, the canopy unbroken, and from February the flowers open: deep red against the West Sea's winter grey, a colour the coast has been waiting for.
Maryang-ri's protected camellia grove, Natural Monument 169, holds mature trees to five centuries old in a continuous coastal canopy around a hilltop pavilion, and its late-winter bloom sets red against the Yellow Sea's grey with a directness no garden matches. It is a compact, contemplative visit by design, best folded into a Seocheon coastal day, and the county's fish markets and mudflat shore carry the rest of it.
- Trees up to five centuries old form a continuous camellia canopy.
- The grove is protected as Natural Monument 169.
- Late-winter bloom sets deep red against the grey West Sea.
- A hilltop pavilion anchors the compact coastal site.
Jjukkumi, the little webfoot octopus, is Maryangjin port's festival dish of early spring.
Seocheon's gim, the county's laver, seasons everything else.
Punta Patiño
Panama
Harpy eagles with the largest talons of any living eagle nest in this Darién reserve.
Massa
Morocco
Mist, reeds and birdcalls follow one estuary path until Atlantic surf drowns them out.
Grasslands National Park
Canada
Unploughed prairie runs to the horizon where bison graze beneath some of Canada's darkest skies.
Ammarnäs
Sweden
A Sami mountain village at the foot of Kungsleden, ringed by protected wilderness.
