Australia
Twice the mass of Uluru with a fraction of the visitors — the world's largest monocline.
Twice the mass of Uluru. A fraction of the visitors. Mount Augustus rises 1,106 metres from the surrounding plain — the world's largest monocline, a single tilted rock slab that most Australians have never heard of and most tourists will never see.
Mount Augustus (Burringurrah) in Western Australia's Gascoyne region is the world's largest monocline — a single exposed rock formation roughly 2.5 times the mass of Uluru. The rock is 1,650 million years old, composed of sandstone over a granite core. Wadjari people know it as Burringurrah — their Dreaming story describes a boy speared for breaking law, his body transformed into the rock. Walking trails circle the base (a two-day trek) and ascend to the summit, passing through mulga woodland and spinifex grassland. The nearest town, Meekatharra, is 320 kilometres away. Visitor numbers are measured in hundreds per year, not thousands per day.
Solo
The anti-Uluru — twice the mass, none of the crowds, and a summit walk where you may be the only person on the rock.
Couple
Camping at the base of the world's largest monocline, watching it shift through sunset colours with no one else watching.
Station stay cooking at Mount Augustus Tourist Park — hearty outback meals under a sky without competition.
Pack provisions for the summit trail — the 12-kilometre climb earns you 360 degrees of empty red horizon.

Pedra de Lume
Cape Verde
Float in a salt lake inside an extinct volcano, crater walls rising on every side.

Vale do Paúl
Cape Verde
Sugarcane terraces spill down a volcanic crater into the greenest valley in the archipelago.

Monastery of St. Anthony
Egypt
Earth's oldest inhabited monastery, wedged into a Red Sea mountain canyon since the fourth century.

Hoang Su Phi
Vietnam
Rice terraces so vertiginous they look like topographical maps carved directly into the sky.

Strahan
Australia
Cruise the Gordon River past Huon pines that were saplings when Rome was still a republic.

Maria Island
Australia
A car-free island where Tasmanian devils roam free and convict ruins crumble into wildflower meadows.

Dampier Peninsula
Australia
Red pindan dirt meets turquoise sea at Aboriginal communities where the country is still the boss.

Sydney
Australia
Ferries carve blue water between surf beaches and opera sails as cockatoos screech overhead.