Greece
Paxos
Sea caves large enough for a sailboat glow electric blue beneath sheer white limestone cliffs.
The sea caves glow blue — Hypapanti, Ortholithos, Tripitos — each one large enough to drift a sailboat into, the light refracting off white limestone into water that seems lit from below. Above the cliffs, three hundred thousand olive trees cover the island in a canopy so dense the interior feels like a forest.
Paxos lies south of Corfu, a small Ionian island dominated by an estimated 300,000 olive trees, some over 1,000 years old. The western coast drops in sheer white limestone cliffs into the sea, where three major caves — Hypapanti, Ortholithos, and Tripitos — extend more than 100 metres under the rock. Gaios, the main village, wraps around a harbour so narrow that boats anchor almost touching the waterfront tavernas. The island has no airport, no banks open year-round, and no large hotels — visitors arrive by ferry from Corfu and move at a pace the island dictates.
Couple
Boat trip into the sea caves, olive-oil tasting from groves older than the Renaissance, and Gaios harbour at sunset when the day-boats have departed.
Family
The sea caves by boat are suitable for all ages, the harbour is safe and calm, and the island is small enough that nothing is far from anything else.
- Three sea caves on the western coast — Hypapanti, Ortholithos, and Tripitos — extend more than 100 metres back under the white limestone cliffs.
- An estimated 300,000 olive trees cover the island, some believed to be over 1,000 years old — the island produces award-winning olive oil.
- Gaios village wraps around a harbour between the mainland and two tiny islands — the main channel is so narrow that boats anchor almost touching the waterfront.
- The island has no airport, no banks open year-round, and no large hotels — visitors move at the pace the island dictates.
Paxiot olive oil pressed from ancient groves — green, peppery, the best in the Ionian.
Bourdeto fish stew spiked with paprika and served with crusty bread to soak up every drop.
Niagara Falls
United States
Six million cubic feet of water per minute plunging into mist you feel a mile away.
Santa Maria
Portugal
The Azores' oldest island hides a red clay desert and golden beaches the other islands lack.
Santa Maria
Cape Verde
Trade winds blast a long golden beach where kitesurfers trace arcs above turquoise Atlantic rollers.
Jericoacoara
Brazil
Windswept dunes where the sun melts into the sea from a natural stone arch.
Santorini
Greece
White villages balanced on a caldera rim where the sea has flooded a volcano's shattered heart.
Mykonos
Greece
Windmills turning above a labyrinth of whitewashed lanes where the Aegean nightlife never stops.
Meteora
Greece
Monasteries balanced on sandstone pillars 300 metres above the plain, reached by rope and faith.
Delphi
Greece
Stone terraces climb a sacred mountainside where the ancient world came to hear the oracle speak.