Otaru
Otaru, a charming port city on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, offers a delightful blend of historic allure and scenic beauty. Known for its well-preserved canal area lined with old warehouses and beautifully restored buildings, Otaru provides a picturesque setting reminiscent of its bustling past as a major trade center during the Meiji and Taisho eras.
Mission Beach
One of the most unspoilt and undeveloped tourism destinations in the area - ideal for the visitor looking for both pristine natural beauty and a relaxed quiet getaway. The coastal fringe has wide sandy beaches, lined with small resorts and more than 25 offshore islands, while bushwalking and camping opportunities abound throughout the adjacent Wet Tropics rainforest areas.
Matagalpa
Matagalpa is a mountain city in northern Nicaragua, surrounded by forested hills and agricultural land. Known as one of the country's principal coffee-growing areas, it sits in a cool, elevated landscape where coffee plantations, pine forests, and cloud forest environments are common.
Punakha
Punakha sits in one of Bhutan’s most fertile valleys, cradled where the Mo Chhu and Pho Chhu rivers meet. For centuries it served as the kingdom’s capital and remains a place rich with stories woven through its fields, temples, and riverbanks. The city’s low elevation brings warmer weather than much of Bhutan’s highland regions, and rice paddies fill the landscape with vivid green during planting and golden hues at harvest.
Avenue of the Baobabs
The Avenue of the Baobabs is a famous landscape in western Madagascar, located near Morondava in the Menabe region. A group of tall Grandidier's baobabs lines a dirt road across a broad, dry plain, creating one of the country's most recognizable natural scenes. These trees are endemic to Madagascar and can reach great heights, with thick trunks adapted to storing water during the dry season.
