Russia attracts thousands of tourists each year who have a taste for cathedrals and monasteries, fine art, theater, museums, and the Russian culture in general.

One of Japan's 60 core cities, Aomori is well-known for its beautiful landscapes. Favorite landscapes include the Hakkoda Mountains and Lake Towada. Another of the city's highlights is the Nebuta Matsuri, an annual festival known for its daily parade of giant, colorful lantern floats.

The region of Lapland, Finland, is a dream come true for travelers in search of a real winter wonderland. The area has long been associated with Father Christmas, reindeer and a dense, snow-covered wilderness.

The ancient region of Cappadocia lies in Central Anatolia, between the cities of Nevsehir, Kayseri and Nigde. Here, the traveler finds one of the most fantastic landscapes in the world. Wind and weather have eroded the soft volcanic rock with hundreds of strangely shaped pillars, cones and "fairy chimneys", often very tall, and in every shade from pink through yellow to russet browns.

The Atacama Desert in Chile, the driest non-polar desert on Earth, is a place of extraordinary beauty and otherworldly landscapes. Stretching over 600 miles along the Pacific coast, the Atacama's stark, lunar-like terrain is punctuated by salt flats, active geysers, and rugged canyons. One of the most striking sights is the Valle de la Luna, or Valley of the Moon, where wind-sculpted sand dunes and jagged rock formations create a surreal environment that appears as if it's straight from another