Traveling is something most of us want to do as much as possible, assuming we can afford it. But visiting the standard tourist destinations around the world, which do have plenty of great characteristics, does become boring after a while. For those of us with a sense of adventure, and who want to see our planet in its truest form, we can go exploring its natural wonders – of which Earth has plenty. Below is a list of ten such places, where we leave the concrete, steel, and all the comforts of home behind, and return to the most pristine parts of the world Mother Nature has to offer.

It’s time for some good, old-fashioned speculation. What would happen if aliens visited earth? Now, the speculation and assumptions we’re about to make are based on logic, philosophy, educated guesses, probabilities, nature, and of course, our own history. After all, our frame of reference is quite limited when it comes to possible encounters with extraterrestrial life. So, we have to imagine the most plausible scenarios, as well as try to think outside the box as much as possible.

While most of the time we only hear about the most important cities, or those with the most breathtaking architecture, there are many quirky and bizarre cities hiding in spots you wouldn’t ever imagine all over the world. Some of these cities have reached their situations organically, ending up in the most ridiculous predicaments, with little idea of any way out. Others were the incredibly ambitious dreams of people or governments who saw fit to do something beyond what most people would consider normal or necessary. For your enjoyment, below are 10 of the world’s weirdest cities.

Pirates have fascinated the masses for hundreds of years. Romanticized in fiction, the image of a pirate has crystallized into a bearded, peg-legged man, with a funny hat and possibly a parrot on his shoulder. The pirate was almost relegated to a quaint decades-old obsession until Disney revived the swashbucklers by rebooting a Disneyland ride into a multi-billion dollar movie franchise. The films star Johnny Depp, pretending to be Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, or as Roger Ebert once wrote, “channeling a drunken drag queen, with his eyeliner and the way he minces ashore and slurs his dialogue ever so insouciantly.”

If you’re unfamiliar with Star Wars, The Jedi are an Order whose origins span back for more than a thousand generations. They are Force-sensitive beings of all races, shapes and sizes found throughout the entirety of the known galaxy and who have vowed to uphold peace and justice within the Galactic Republic.

Have you ever gotten an email attachment of an animal doing something cute? Or found yourself watching countless videos of animals showing compassion to one another? As a result of these videos, many of us have come to see animals outside of their true nature. Survival in nature is not pretty, and, at times, the survival of a species is the result of a terribly gruesome or just plain bizarre process of reproduction.

Documentaries are probably the most unappreciated film genre, even as the viewing public seems increasingly enamored with every flavor of reality television. Even worse is when high profile, rabble-rousing pieces from people like Michael Moore or Al Gore discredit documentaries as a whole and steal publicity from smaller, more honest, and more interesting movies.  This article will give some well-overdue attention to less famous docs that would, in a fairer world, be better known than all the blockbuster fiction movies or the Ken Burns-type movies.

When authors write about the future, they have to predict what technology and life might be like decades down the road. While the books are often written as a metaphor for their contemporary society, some authors have made amazingly accurate predictions about what modern life has actually become.

In war, when the chips are down and the odds are against a military unit, it can be time to defy common sense and get creative. Of course real life has been full of many instances of small, overpowered armies trying unusual tactics and getting destroyed, but since there’s no novelty value they quickly get forgotten by history. Which just makes it all the more amazing when some comparatively small or ill-equipped band of soldiers wins the day against what seems like an overwhelming force.

We all do it. When a mystery movie comes on, we sit enraptured, looking for clues, trying our damnedest to become the finest real-life Sherlock Holmes whose butt our couch has ever had the honor of hosting. “Oh, I think it’s the boyfriend,” we might say, or “Well of course the killer is really the plate of sentient avocados” we insist, probably while watching a David Lynch film.