The crater of Empakaai rises some 300 meters from the plains of Naiyobi and Ngorongoro. Shimmering at its heart is a deep alkaline lake that catches the midday sun. From the crater’s rim, you’ll drink in one of our planet’s most spectacular views, including the volcano of Ol Doinyo Lengai and the distant fleecy flanks of Kilimanjaro. During your breezy trek through this jade- bright UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, you’ll encounter abundant wildlife – with blue monkeys, buffalo, bushbuck, flamingos, and waterbuck, all of whom come here to drink and bathe.

Thrown like a garland into the ocean, the Great Blue Hole is a mesmerizing, jaw-dropping paradise; a 1,000-foot circular reef that drops 400-foot into a staggering aquatic cavern whose gigantic stalactites and bulbous formations led Jacques Cousteau – the famed oceanographer – to declare it, in 1971, one of the most beautiful dive sites in the world. It’s a busy ecosystem, with mountain stars, ‘giant brains’, lettuce coral, and turtles among the most prominent residents. Floating in this surreally submerged world, holding your breath in suspense, the ‘world above’ falls blissfully out of focus.

The largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, Tonlé Sap – abutting the Cardamom Mountains – is a truly living ecosystem; a heartland of fishing villages, floating islands, mangroves, and flood forests. Here, Naga – the mythical water serpent – rules the roost, and it’s in their domain that you’ll spend your days, setting out across the placid waters by kayak, just as the locals ply the lake’s surface in wooden canoes – some of which are centuries old.

The Elafiti Islands are part of the sumptuous Croatian coastline that comparatively few travelers ever see; rarely getting beyond the walls of old Dubrovnik. It’s their loss. You’ll explore this blissfully quiet archipelago, where only three of its islands are permanently inhabited. Their interiors are filled with cypress groves, lemon, orange, and olive, while their delicate coastlines are filled with hidden bays and deserted coves. The outside world will drift away.

Camping on the shores of Lake Atitlan – which means ‘between the waters’ in the Nahuatl language – is an otherworldly thing. When Aldous Huxley traveled here in 1934, he was (almost) lost for words, “It really is too much of a good thing.” Politely, we disagree. Bounded by volcanoes, shimmering in the twilight; this national park – so consecrated in 1955 – is a true salve to the stresses of daily life, with a wind – it is said – that ‘carries away sin’. Your route here will take you from the highland ruins of Iximché from where you’ll begin a mountainous descent to the glittering shores beneath. It’s here that you’ll camp.

Close to the bruised floes and brooding peaks of Fjallsárlón, a volcano – the brute of Öræfi – has only recently erupted; spewing smoke and molten lava into the surrounding landscape. It’s hard to tell how long this eruption will last, but we’ll take you – safely, and with expert guidance – on a jaw-dropping hike to witness this untamed geologic spectacle for yourself. It’s this view that led the poet Goethe to describe his “majestic fiery path”.

Climbing the Kerry Mountains, the wide expanse of Killarney rolls out before you – a view so scenic, and so wistfully calm, that you’ll feel lighter than air itself. Perhaps it was this feeling that prompted the Kerry poet Brendan Kennelly to write of “working, dancing, loving the sun”. Along your way, you’ll lunch at historic inns and meander through the villages of Waterville and Caherdaniel, all before returning to the blissful shores of Kenmare Bay.

Do elephants have highways? The answer is more complicated than it first seems. Some migration routes – through the grasslands of Laikipia – are centuries old; shared with the black rhino, painted dogs, and Grevy’s zebra that call this intricately conserved biome home. How to cross it? By horseback, raising barely a sound on the whispering breeze. With the creak of your saddle, you’ll join those self- same ‘highways’, part of a gigantically complex ballet of the species.

From above, the islands of Baa Atoll might be mistaken for wings in flight – a pale tracery of aquamarine, jade, and mellow powder. But it’s beneath the surface of these warm and sensuous waters that you’ll turn your attention; for this mind-altering place is a famed UNESCO Biosphere Reserve known as the single best place to snorkel and swim with manta rays – as many as 1,600.

Across the Mongolian steppe, pastoral nomads have sustained a way of life that has remained largely unchanged forcenturies. The rhythms of daily life still revolve around their animals and their ‘gers’. Living alongside them, you’ll gain an intimate insight into their lives and culture. Rising early, mist on the mountainsides. Rounding up and milking the animals. Collecting wood and dung for the fire. Cooking khorkhog and drinking airag. The pace of life slows down. Now, you can truly think.

It’s always surprising how cold the mornings are; long before the sun has warmed the earth. You draw a sweater over your head, stepping toward the extinguished charcoal of last night’s fire. Coffee is brewing on a stove; you glimpse birds – as fast as darts – slipping through the last dregs of the dawn. Before you, dunes – wind-torn and shadowed – speak to an entirely different world. To camp out here – in the midst of nowhere – is something you won’t quickly forget.

Deep in the heart of Naukluft National Park, the salt and clay pans of Sossusvlei take their name from ‘a place of no return’. The dunes themselves, many of which climb above 200 meters, are among the highest in the world; whose red and ochre shades derives from the high concentration of iron in the ground. To appreciate them fully requires a climb – right to the top of Big Daddy, a dune of 325 towering meters. Your journey will bring you into likely contact with the diverse fauna who call it home – from ostriches to oryxes.

There are two Aorakis – the highest mountain in New Zealand. One surges from the Southern Alps to a staggering 12,218 foot. The other is reflected in the glassy surface of Hooker Lake, shining and undiminished. By night, everything changes – the lake fading, the sky glittering into life. The spread of stars here is almost incomprehensible. Even more reason – in the effort of understanding – to join a group of astronomers to study the stars from a specially constructed observation station. Look up.

It’s not exactly helpful to think of Weligama as a ‘new’ South Beach, though people do say it. We prefer to reflect on the intense and vibrant beauty of this sublime kilometer of coast. But you’ll be a little way above, flying in a small prop plane to observe the whales that gather in the waters below – for blue, sperm and killer whales all gather here, in these calm and majestic seas.

From above, the coastline of the American Northwest is like a fractured maze; a scattered confetti of islands and straits. But you’ll be seeing things differently, from the wood and canvas frame of a kayak – your paddle slipping softly into the rippling water. Beyond you are mountains – surging and snow-slaked. But what you’re really keeping an eye out for are orcas who so regularly ply these straits. In the near total silence, each second feels like an infinity.

The slot canyons of Utah – there are many countless examples – are some of the most surreal landscapes in the USA. Snaking and slaloming, these water-worn corridors have been millions of years in the making; from Spooky Gulch and Little Wild Horse to the legendary Narrows. Leading the way will be a Navajo guide. Walking side by side, they’ll contextualize these beguiling geological forms as you make your way to the most beautiful of all: the iconic Upper Antelope Canyon. Sometimes, it’s good to go where the phone signal isn’t.

The winding Snake River has its origin in Wyoming, beginning a wide course that bends and yaws before meeting the ocean in Oregon. This was the shimmering silver gelatin thread that Ansel Adams captured in a now legendary photograph of 1942; a heaviness of storm threatening the peaks of the Tetons, beyond. To ‘know’ this river is to travel upon it. For you, that’ll be by raft – guided along your way by a local naturalist deeply versed in this sublime corner of the American Northwest.

Aurora – the Roman goddess of the dawn – lends her name to the shimmering magnetic flair of the aurora borealis – the flaring lights of the northern skies by wintry night. In Lapland, the sky – shorn of pollution – whips and trembles in red, green, blue, ultraviolet. One of the better ways to witness the super-charged spectacle is by sleigh, at the edge of the dark forest, far away from the grinding noise of the world.

Across its wide and watery expanse, the Okavango Delta is home to more wildlife species than anywhere else on the continent. With so much animal movement, the truest way to experience life on the delta is by mobile fly-camping; meaning you can alight – and bed down – wherever the animal kingdom is at its thickest. Hidden among the waters – where you’ll pitch your lantern-lit camp – are a collection of remote and bountiful islands which, by night, are thronged with birdlife – of bee-eaters, bustards, kingfishers, and storks. It’ll be an unforgettable evening.