Ten Experiences Guaranteed to Give You The Shivers

1. Witnessing the daily migration of bats from Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.

Witnessing the daily migration of bats from Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. - photo Chesnimages

In summer, hundreds of thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats stream out of the caves, filling the sky for miles.

2. Viewing the life-size terra-cotta warriors of Xi'an, China.

Ch'in Shih Huang-ti commissioned this army of 7,000 soldiers (each one different from the others) in the 3rd century B.C. to guard his tomb.

3. Diving among the ghost fleet submerged in Chuck Lagoon, Micronesia.

On February 173 1944, the U.S. military bombed Japanese warships in a surprise attack. Swimming among the 60 ruins, alive with brilliant marine life, is eerily gorgeous.

4. Roaming Vlad the Impaler's medieval castle in Transylyvania, Romania.

Prince Vlad Dracula of Walachia was never known to drink blood, his cruelty (impaling enemies alive on enormous stakes) inspired Bram Stoker's character Count Dracula.

5. Explorimg the other worldly landscape of the Badlands, South Dakota.

500,000 years of erosion have carved an alien landscape that General Alfred Sully described as "hell with the fires burned out."

6. Venturing on a nightthime safari in Kenya.

Experiences the bush that never sleeps. When your Masai guide shines his spotlight in to the curtain of darkness, a sea of eyeballs lights up. Who is watching whom ?

7. Sailing through the ice floes of Antarctica.

Listen to the deafening silence in this limitless landscape of ice, sea, and sky with its total absence of human presence.

8. Watching streams of Buddhist monks emerge at sunrise in Ladakh, India.

Their robes all shades of crimson and saffron, the monks set off at the day's first light with their alms bowls to collect food and offerings.

9. Indulging in dinner at Taillevent in Paris, France.

This gastronomic temple treats you like royalty, has clairvoyant service that sparkless and a wine cellar of more than 25,000 bottles, and the food is fit for the gods.

10. Bunding up at The Ice Hotel in Sweden.

Bunding up at The Ice Hotel in Sweden - Photo LeadDogSpock

Snuggle between the reindeer pelts heaped on your ice bed in the only hotel in Europe constructed entirely of densely packed snow and ice-4,000 tons of it !