This 500-mile strait separating the southern tip of South America and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica, is at the whim of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which carries a volume of water 600 times larger than the Amazon.

To reach this privately owned, mile-long isthmus on Saunders Island requires a flight from Stanley in a Britten-Norman Islander, an overnight stay with the Pole-Evans family, and a 12-mile, hour-long ride down a rutted, muddy, jeep track.

This 935-square-mile park averages 150,000 visitors per year, which is to say there’s plenty of wide-open space to capture the natural drama: wild weather, intimidating peaks that stretch like fingers to the sky, eerie blue-iced glaciers, and the turquoise water of the Rio Baker.

Grizzlies from a boat in this 2.47 million-acre wilderness as they fish from the shore.

This northwestern region sits higher than 10,000 feet and looks like a barren moonscape.

The fine particles here are really white gypsum; that’s why the dunes of this 275-square mile desert glow against the sky.

Visit the “Galápagos of Canada” to capture sea lions, porpoises, humpback whales, and three species of orcas.

With near-zero light pollution and overnight stays allowed (with a camping permit) this national park is amazing for astral shooting.

This remote landscape has ancient pictographs, bizarre beehive-shaped mountains, and a huge marine park off the coast.

Go 50 miles northeast of the capital city of Ulaanbaatar to Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, home to brown bears, 250 bird species, the chilly Terelj River, and a granite behemoth shaped like a turtle.

This natural Navajo cathedral is an intricate maze through a sandstone slot canyon where, if you time it right, you can capture a ray of sunlight shining through the curved whorls like a beam from a light saber.

Almost everything in Italy is photogenic, but Sicily feels especially lost in time.

With cigar factories, curbside checker players, outdoor boxing rings, crumbling façades, and ’57 Chevys, this city is a shooter’s dream.

They’re 52 feet long and weigh 36 tons, and every year in November, more than 10,000 trade Alaska’s Bering Sea for the warm water of Scammon’s Lagoon and Bahia San Ignacio.

Within a ring-shaped region around the North Pole called the auroral oval, Fairbanks is one of the best places to see the aurora.

30-foot waves break here November through February.

This oasis holds 21,500 trees in 31 different families.

The Society Islands’ Bora Bora has two extinct volcanoes ringed by a turquoise lagoon.

Tiger’s Nest Monastery looks carved out of a cliff.

With Mediterranean beaches, Roman ruins, Berbers on horseback, and a peaceful political scene, Tunisia is a less photographed, equally exotic Morocco.

Tucked into the lush Maya Biosphere Reserve of northern Guatemala, Tikal National Park covers 222 square miles and is the largest remaining site of pre-Columbian civilization.

In the warm Caribbean waters between Cancun and Isla Mujeres, Mexico, Jason deCaires Taylor’s sunken “Silent Evolution,” 400 life-size human sculptures, lie 28 feet underwater.

Artists from around the world submit room-design concepts.

Turkey’s largest covered market dates back to 1520 and has 4,000 shops under ornate, grand passageways.

On buildings lining U.S. 160 from Kayenta to Tuba City, shoot enormous black-and-white photos that Chip Thomas, an artist and physician who has documented his Navajo friends, has blown up.

This square is filled with bronze sculptures by Colombian artist Fernando Botero.

The Museum of Old and New Art looks like a post-apocalyptic bunker.

There is no shortage of whiskey distilleries in Scotland, but the Speyside is home to more than half.