#14 Coolest Place - Burning Man Festival, USA

Every Labor Day week, 40-50,000 people create a fully functioning city in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. It is dedicated to radical self-expression and self-reliance. They depart one week later, having left no trace. It is nothing short of amazing and may be the greatest live visual event I have seen. Photographers call this a "shooting gallery" as it is almost impossible not to get great photo after great photo.

Most participants spend the year designing a costume that will make people laugh or seriously entertain them... like the man with light bulb suit above.

During the week, a huge temple is built and vistors post wishes, thoughts and prayers for those who have passed. It is burned to the ground Saturday night as a catharsis (above). Many people leave after the temple burn in the middle of the night after the five hour wait to exit. It's not usually a good idea as there were a dozen cars flipped upside down after they went off the high road in the dark, and only becoming visible the next morning.


All art sculptures are climb-able.

A few friends relax under a green-lit art tree before the Burning Man was burned.

One of many large art installations.

Thousands of people and art cars lit the night just before the burn of the gigantic oil derrick. Burning Man is like being on a five mile wide set of the strangest and coolest movie.

The 250 foot tall oil derrick gets burned as part of a protest against Big Oil.

When To Go: Labor Day weekend or preferably the full week, in early September or late August annually.

Time To Spend Here: 3-7 days - Note you will be camping and need to remove all garbage and anything you bring.

What To Do: Party late into the night at the dozens of giant discos and clubs, get hooked up with a crew and art car and drive all over the central playa checking out events late night, attend all of the Burns nightly, sleep late and explore the thousands of camps, hangout at Center camp, and take a lot of photos...

General Cost: About $250 plus food and vehicle - You must bring all of your own food and water.

UNESCO World Heritage Site: No

Weather: Very hot, very windy with daily sandstorms

The List - Top 45 Coolest Places in the World

#2 - Bayonne Temple in Angkor Wat, Siem Riep, Cambodia

After 70 countries, hundreds of sites and 12 years of traveling, here is the ranked list of our coolest places in the world.

1 The Country of Myanmar
2 Angkor Wat, Cambodia (photo above)
3 Rock Cut City of Petra, Jordan
4 Dinosaur Expeditions
5 Moai of Easter Island
6 Underground Cities of Cappadocia, Turkey

7 Sossusvlei and the Namib Desert, Namibia
8 Cure Salee Festival of the Wodaabe in InGall, Niger
9 Helicopter to Mount Everest
10 Djenne Mosque and the Dogon, Mali
11 Registan in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
12 Rock Cut Churches of Lalibela, Ethipoia
13 In the Amazon with the Shuar, Ecuador
14 Tsechu Parties of Bhutan
15 Wildebeest Migration, Tanzania
16 Burning Man Festival, USA
17 Buddhist Temples of Tibet
18 Sahara Desert
19 African Safari, Botswana and Tanzania
20 Temples of Luxor, Egypt
21 Cuba
22 India - Taj Mahal and Rajasthan
23 Voodoo in Haiti
24 Machu Picchu, Peru
25 Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
26 Nepal
27 Borobodur and Prambanan Temples, Indonesia
28 Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina
29 Temple of Jupiter in Lebanon
30 Waking Up On Top of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
31 The Wild Wall, China
32 Morocco
33 Victoria Falls, Zambia and Zimbabwe
34 Fjords of Norway
35 Iguazu Falls, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay
36 Syria
37 Anasazi Cliff Dwellings, USA
38 Patagonia, Chile
39 Climb Cotopaxi, Ecuador
40 Terracotta Warriors of Xian, China
41 Grand Canyon, USA
42 Ephesus, Turkey
43 Moscow, Russia
44 IRA and Loyalist Graffiti in Northern Ireland
45 Alaska, USA

#6 - The Underground Cities of Cappadocia in Turkey, Held Up to 70,000 People

RANKINGS
So how did we rank them? We know we are biased and here’s what mattered:

• Novelty and surprise like Cappadocia and Easter Island.


• The combination of a stunning place and great history like Registan or Angkor Wat.


• Highly unique and very interesting cultures, like the Bhutanese, the Wodaabe and the Shuar Indians of the Amazon.


• Amazing visual beauty like Petra and Myanmar.


• Completely unique and "hard to get access to" situations like dinosaur hunting in Niger and dancing with a samba school in Carnival at the Sambadrome.


• We chose to rank many great natural areas like the Grand Canyon and Iguazu Falls much lower than great cultural and historical places.


• We strongly prefer places and cultures that are very different from the US and Europe.


• We are a generally underwhelmed by sites that are overpromoted and highly commercialized, like the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, and rank them a lot lower than many people would.