#4 Coolest Place - The Giant Moai of Easter Island (Rapa Nui)

From 1100-1500 AD, the Rapa Nui culture created six hundred of these giant Moai, reaching 70 feet and weighing as much 130 tons. The island went into serious decline when it was completely deforested as Jared Diamond suggested in his book, Collapse. Today, this is a stunning, unique and beautiful place - a place where I would return.

Easter Island is part of Chile and is the most remotely inhabited island on earth. It's over 2,000 miles from the nearest human in South America. It’s a five hour flight from Tahiti or Santiago, Chile. The best time to go is during South American summer from December to March.

The island was formed by lava from three volcanoes, and the rock is relatively easy to carve. There are over one hundred Moai that were never completed and lay in place in the quarry waiting...

In ancient times, warring neighbors would raft to the island and knock down their enemies Moai.

Besides the Moai, favorite memories were the sixty pieces of fresh tuna sushi caught a few hours prior at La Taverne de Pecheur, and sitting under a large remote Moai, watching the horizontal rain blow around me while I wrote in my journal.

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.

An Introduction to the Coolest Places in the World

So what are the coolest places in the world?

It's a question we have been asked a thousand times. After travels to 70 countries and hundreds of the world's most amazing and unique places, we wanted to share our thoughts. Along the way, we shot five hundred thousand photos, travelled a couple million miles and with a little prodding from friends, we finally decided to write a book & blog that answers that question. It is both unscientific and highly biased – we have just ranked what blew us away. Specifically, we have ranked the top 45 Coolest Places in the World.

So who are we? One of us is an internet entrepreneur and photographer whose photos have been seen in over 5,000 publications and includes the New York Times and the Washington Post. Our other blogger is a hardcore traveller and successful equities market maker. Together we have traveled to these seventy countries with friends, girlfriends and ex-friends over the last 12 years. We have been to every place that will be listed here and all the photos are ours.

The primary goal of this blog is to share the best times we’ve ever had and to inspire our workaholic friends to travel to some of these places – at least, to the top 15.


How We Ranked the Sites:
Here’s what mattered:

- Novelty and surprise like with Cappadocia and Easter Island.
- The combination of a stunning place and great history like Registan or Angkor Wat in Cambodia (above).
- 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, the shipbreakers of Bangladesh, 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 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.


Lessons Learned
We have learned a few lessons along the way:

1) Always get good seat belts in your cars. I have been in six car accidents overseas, including two total wrecks. In Syria, the driver flipped the car at 85 mph and the car went down a hill for 200 feet upside down. I walked away from every accident.
2) Worry much more about the mosquitoes than the terrorists. There are one hundred incurable diseases from the former and your overall risks are extremely low with the latter.
3) Never drink unbottled water, and eat all of your food well done and very hot.
4) Pack plenty of the miracle drug Cipro.
5) Enjoy the moment. Make sure you leave plenty of time to spend with the local people. While the sites are truly amazing, our favorite memories almost always involve the people we’ve met.
6) Remember that surprise is the lubricant of great travel. Don't over-plan.
7) Always bring a Polaroid camera with hundreds of shots, and a frisbee. Everyone loves them, regardless of culture, religion or language.

Happy Travels and by all means, let us know your thoughts and what you think are the coolest places in the world.


Disclaimer: Please note that the photos vary in quality depending on when they were shot, what medium and how they were scanned originally.