On Ilha Grande, a UNESCO World Heritage site, one of the most popular and cheapest activities is to take a boat to Lopes Mendes Beach (Praia Lopes Mendes). It’s considered the most beautiful beach on the island – a 3km stretch of white sand beach with strong waves.
The most exhausting thing I did on Ilha Grande, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was to go hiking on one of the many trails through the rain forest. I took trail T10, which begins just outside the Aquário Hostel in Vila do Abraão. The trail ends at Pouso Beach (Praia do Pouso), where it’s possible to pick up trail T11 to Lopes Mendes Beach (Praia Lopes Mendes).
Fort Duque de Caxias (Forte Duque de Caxias), a working military base in the Leme area of Rio de Janeiro, is open to visitors.
Just a couple hours outside of Santiago near the border with Argentina is one of the most beautiful areas of Chile, Cajón del Maipo. It’s a mountainous area with some volcanoes and lots of colorful natural beauty, including El Morado.
It was a dizzying climb up the massive rock in the middle of the city of Afyon to Afyon Castle (Afyon Kalesi). It wasn’t easy, especially in the freezing cold.
One of the most unexplored and underrated places to visit in Turkey is the Phrygian Valley (Frig Vadisi). The region is named for the Phrygians, an ancient people who were later assimilated into the culture of invaders and other rulers of Anatolia. You may have heard of King Midas or the Gordian Knot. Both are parts of Phrygian history.
About an hour and a half from Eskişehir is the city of Bilecik. It’s a sizable city, but all of the interesting sites are focused around the gorge that the city was built around. I stopped for a couple hours to check them out. The fact that the bus station is conveniently located very near all of the sites makes it an easy point to hop off for a bit.
Tyra and I booked a day trip from Sharm el-Sheikh to visit the Colored Canyon, a spectacular natural canyon with high walls north of the city of Nuweiba in the Sinai Peninsula. When we were picked up from our hotel, we were driven about an hour away and turned left at the junction to Nuweiba, away from the city. I asked the guide why we didn’t go towards Nuweiba and he told me to relax.
The second stop on my day exploring the area around Safranbolu was outside the village of İncekaya to see the Tokatlı Canyon and İncekaya Aqueduct.
The small town of Râșnov, about a half hour from Braşov, makes a popular day trip combined with Bran Castle. The main reason to visit is the dramatically set medieval citadel. Râșnov is known as Rosenau in German and Barcarozsnyó in Hungarian.