Tourists ride past the Desert Lotus Hotel under construction in Xiangshawan Desert, also called Sounding Sand Desert on July 17, 2013, in Ordos of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. (Feng Li/Getty Images) Xiangshawan Desert in the Inner Mongolia region of China probably isn't the first place you'd look at for a vacation. In the wintertime, temperatures are frigid with frequent blizzards, and the summertime brings hot, dry weather that can cause huge sandstorms. Yet those conditions are exactly what make...

Hersheypark is a 110-acre theme park built in 1907 that features more than 65 rides and attractions, including 11 roller coasters, more than 20 kiddie rides, live daily entertainment, games, food and shops. (Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Company) Thanks to its founder, the town of Hershey, PA is known as The Sweetest Place on Earth. A chocolate lover's dream destination, Hershey features a wide array of attractions and events that are designed to please every age group. Milton Snavely Hershey...

A picture taken on August 4, 2013 shows the Vexin region countryside pictured from an Airship Paris zeppelin. Absent from the skies of the French Capital for nearly a century, the airship now reawakens the past to offer its passengers a flight over Paris. (ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images) It's a view of Paris from the air that hasn't been offered in more than 30 years. Almost 1,000 feet up into the sky, traveling at a leisurely speed of 90 kph (55...

Its climate can be oppressively hot and arid, and its terrain rugged and forbidding, but the Negev Desert in southern Israel is undergoing a transformation -- from desolate land to a thriving tourist destination. In fact, travel guide publisher Lonely Planet ranked itsecond in its list of Top 10 regional travel destinations for 2013. Framed by the borders of Jordan and Egypt, with its southernmost tip at Eilat, Negev Desert may be far from civilization, but it is also rich...

Yunyan Pagoda, China Many consider the Leaning Tower of Pisa one of the world's architectural wonders, but it's not the only famously tilting structure in the world. Around the globe, there are other stunning slanted spires and tottering towers. Many of these famous inclines were Mother Nature's doing -- a result of an earthquake or a nearby sinkhole -- and while officials have taken measures to stabilize some of their leaning monuments, all of them are still vulnerable to weather's...

This unusual cityscape of New York's Time Square was taken by photographer Stephen Wilkes, who spent up to 15 hours and shot close to 1,500 photos to create just one composite image. (Stephen Wilkes/Caters News Agency) “Weather is critical, especially wind,” photographer Stephen Wilkes explained to Weather.com about capturing photos for his “Day to Night” series, which feature dramatic cityscapes shot from high-vantage points. “When I photograph from a lift truck 50 to 100 feet in the air, any wind...

Beach sand dune on Emerald Coast, Florida. (Thinkstock) Florida's beaches attract tourists from around the country, but they might not be able to support big crowds for much longer, because the beaches are running out of sand. According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has prioritized the sand loss problem in Miami-Dade county, where some of the most popular beaches are located, and are holding public meetings to discuss where new sources of sand might be...

Lake Guatavita - Colombia Everyone has heard of treasure buried at the bottom of the ocean after violent storms caused shipwrecks -- an estimated three million wrecks are scattered across the bottom of the seas, and they could be valued as high as $60 billion, says Popular Mechanics. But shipwrecks are hardly the only places where treasures have been lost. From a lake in Colombia that's thought to be the site of El Dorado to a Canadian island that might...

A view of the New World on the ostrich egg globe. (Used with permission of The Portolan, copyright Washington Map Society) A map etched into the surface of a grapefruit-sized ostrich egg from the early 1500s might be the oldest known globe to show the New World, according to experts. The globe, which was purchased by an anonymous collector at the London map fair in 2012, might have been the model for what was until now thought to be the...

Bird's Nest Soup From hot chocolate in the winter to a scoop of ice cream in the summertime, certain foods just seem to go well with the changing seasons. But climate and geography have more of an effect on what we eat than simply seasonal preferences. According to research done by the International Food Policy Research Institute, climate change will create new problems for the major crops cultivated in different regions of the world. Even though these changes in the...

This video image provided by KABC-TV shows rescue officials working the scene of an accident where a tour bus, left, crashed and turned over injuring multiple passengers, Thursday Aug. 22, 2013 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/KABC-TV) LOS ANGELES — A tour bus carrying gamblers to an Indian casino overturned along a Southern California freeway after sideswiping a car, injuring more than 50 people on board Thursday, authorities said. (MORE: ) The driver made an "unsafe lane change" to the left,...

Dolphins ride the waves off the coast of South Africa. (Greg Huglin/greghuglin.com). Monster 25-foot waves can scare even the most experienced surfers, but the dolphins in these stunning images by Greg Huglin, taken off the coast of South Africa, glide and leap through the waves with the greatest of ease, as if performing a graceful dance. California-based photographer and filmmaker Huglin, who has also released the 20-minute film "Surfing Dolphins," has long been fascinated by dolphins in the wild. "I...

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — One of the most popular sites at Bandelier National Monument is set to reopen Monday. Accessible only by a series wooden ladders and steep stone steps, the kiva at the Alcove House site is located at the edge of a niche some 14 stories above the canyon floor. The site was closed in April due to concerns over structural stability of the kiva. The walls of the structure had loosened and there were other signs of...