Yep, must also subscribe to the California redwoods (Muir, Sequoiah) and driving the Pacific Coast Highway.
Go drive HWY 128 to Moab Utah.
The Blue Lagoon in Iceland.
Hawaii
Angkor Wat
I’m also a big fan of California’s redwoods and sequoias. My favorite groves are in Jed Smith State Park and Calaveras Big Trees.
Speaking of large trees, the Karri forests with their treetop walks in southwestern Austraila lived up to the hype for me. The Gloucester Tree has a spiral staircase to a lookout platform almost 60 meters up…wow.
Some have been mentioned before:
Neuschwanstein Castle
Whitby Abbey in England
New Orleans–Jackson Square and the French Quarter
the Rocky Mts in Colorado
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Jefferson Memorial
Baseball Hall of Fame
Ellis Island
The five day walk on the Inca trail into Macchu Pichu was easily as awesome as the site itself.
(I’m going to second, (third?), Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Temple of the Golden Buddha!)
And add, Prambanan, Ayutthaya, Sukhothai, The Red Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, Dubar Square, (Kathmandu), Leh Palace, the Grand Palace, Thicksey Monestary, Plaza de Armas Cusco!
Not one of them disappointed me!
+1. We were there in 1989 and the lava flow was a slow thing. To get to it from Hilo, we had to drive all the way up the mountain into the park, then back down to the coast south of the flow, as the more direct route had been covered over by the flow.
The sight of the craters. The smell of the sulfur (and the warning signs that they were dangerous to asthmatics, though I had no issue). Most strikingly though was as we got closer to the area where the flow was still happening: everything was BLACK. No vegetation - the occasional burned tree stump. The fumes. When we parked, and walked close to some of the active flow, the black surface with the occasional crack through which you could see glowing red. All I could think of was that this was a perfect image of Hell.
Though, as “overhyped tourist attractions” I don’t know that I’d list it. Amazingly cool, and obviously I have pretty vivid memories 26 years later, but you don’t hear of it the way you hear of Niagara or the Grand Canyon.
Edit: Heh, I just tried to see if any of this was visible on Google Street View, and found this photograph which rather suggests one might lose one’s head on a visit to the lava flows!!
It’s been mentioned but having beignets and chicory coffee for breakfast at the Cafe du Monde early Saturday morning in the New Orleans French Quarter two weeks before Mardi Gras starts, watching the stalls set up for the day is one of my favourite experiences ever.
One more to add: Sedona, Arizona and the trip through Red Rocks with dinner at the Oaxaca restaurant on our way to see the Grand Canyon.
Has Sante Fe, New Mexico been mentioned? Love that town.
We did that too. Same place we ate at on the way to the same destination. We all had filet mignon that day.