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By Luis Gustavo. See how we research and review our content.
Some places look edited: a channel that cuts through the middle of a city of millions, a lake the shade of bubble gum, an island so far out in the South Atlantic that getting there means about a week on a ship. All five destinations below are real, and each comes with a detail you can check on a map.
Two of them are messier than the one-line version that circulates online. Sources disagree on a date in Costa Rica’s case and on the exact microbes behind Lake Hillier’s color, and those disagreements make the stories better, not weaker.
1. There’s a city that sits on two continents at once
The Bosphorus is a channel roughly 30 kilometers long that links the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, and it counts as one of the dividing lines between Europe and Asia. Istanbul grew along both of its banks, which means the city has a European shore and an Asian shore facing each other across working water.
About two-thirds of residents live on the European side. Commuter ferries cross all day, and the strait is also spanned by bridges, the first of which opened in 1973, and by the Marmaray rail tunnel, which opened in 2013 and runs beneath the seabed.
2. One entire country has no army
The story begins with a short civil war. After a disputed election in March 1948, a conflict that lasted 44 days left more than 2,000 people dead, and José Figueres ended up leading a provisional junta. He is the figure most often credited with dismantling the army, although sources do not agree on the exact date: Costa Rica marks 1 December as the anniversary, while UNESCO’s documentary registry lists Decree No. 249, issued on 11 October 1949.
The 1949 constitution made the change lasting. Article 12 outlaws the army as a permanent institution, while still allowing military forces under a continental agreement or for national defense, always under civilian authority. Supporters often say the savings went to schools and health care. The army’s old headquarters, the Bellavista barracks in San José, now houses the National Museum.
3. There’s a lake that stays permanently pink
Lake Hillier lies on Middle Island, the largest island of the Recherche Archipelago off the south coast of Western Australia. It is small, about 600 meters long and 250 meters wide. The explorer Matthew Flinders visited in January 1802, and his journal entries are the earliest written record of it.
The color is stubborn. It does not fade when water is scooped into a container, and the lake is generally described as safe to swim in despite the extreme salt. Even so, scientists have not pinned the shade on a single ingredient, as the section on salt further down explains.
4. One country’s time zone is offset by just 45 minutes
Nepal’s clocks run at UTC+5:45. The country moved to that offset in 1986, shifting forward by 15 minutes from the UTC+5:30 it had shared with India since 1920. The odd quarter hour roughly matches Kathmandu’s local mean time, which sits about 5 hours and 41 minutes ahead of UTC, and the zone’s reference meridian runs through the Gaurishankar peak, around 100 kilometers east of the capital.
Nepal is one of only three time zones that sit 45 minutes off a whole-hour step. The other two are the Chatham Islands (UTC+12:45) and an unofficial zone in Australia known as Central Western Time (UTC+8:45).
5. The “most isolated town in the world” still has a permanent population
Tristan da Cunha has no airport, so the only way in is by ship, and the voyage from Cape Town takes about six days. The nearest inhabited land is Saint Helena, roughly 2,400 kilometers away; Guinness World Records lists 2,435. A little over 200 people live in the single settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, named in 1867 after Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, who visited that year.
The island’s isolation was tested on 10 October 1961, when an eruption near the settlement forced all 264 residents into open boats. A Dutch ship, the Tjisadane, picked them up, and they ended up in England. Most families returned in 1963.
The Bosphorus rulebook for big ships
Because the strait narrows to roughly 700 meters between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan, and several bends have limited sight lines, traffic is regulated. Ships longer than 150 meters, or drawing more than 10 meters of water, must pre-book their passage, and vessels over 300 meters go through a special clearance procedure. Ferries, freighters and tankers all share the same lanes.
Why Lake Hillier’s water is so salty and so crowded
A study of water and sediment collected in February 2015 measured about 28 percent salt, compared with roughly 3.5 percent in the ocean. Only specialists thrive there: the researchers identified pigment-producing microbes such as the alga Dunaliella salina and salt-loving bacteria and archaea, including Salinibacter ruber. Carotenoids were the most common pigment type in their data. The authors call their explanation a hypothesis, a first step rather than the final word.
Before you finish packing, it’s worth knowing how to handle motion sickness during travel, a common issue on long flights and road trips. And a big part of exploring somewhere new is the food — there’s a lot of food history hiding behind dishes that look simple on the plate. If island eruptions like Tristan’s caught your eye, there are more in 5 volcano facts, and the ocean that isolates the island has its own piece in facts about the oceans.
Ready to pack for your next adventure?
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Of the five, Tristan da Cunha asks the most of a traveler: six days on a ship from Cape Town and nowhere to fly out if the plan changes.