The Victorian Gothic extravagance of Cardiff Castle ● underground descent into Big Pit guided by former miners ● Walking behind the cascading curtain of Sgwd yr Eira in Waterfall Country ● St Govan's Chapel wedged into the sea cliffs, followed by a boat to Ramsey Island's seabird colonies ● The summit of Snowdon by Britain's only rack-and-pinion railway ● Tynwald Hill and the summit of Snaefell on the Isle of Man

Opulent Buenos Aires: "Paris of the South" ● Ushuaia - world's southernmost city ● Beagle Channel Cruise ● Perito Moreno & Uppsala Glaciers ● Ruggedly beautiful Patagonia

Carnac's megalithic alignments and Jersey's Neolithic passage graves ● Loire Valley châteaux including Chambord and Chenonceau ● D-Day beaches at Juno and Omaha with the Normandy American Cemetery ● Mont Saint-Michel's gravity-defying medieval abbey ● car-free islands of Sark and Herm with dramatic coastlines ● Jersey War Tunnels and the Atlantic Wall fortifications

Dian Fossey's Parc National des Volcans ● Maasai Mara's endless plains ● Meeting local tribal groups ● Karen Blixen "Out of Africa" Museum

Watch dawn turn the Taj Mahal's marble from soft pink to brilliant white ● cross the Thar Desert by jeep to a Rajasthani campfire of music and dance ● wander Amber Fort's Sheesh Mahal, a mirror palace built to glow by a single candle ● explore Ranakpur's Jain temple and its 1,444 uniquely carved pillars ● stand before Mehrangarh Fort's seven unconquered gates above Jodhpur ● walk the abandoned red sandstone streets of Fatehpur Sikri, Akbar's capital for just fourteen years

Explore Hanoi's Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Temple of Literature, then climb through Ninh Binh's karst countryside to Hang Mua's panoramic overlook ● Cruise Lan Ha Bay overnight past limestone karsts ● Wander lantern-lit Hoi An and the 1,500-year-old Cham ruins of My Son ● Cruise Hue's Perfume River by sampan to the Imperial City's Forbidden Purple City ● Descend into the Cu Chi tunnels and tour Ho Chi Minh City's Reunification Palace and War Remnants Museum ● Drift through the Mekong Delta's floating markets by boat at dawn

Wander the whitewashed Baroque churches of Old Goa, once called the "Rome of the East" ● explore Aihole's sandstone shrines, where masons spent eight centuries teaching themselves to build a temple ● climb through Hampi's boulder-strewn ruins, the sacked capital of an empire once among the wealthiest on earth ● see Belur and Halebid's Hoysala temples, carved so densely that no two surfaces repeat ● sleep aboard a traditional houseboat gliding through Kerala's palm-shaded backwaters ● end at Mahabalipuram's seventh-century Shore Temple, where South Indian temple architecture began

'Imperial cities', Meknes, Fes, Marrakech ● Volubilis, Morocco's only Roman site ● Atlas Mountain vistas and charming villages ● Merzouga dunes - Sahara experience ● Dramatic Todra Gorge ● Relaxed seaside town of Essaouira

Cosmopolitan Yerevan: City tour ● Armenian Christian sites ● Spectacular views of Mt Ararat (weather permitting) ● Tbilisi: City Tour & Mtskhetai, ancient capital ● Travelling the Georgian Military Highway to the high Caucasus ● Legacies: Russian, Arab, Mongol, early Christian and many more!