January 2003. Our campsite at dawn in the center of the Sahara called the Téneré in Niger. We found hand stone axes here 8,000 years old when the Sahara was green. Crossing the world’s greatest desert is a true expedition, one of the most astounding adventures to be had on earth, geographically, culturally, and historically. Unfortunately, it is too dangerous with lawless and ideological banditry today. I can hardly wait to do it once more when it is safe again. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #70 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

At the top of Italy’s boot heel, there’s an ancient village named Alberobello that’s become a World Heritage Site.

This is because the villagers have preserved a prehistoric building technique with the conical roofs of their homes built up of corbelled limestone slabs with no mortar. The homes are collectively called trulli (true-lee) as each home individually is a called a trullo (true-low). Some trulli are centuries old albeit regularly rebuilt in the traditional way and maintained immaculately.

It’s a fascinating look into unique millennia-old living. Yet it is only one example of this little-visited part of far southern Italy that’s worth exploring. There’s so much more to Italy than Rome, Florence, Venice and such tourist magnets, as worthwhile visiting them may be. You’ll learn that very quickly when you start exploring Italy’s remoter regions. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #255 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

10,000 feet high in the Amazon cloud forests of northern Peru is a mysterious lost city built by an unknown people many centuries before the Incas existed. Known as Kuelap by villagers in the lowlands below, the Incas called the people who built it Chachapoyas, “Cloud Warriors.” I led an expedition here in 1994, climbing high up into the Amazon Andes to come upon gigantic stone walls 60 feet high surrounding hundreds of stone structures. Here you see Rebel among them. We’ll be here again in a year or two in another exploration of Peru. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #153, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

“Changpa” means “northerners” in Tibetan, the nomads who survive with their herds of goats and yaks in the 15,000-foot high plateau of northern Tibet known as the Changtang.

In 1987, I conducted an overland expedition from Beijing to Kathmandu, crossing the entire Changtang north to south. TTP’s Dr. Joel Wade was with me. Occasionally, we’d chance upon a Changpa encampment. For many of them such as this young girl holding a handful of barley meal, we were the first white people they had ever seen.

The Changpa live in one of the most remote and harshest places on earth. We can hardly imagine what life is like for them any more can they imagine ours. Being with them is an unforgettably profound experience. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #254 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

We all know the story of Noah and the Ark told in Genesis (chapters 6-9). But do you know where Noah’s grave is? You’re looking at it. There is a tradition thousands of years old that he died and is buried here in the Land of Noah – Nakhchivan.

Known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as “Nakhsuana,” today Nakhchivan is an isolated enclave of Azerbaijan, cut off from the rest of the country by a strip of Armenia reaching Iran. You never heard of it because it’s unknown with a strange name – but the name literally means the Land of Noah. “Noah” is the Anglicization of Hebrew Noakh, or “Nakh” (“van” means “land,” “chi” means “of”).

Noah’s tomb has been built, destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again repeatedly over the millennia. It’s now been built yet again on the original site. Looming near is Haça Dag, the Notched Mountain – where Noah’s Ark they say ran aground as the Flood waters receded, carving a notch on the summit before coming to rest on Mount Ararat about 50 miles to the north (in present-day Turkey).

The people here are wonderfully friendly. I was always told “welcome” everywhere. I was even spontaneously invited to a wedding party in a remote village. You’ll find it easy to make friends here too. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #3, photo ©Jack Wheeler)

The Antarctic island of South Georgia is home to a million King penguins, plus countless fur seals, gigantic elephant seals, staggering numbers of seabirds such as albatrosses, amidst a backdrop of towering mountains with massive glaciers spilling off them.

Nothing can prepare you for the incomprehensible size of the penguin rookeries here, densely packed as far as the eye can see (all those white dots on the hills behind are penguins). Nor for the size of bull elephant seals weighing up to 8,000 pounds, especially when they rise up and crash their chests against each other in mating challenges emitting deafening bellows. Nor being surrounded by a thousand fur seals unafraid of you. The density of wildlife combined with the magnificent beauty of the island is completely overwhelming.

Here also is the abandoned whaling station of Grytviken where the heroic explorer Ernest Shackleton is buried. You can only get here by expedition cruise ship. South Georgia is one of the great experiences on our planet. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #96 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Originally nomads from the Tibetan Plateau, the Nashi people settled in the fertile Himalayan foothills of Yunnan over 2,000 years ago. From the ancient Tibetan religion of Bön, they developed a unique religion of nature-worship called Dongba. The progenitors of humanity and nature were two half-brothers, two mothers with the same father. Nature is controlled by a human-snake chimera called Shv – a statue of whom you see here.

The Nashi are a peaceful gentle people whose ideal is living in accordance with nature. They dress very colorfully, women have equal respect with men, they write with the world’s only still-functioning pictographic script, and are proud of preserving their culture for millennia. It is an enchanting experience to be among them. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #163 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Want to get this close to a leopard – and safely? Come with me on a safari in Africa and I’ll show you how. Yes, she’s lethal – to the animals she hunts, not you. Yes, you can make such lethal beauty an indelible part of your life.

We really do only live once on this Earth. You really do owe it to yourself to make the most of it. You really can’t take it with you. It really is time to live your dream, to fill your soul with life-memorable experiences. Life lasts but a snap of the finger.

So what adventures have you always dreamed of? Let me know and maybe you and I can make them become real together. I’m only an email away: jack@wheelerexpeditions.com. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #204 photo ©Jack Wheeler)