100 Wonders of the World

July 5, 2004 10:09 AM

The 100 Wonders of the World. A list, which includes both photos and a short description of all the wonders. The list may not be complete, but it's an interesting list for those of us, who love to travel. Italy seems to be a nice place to start, with 12 of the 100 wonders (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12).
posted by einarorn (26 comments total)

I don't know if I would've called an entire continent a wonder of the world. Sure, it's impressive, but still.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 10:14 AM on July 5, 2004

A very pretty list. A pity that I haven't been to any of them. Although I'm quite shocked that crater lake didn't even make it to the top 1000 list. Perhaps he hasn't seen what is perhaps the deepest blue in the entire world.
posted by woil at 10:16 AM on July 5, 2004

I don't know if I'd call it a list of wonders. But still an interesting list. I'll start the pissing contest: I've got 23 of them so far. If only I hadn't passed up Pisa because it was overly touristy!

Weird web design though. He does that thing where he describes the links (like to the Top 100 printable list) in one place, but you have to click down below to actually get there. Why not make the description clickable?
posted by smackfu at 10:23 AM on July 5, 2004

smackfu: 13, don't feel bad about Pisa, I would have been able to add the sistine chapel and the taj mahal if only I could ever get my lazy arse out of bed.
On the plus side I did see two last week.
posted by biffa at 10:37 AM on July 5, 2004

Petra and Titicaca are not on the list. So, it's worthless.
posted by signal at 10:43 AM on July 5, 2004

Oh wait, Petra is. Half-worthless.
posted by signal at 10:45 AM on July 5, 2004

I've seen 11 of them: Machu Picchu, Iguazu Falls, The Amazon, Acropolis, Teotihuacan, Rio de Janeiro, St. Basil's Cathedral and Moscow, New York, the Met and the Statue of Liberty.

The list sure gave me a lot of new ideas on places I want to visit.

Oh, and signal, I agree. Titicaca should be on the list.
posted by einarorn at 10:46 AM on July 5, 2004

Oh, and: 27.
posted by signal at 10:46 AM on July 5, 2004

Noty to navel-gaze, but you'd think that after all that's happened, someone would have notice that the World Trade Center had more than "102 Stories" GEEEZ!
posted by ParisParamus at 10:57 AM on July 5, 2004

A paltry 9 out of 100 here. Others I would've included: Ayers Rock (Uluru), Cap-Haitian Citadel, Tanna-Tuva, and my green couch.
posted by moonbird at 11:00 AM on July 5, 2004

Oh, and here's the top 1000 list (my grren couch didn't even make that cut, shuckeedern).
posted by moonbird at 11:05 AM on July 5, 2004

I love lists like this, because they always bring back memories of the great times I've had while on holiday, plus remind me that I need to get to work, so I can see more of them!

I just checked the USA portion of the 1000 wonders list, and it did a great job of making me feel like I've been all over America. There's only two, or possibly three (I don't know which 'meteor crater' they are referring to) that I haven't seen.

I guess that's what I get for blowing almost all my disposable income on travel!
posted by mosch at 1:40 PM on July 5, 2004

Maybe I'm feeling a bit curmudgeonly but I don't think a number of these things on the top 100 are wonderous (I've seen about 1/4 of them); don't get me started on the top 1000. (The Vegas strip? Please.)

The leaning tower of Pisa is not a wonder, unless you count: "Gee, Pops? I wonder why it just doesn't fall down?"

Maybe if the list was called something else I'd be less grumpy… I do want to see Moonbird's couch.
posted by Dick Paris at 2:40 PM on July 5, 2004

13 here, #47 just last week for photos before my sister's wedding. You should have seen the looks we got marching up 5th Ave, her in her gown, and then half a dozen guys in tuxedos and five women in fancy dresses. Applause and compliments too. Who says all New Yorkers are mean and insular?
posted by billsaysthis at 3:05 PM on July 5, 2004

29, not even a third.
It's kind of a bogus list though because, for example, St. Peter's and the Sistine Chapel next door count as two, as do the Pyramids and the adjacent Sphinx. Throw in the Egyptian museum, the Nile cruise, Karnak, Abu Simbel and Valley of the Kings and you can cross off half the list on one jaunt. (Not that I don't regret not leaving Cairo, but really. Real estate on these lists is precious.)

Ayers Rock is on my wanna see list and not theirs. On the other hand, Dubrovnik wasn't until now.

And Rome's Pantheon is glaringly missing.

Bill, we ARE mean and insular. But we loooooove a parade.
posted by CunningLinguist at 3:44 PM on July 5, 2004

27. The list seems far too biased towards the northern hemisphere, particularly western Europe, but it's good fun.
posted by cbrody at 5:32 PM on July 5, 2004

It is the places you've heard of the most that when you arrive are the most disappointing. It is the places you have never heard of that are the most thrilling discovery.
posted by stbalbach at 6:52 PM on July 5, 2004

49. A couple of good recommendations, and quite a few glaringly bad ones. Bali? Jesus, man, what a cesspool of tourist infestation. And as a couple of people have mentioned, a lot of these can be grouped together. They seem to recommend the entire country of Italy, yet don't mention Cinqueterre. They have "Florence Cityscape", "the Uffizi", and "Ponte Vecchio", which are all about 100 yards from each other. I dunno, I think this list is bunk.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:01 PM on July 5, 2004

It is the places you've heard of the most that when you arrive are the most disappointing.

This is generally true but I was surprised by how overawed I was by the Pyramids. You know, you've seen a million pictures and how could they be that amazing? But damn.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:07 PM on July 5, 2004

Okay, so some of them are a little questionable (e.g., Anarctica, the Las Vegas strip) but it's still a pretty interesting list. And as for the people who have traveled everywhere and seen everything? Good for you.
posted by Zulujines at 8:51 PM on July 5, 2004

We all have our preferences, and Bali definitely belongs on my list. Parts of it are certainly tourist black holes, but that's the beauty of it: once you get away from the cesspools the rest of the island is miraculously enchanted.
posted by cbrody at 1:41 AM on July 6, 2004

I don't know which 'meteor crater' they are referring to
mosch, could possibly be Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley - I went there on a Green Tortoise trip and seem to remember that it was caused by a meteor.
posted by etc at 3:41 AM on July 6, 2004

i can't believe the great lakes didn't make the top 1000 ... easy to take for granted, i guess ...
posted by pyramid termite at 4:56 AM on July 6, 2004

Once you get away from the cesspools the rest of the island is miraculously enchanted.

You mean like all the lovely terraced rice paddies that are slowly being changed over for tobacco growth?

Or all the delicate, gorgeous coral reefs on the southeast coast that have been almost entirely destroyed in the past decade?

Ever tried walking up Mt. Batur alone? Try it and you'll get extorted by machete-wielding locals that demand you pay them $50 to be a guide.

Don't get me wrong, the people of Bali were very nice (particularly for Indonedia -- at least, the ones that weren't blowing up night clubs frequented by tourists). But to have it as one of the "top 100 greatest places in the whole world" is rather disengious. Maybe it was 50 years ago (I saw many an old-timer wax poetic about the "good ol' days") but the places in recent times has gone to the dogs.

Pic from Padengbai, Bali.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:54 AM on July 6, 2004

My wife wonders, "What about the shoe department at Nordstrom's?"
posted by sixpack at 9:39 AM on July 6, 2004

I don't know which 'meteor crater' they are referring to

mosch, could possibly be Ubehebe Crater in Death Valley

I assumed they meant the Barringer Meteor Crater. But you're right, "Meteor Crater" is indefinite.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:46 PM on July 6, 2004