You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s just another quaint Tudor house on a cobbled English street—wooden beams, leaning windows, and a heavy oak door that looks like it has witnessed a few centuries. But this half-timbered cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon isn’t just old—it’s iconic. This is the house where William Shakespeare was born in 1564. And today, it stands as one of the most lovingly preserved literary relics in the world.

Along the wave-battered coast of USA’s Pacific Northwest, just south of Yachats, Oregon, there’s a place where the sea seems to vanish. Not metaphorically—but literally. A foamy rush of ocean crashes into jagged black rock, swirls, and then plunges into a gaping hole in the earth. Locals call it Thor’s Well. Travelers call it mesmerizing. Scientists call it a collapsed sea cave. But stand beside it during high tide and you'll likely call it something else: terrifyingly beautiful.