The Most Colorful Places on Earth

The history of tulips is actually fascinating—they were a global craze and were so expensive that they became the subject of speculative investment.

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But you don't need a historical background to appreciate the way they look in a field—bright stripes of color that recall Rothko or Davis, sprawled out across the landscape. It's something to see.

Caño Cristales, the River of Five Colors, is located in the Serrania de la Macarena province of the Meta region of Colombia. This liquid rainbow is best seen from July to November when the river lights up yellow, green, blue, black, and red.

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The red is caused by a unique river weed that grows here. At its best, the river is like peering into some aquatic inversion of fall leaves. There's nothing else quite like it.

Lake Retba is also called Lac Rose. The bottom line is, it's pink. Very pink. From above it looks like you're boating in bubblegum or Pepto-Bismol. Up close, it looks a little more translucent, but it's still a very unique shade.

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The lake's pink hue is caused by algae living in the lake that feeds off of the incredibly high salt content. However strange it may look, it's safe for people. People go out into the lake not only to harvest salt but to also use the waters to help preserve fish.

The Ozark Mountains turn absolutely vibrant in autumn. The winding roads that corkscrew up and down the mountains offer plenty of opportunities to take in the changing leaves, both up close and as a sea of distant colors that stretch out across the landscape.

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Leaves turn everywhere, of course, but some places are just a little more special.

Pamukkale is a city in the Denizli Province in southwestern Turkey. It's here that 17 hot water springs flow up and deposit calcium carbonate into the landscape, forming travertine terraces that glisten with an otherworldly white.

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That beautiful, ethereal white blends gorgeously with the aquamarine sheen of the water in a harmony better than any decorator could have picked out.

We've seen pink water, but what about pink sand? On Harbour Island, there's a three-mile stretch of beach whose sand holds a microscopic organism with a pink shell. 

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Harbour Island isn't the only place full of pink sand, but there's something about the contrast between the green wall of trees, the bright pink sand, and the deep turquoise hues of the Caribbean waters.

Something about Arizona's landscape leaves it full of brightly-colored places to visit, from the Painted Desert to Antelope Canyon to this place. 

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Havasu Falls is one of our favorite waterfalls in Arizona, partly because of the contrast from the bright blue-green of the water against the clay-red rock formations all around you.

Crystal Geyser is unique in that geothermal activity plays no part in the geyser. Instead, it's powered by carbon dioxide. Like the calmer hot springs of Pamukkale, the cold-water geyser deposits travertine into the landscape. 

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While there are deposits of white travertine like a Pamukkale, the majority of the rock around the geyser itself is a layer of bright orange, instead. Like with many of these places, the omnipresent orangeness almost doesn't even look real.

There are more kinds of beauty than what's found in nature. Holi is a festival in India and Nepal, a Hindu celebration of the end of winter and the arrival of spring. The celebration begins with a bonfire but culminates in a free-for-all festival of colors, with participants throwing colored powder and firing color-filled water guns at each other in a massive game of chase. 

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The Holi celebration has begun to spread outside of Southeast Asia, as its emphasis on forgiveness and its bright colors have struck a chord with others around the world.

One of our favorite caves, a trip to Skaftafell Ice Caves is really a trip into a glacier. As you might imagine, you're surrounded by a cascade of shimmering, glowing blues amidst the darkness. 

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Trips to Skaftafell and nearby Jökulsárlón book up pretty quickly, but luckily, the Mendenhall glacier in Alaska has an ice cave beneath it, as well. It's also probably a lot easier for people to get to from the mainland U.S.

Wuhua Hai, or "Five Flower Lake," is one of 108 multicolored lakes located in the Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve in China. Legend has it that an ancient goddess dropped a mirror that her lover had given her, smashing it into 108 shimmering pieces.

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Jiuzhaigou is one of our favorite forests in the world, and if that was all there was to it, the foliage would be enough to land it on this list. But Five Flower Lake's brilliant shades of shimmering turquoise put it on another level entirely.

The painted desert has been shaped by eons of geological forces and desert winds into one of the most breathtaking sights in America.

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The rock has layers of various compounds that give it different hues—greens and lavenders and multiple shades of red—that stretch out in swirling lines and patterns as far as the eye can see. While you're in Arizona, you probably also want to check out Antelope Canyon.

Halle's Forest has an otherworldly look due to the carpet of bluebells covering the forest floor. The beech trees seem to rise out of a sea of blues and purples. 

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There's something about the strange color of the ground that emphasizes the green of the foliage even more.

There are many charming European villages where all of the houses are decked out in bright colors, but the vibrant seaside tableau at Procida particularly grabs the eye. Maybe it's the way the pinks and oranges blur in the water's reflection, like something from a Monet painting. Maybe it's the fact that the rich blues of the sky and sea make the town stand out that much more starkly. 

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Procida has yet to become a tourist trap, so you can avoid the insane crowds of tourist-favorite destinations. However, Procida has drawn the eye of filmmakers—Il Postino: The Postman and The Talented Mr. Ripley were both shot here.

At the base of Mount Fuji, in Hitsujiyama Park, the ground is covered with moss. That's not normally a big deal, but this moss is pink. When it blooms in April, it transforms the entire landscape.

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Alongside the 400,000 moss phloxes are 1,000 cherry trees that also start blossoming in April. There's no better way to start your spring than the festival celebrating these blooms every year.

Much of Yuanyang County in China is devoted to terraced rice paddies. What the rice paddies have done to the landscape is truly something to behold. From above, the whole area looks like some sort of impressionist stained-glass piece of artwork.

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These painting-like terraces are always filled with either lush plants or water, and either way, they look spectacular amidst the colors of the foliage around them.

The Grand Prismatic Spring is the third-largest hot spring in the world and the largest one in the United States. Yet, it's not named for its impressive size—it's named for its coloring. That should tell you everything about what an incredible sight it is.

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The colors are formed by rings of heat-loving bacteria—none of them live in the bright blue center because the water is too hot. Near the outer edges of the lake, however, the different temperatures of water give rise to different kinds of microscopic life, creating rings that spread outward from the middle of the spring.

Luosto is certainly beautiful, but considering it's usually covered under a blanket of white snow, "colorful" probably isn't the first word many people would think of to describe it. What's it doing on this list? It just so happens to be one of the best places in the world to see the northern lights.

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The aurora borealis appears here as often as 200 times a year. From hotels set up specifically for the purpose of seeing the sky to research stations set up nearby, much of the town's tourism and economy is geared toward helping visitors experience the dazzling celestial brilliance for themselves.

Sure, a couple of forests have shown up on this list already, but not for any reason to do with the trees themselves. Vermont, on the other hand, is all about the foliage.

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Sure, there are plenty of other places to see changing leaves, but the colors of New England during autumn is hard to beat.

Life under the sea is captivatingly alien, even though water makes up the bulk of our planet. Even amongst underwater environments, few are as vibrant and colorful as the Great Barrier reef.

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From brightly-shimmering fish to the coral itself, all manner of rainbow-hued wildlife lives here. See it while you still can because it can't be found anywhere else on earth.