8 Beautiful Travel Destinations (If You’re Okay With Dying) (4 of 5)

Darién Gap, Colombia–Panama Border

The Pan-American Highway can take you to Alaska, Argentina, and pretty much everywhere in between. However, thanks to the threats of fierce snakes, tropical diseases, wild rivers, and a pesky UNESCO world heritage site designation, the highway is interrupted by a 60-mile (76km) stretch of unforgiving, undeveloped jungle. Tens of thousands of migrants traverse this region in hopes of making it to North America. If all of the above isn’t enough to deter you from visiting the Darién Gap yourself, maybe the prospect of criminal groups lurking in the shadows ready to rob and assault you will do the trick? Regardless, expeditions organized by adventure tourism companies are, in fact, a thing!

Skeleton Coast, Namibia

If you make your way to Namibia’s Atlantic shoreline, you might just encounter Skeleton Coast, and if you do, its stark and captivating beauty is likely the last thing you ever see. If the eerie sight of doomed ships (more than 500 shipwrecks in total) and skeletal remains of whales, seals, and the occasional water buffalo don’t convince you to avoid this place, perhaps the roaming lions, hyenas, and jackals along the coast and “shark patrols” in the water will knock some sense into you.