Journey to a Strange Planet.

The stunning frozen terrain, above, made of ice several feet thick, but clear as glass, was photographed by explorers on the surface of a planet millions of miles from our Sun.

It’s called Earth. (Heard of it?) But you’d never guess that from this image, shot in one of the most extreme deserts on Terra Firma, Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys, or from these others photos of otherworldy locations across the globe.

Need a backdrop for your low-budget, sci-fi feature that says, “alien life forms nearby”? You could do worse than Socotra Island, in the Indian Ocean, with its utterly bizzare, indigenous flora; Mauritania’s massive Richat Structure; or the strangely hewn cliffs of China’s Stone Forest. It’s a beautiful planet, each of these locales is filled with beauty and mystery, and you don’t need a rocket to get to any of them: Just thousands of dollars in plane tickets.