With my earlier classifications of beauty in mind, admittedly this is one of the most subjective lists a person can possibly compile -- and from guy who has never been to the Himalayas, Burma's Inle Lake, or to Guatemala's Atitlan volcano, among other purportedly majestic spots. Therefore feel free to nitpick, scoff, disagree, and share your own list.

Photos by the author:

1. "The traditional view" of the central plaza and Huayna Picchu

Place: Machu Picchu, Peru

Machu Picchu, the ancient Inca stronghold near the city of Cuzco, holds top honors. Atop the ruins, passengers stagger from the buses in a daze. An observation point sits just ahead of the drop-off zone, and everyone walks over to stare in disbelief at the unearthly panorama. Peaks and valleys surround the site, but their magnificence is not the sublime, sweeping majesty of the Alps or Rockies. Instead we see ghastly caricatures of mountains -- fierce, vertical protrusions of verdant green, like a preschooler's crayon rendering.

2. Three Towers and Los Cuernos

Place: Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile

3. Mount Chimborazo as seen from 16,000-foot climber's refuge

Place: Near Riobamba, Ecuador

4. Sunset vista of Erg Chebbi

Place: Near Merzouga, Morocco
(Yes, a cooler site than the famous Sossusvlei dunes in Namibia.)

5. The mud mosque on Monday market day

Place: Djenne, Mali, West Africa
(Of the ten finishers, this is the only one featuring a human-made structure. Although better suited to a separate category, it's such a magnificent spot that I can't resist including it.)

6. Panoramas of "fairy chimney" formations

Place: In and around the tourist town of Goreme, Turkey

7. Jungle scenery and "tepuis" near and around Angel Falls

Place: Canaima National Park, Venezuela

8. The Dead Vlei

Place: Middle of nowhere, Namibia, southern Africa

9. Scenery around and from atop Mount Sinai

Place: Sinai Desert, Egypt

10. Landscape vistas in the Moremi Wildlife Reserve

Place: Botswana, southern Africa

No word yet, by the way, from Sky Airline on reimbursement for the sleeping bag heisted from my luggage during the trip from Santiago to Punta Arenas. Word of my column may or may not have made it to Sky's headquarters, but the article certainly drew its share of reader horror stories involving vandalized, stolen or misdirected property. "Think you had it bad," e-mails Paul Guinnessey from Silver Spring, Md. "Last November I had $1,900 worth of electronics accidentally diverted to Guyana. The bag turned up three days later, with nothing except some books left inside."

Domestically, the U.S. Department of Transportation has set an airline's maximum liability at $2,800 per passenger. Internationally the limit, mandated by the Montreal Convention of 1999, is about $1,500. This is a marked improvement over the old Warsaw Convention, which held airlines liable for only $20 per kilogram of missing or damaged property. According to DOT statistics, U.S. airlines alone are responsible for approximately 200,000 mishandled baggage reports each month. Some 2 percent of those are never located. Perhaps my sleeping bag will show up here.

Amid all the mishaps shared by readers were one or two more heartening tales. Consider this from Renee, writing from New York: "My husband and I flew to Reykjavik on Icelandair. At baggage claim we discovered the zipper on my husband's suitcase was ripped and broken. Oddly, all items were still neatly packed and nothing was missing. An Icelandair representative asked for the name our hotel, and when we arrived there a luggage repairman was waiting in the lobby. He took the damaged bag to his shop to fix the zipper, then brought it back to the hotel!"

I rode Icelandair about eight years ago and found the airline adequate if totally unremarkable. Renee's letter had me wishing they'd broken something.

Next time: Answer to last week's quiz (What do Pope John Paul II and St. Patrick have in common?). Everything you need to know about flying to India, and more.

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