Shangri-La, China
The place: Few places evoke paradise like the mythical Shangri-La, the mountainous valley depicted in James Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon.
And that's just what Pucher found when he encountered the northwestern
area of China's Yunnan province, which borders Tibet and was renamed
Shangri-La in 2001 for its natural beauty. The snowcapped peaks, Alpine
lakes, and deep gorges of the Tibetan Plateau were unlike anything the
Swiss native had imagined. "I was in absolute awe," Pucher says.
"Mountains of up to 22,000 feet would rise and drop into valleys of
6,000 feet or more. The roads crossed some of the most beautiful
landscapes I had ever seen."