The hum of the single-engine Cessna fills your ears as you ascend above the Peruvian high desert. Below you, flat expanses of dry, brown earth extend in every direction, punctuated only by twisting dry riverbeds ... a lifeless landscape. Then the plane banks, and over the intercom the pilot directs you to look at what appear to be just another set of curving, squiggly lines. But then, as you watch, the lines start to come to life, to form a definitive shape ... with a spread-finned tail at one end, a gaping mouth at the other, and an eye in the middle, staring up at you: it’s a giant line drawing of a whale, carved right into the landscape.

An aerial tour is the only way to fully appreciate Peru’s mysterious geoglyphs, known as the Nazca lines; the 2,000-year-old depictions of animals and geometric figures can be miles long—much too immense to be seen from the ground. But though these earth-etchings are some of the most dramatic sights you’ll ever see from the air, there’s plenty of other scenery around the world best viewed from on high.

Most anyone who’s spent an hour playing with Google Earth already knows the fascination of observing places from above. When seen from a bird’s-eye perspective, even familiar land- and cityscapes become completely new, with colors, patterns, and geographical features you’d never known existed until you hovered above them.

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