The names resound with the poetry of a bygone era and fire the imagination: Kashgar, Samarkand, Ashgabat, Tashkent, Khiva, Bukhara. Epic history is strewn across mountain range, desert and steppe, where ancient ruins and sublime minarets recall the great exploits of empire, from Alexander the Great to Tamerlane. Some of the world's greatest centers of civilization flourished in this area for centuries, and perhaps would be counted among the great cities today, were it not for the ravages of Genghis Khan.

It is difficult to overstate the influence China has had on most, if not all, cultures of the Far East. China’s role as the central political power in Asia for centuries has so deeply embedded Chinese culture, art and religion in other Asian cultures that they are, ironically, scarcely recognizable as Chinese at all. Now mobilizing and buzzing with an immense energy, China is swiftly propelling itself into the modern age, re-inventing itself into an evolving hodgepodge of hard- line communism, rehabilitated Confucianism and unbridled free-market capitalism. The sense of dynamic change is palpable as China reclaims its historic role as Asia’s greatest power before our very eyes.

Synonymous with adventure and home to the world's most exotic tribes, a trip to Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific is an anthropological tour de force: hundreds of distinct tribes speak 850 mutually unintelligible tongues. Barely post-Stone-Age agricultural practices, complex tribal liaisons, ancestor cults, and wild cultural celebrations make Papua New Guinea the last frontier of adventure travel.

Connoisseurs of adventure travel take note: Mongolia opened up to the outside world two decades ago, and the few who have ventured in have beheld one of the world's last remaining horse-based nomadic cultures. A vanishing veneer of 20th-century Soviet socialism had little impact on traditional Mongolian life. Most people still live in felt gers (yurts) with their livestock and horses by their side, practicing a pastoral lifestyle and Tibetan Buddhism that has remained unchanged for centuries.

Malaysia. The name rings with end-of-the-earth appeal, occupying an almost mythological place in the traveler's lexicon, as though it were a jungle-covered Atlantis. Yet tailored trips to Borneo reveals wonders that are very real—rainforests teem with wildlife such as the pygmy Asian elephant, proboscis monkey, clouded leopard, slow loris, sun bear, barking deer, pig-tailed macaque and the huge flying fox bat.

Perhaps it's Tibet's roof-of-the-world elevation, or its creation myth that had it connected to heaven by a rope: Tibet seems to be somehow suspended between heaven and earth, studded with places of worship and mountains that scrape the sky. Despite an intense modernization campaign by the Chinese government, the Tibetan people retain a transcendent spiritual quality that informs every aspect of their lives, which makes their home on the Earth's highest plateau one of the world's most intriguing travel destinations.