My wife's brother has a little house on a small island in the Baltic Sea, and we go there at Christmas. The 30-minute crossing from the mainland to this island is the most terrifying cruise you'll ever take. They give you a barf bag when you walk on board.

At night, fishermen are paid for their hard work with one of the Pacific's greatest views-the gates to the heavens above. Hawaii's remoteness to the rest of the world leaves the skies unpolluted by man's industrial byproducts and artificial light known on the mainland. A man can actually look back in time when he gets far enough away from the shores of Hawaii and leaves modern society behind. He will find a sky above him before the hustle and bustle of mankind, a place where a stunning display of rhythmically twinkling stars are the norm and planets lay boldly pronounced. Shooting stars are commonplace and so is the humbling feeling a man gets when looking at this masterpiece before him. The boat churns up neon-green phosphoresce that glows in the water below like fireflies. When the ocean is calm enough and the moon dark enough, it is completely impossible to tell where the earth ends and where the heavens begin.