BookingAir

There's always one more in any list, so we propose to find the "Eight Wonders" for every country in an unending search for the world's great adventures. Richard Bangs sets the stage. 

The world is awash with wonders  — quite a few more than the seven commonly cited. But it has not gone unnoticed that in recent years tourist boards and other entities have grabbed onto a notion that their destination hosts an "Eighth Wonder of the World." With a quick Yahoo! Search I see that the Panama Canal is the Eight Wonder of the World, but so is the country of Libya and the rock-church city of Lalibela in Ethiopia.

But that's not all. The developers of the artificial island "The Palm," Jumeirah, off the coast of Dubai promote it as the Eight Wonder of The World.  Ditto the Houston Astrodome, the Hagia Sophia church in Istanbul, the Sydney Opera House, the Akshardham Temple of New Delhi, the monastery of St. Lawrence of Escorial in Spain, and the Empire State Building. China claims the Terracotta Army of Xi'an as the Eighth Wonder, as New Zealand does its Milford Sound, and the Philippines its Banaue Rice Terraces. In all there are over 3 million citations under "Eighth Wonder of the World."

We thought perhaps we might lend an editorial hand in this quest and present our own list of Eight Wonders, but in a countdown by countries. The theory is that every nation has at least eight great must-see wonders, though their marvels and monuments differ with their latitudes and longitudes. This is, in a way, our own version of 1000 Things to Do Before You Die, only since there are 191 member states of the United Nations, we are offering 1528 wonders to see before you die.

Our plan is to count backwards, from Zimbabwe to Afghanistan, but when we are on expedition, to include that country as a feature. And if you have your own notion of an eighth wonder in any list that we present, please weigh in, and we'll uncover the wonders together.

Have candidates for Eight Wonders in your favorite country? Send an e-mail to Adventure Beat or use the Comments tool to list them here.