Items15The creator’s order
  1. 1Miraflores (Panama)Miraflores (Panama)Miraflores is the easiest place to watch the Panama Canal at work. Its visitor center sits beside the locks on the Pacific side, and from the viewing terraces you see ships raised or lowered through the chambers at close range, which explains how a lock canal lifts ships over the isthmus better…0
  2. 2Hoover DamHoover DamHoover Dam is the place to stand inside a dam rather than just look at one. The Guided Dam Tour rides the original elevator, walks the inspection tunnels at the center of the dam and looks out at the Colorado River through an inspection ventilation shaft, then continues into the powerplant. The…0
  3. 3Itaipu DamItaipu DamItaipu, on the border between Brazil and Paraguay, lets you go deep into a working hydroelectric plant. The standard Panoramic tour offers views of the dam with explanations of how it was built, but the reason to come is the Special tour: over two hours inside the plant, taking in the central…0
  4. 4Three Gorges DamThree Gorges DamThe Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the place to weigh what a project of this size costs as well as what it produces. More than a million people were relocated as the reservoir rose and towns and villages went under water, and that history belongs in any honest visit. The tourist area near…0
  5. 5Grand Coulee DamGrand Coulee DamGrand Coulee Dam in Washington State is one of the best free dam visits in the country. The Bureau of Reclamation's visitor center is open daily all year apart from Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day, and in summer the season adds free public tours of the John W. Keys III Pump-Generating…0
  6. 6OosterscheldekeringOosterscheldekeringThe Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier is the showpiece of the Delta Works, the Netherlands' response to the North Sea flood of 1953. It runs about 9 kilometers, and roughly 3 kilometers of it are 62 sluice gates that normally stand open so the tide keeps flowing. Planners changed course from a…0
  7. 7Kinderdijk windmillsKinderdijk windmillsKinderdijk shows how the Dutch kept low land dry before engines, using machines you can walk into. Its 19 windmills pumped water off the surrounding polders, and the eight brick mills of the Nederwaard date from 1738. Museum mills such as Blokweer are open inside, so you can see the machinery and…0
  8. 8Falkirk WheelFalkirk WheelThe Falkirk Wheel is the world's only rotating boat lift, and the best part is that you get to ride it. Opened in 2002, it connects the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal in a half-turn that takes about five minutes, carrying boats 35 meters into the air. Boat trips from the visitor center…0
  9. 9Pontcysyllte AqueductPontcysyllte AqueductPontcysyllte carries the Llangollen Canal across the River Dee in Wales 39 meters above the river, and you can cross it on foot or by boat. Completed in 1805 after ten years of design and construction by William Jessop and Thomas Telford, it is billed as the tallest navigable aqueduct in the world,…0
  10. 10Canal du MidiCanal du MidiThe Fonseranes locks at Béziers The Canal du Midi across southern France was one of the great engineering projects of the 17th century, built under Pierre-Paul Riquet and opened to navigation in May 1681, months after his death in October 1680. To see its ingenuity in one place, go to the…0