Atlantis Ever since Plato first mentioned the lost island civilization of Atlantis in the 4th century B.C., scholars have been trying to figure out whether it ever actually existed — and if so, where. Plato says that after repeated attacks on ancient Athens, Atlanteans and their homeland were swallowed up by the sea. Over the centuries, scores of theories about Atlantis’s presunken whereabouts have sprung up — literally spanning the globe from the North Pole to Antarctica — but today Gibraltar and Santorini are considered among the strongest possible contenders.

Some semimythical places — like Camelot, the home castle of ancient, Saxon-fighting British leader King Arthur — are purposely vague about their locations. The first Arthurian tales don’t even mention Camelot, and the later ones that do keep its setting shrouded in mystery. Of course that hasn’t prevented a host of modern English places from laying claim to Camelot’s heritage, including Wroxeter in Shropshire, Cadbury in Somerset, and Tintagel in Cornwall.

Another intentionally mysterious hot spot is Shambhala, the Central Asian kingdom that’s considered a spiritually pure land by many Buddhists, as well as the eventual birthplace of Vishnu’s final incarnation by Hindus. For Westerners, Shambhala is also thought to have inspired the fictional paradise of Shangri-la. Various Asian sites from the Punjab to Siberia have been put forth as Shambhala’s locale. For those seeking something more concrete, the Shambhala electronic music festival happens every August in British Columbia.

A more recent addition to the awesome-but-where-the-heck-is-it camp is the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine, said to house an immense reserve of secret gold. Various tales sprang up in the mid-19th century about the mine — some say it was owned by an Apache tribe, others claim it was discovered by Mexican or German miners — but most agree that it was located in the Superstition Mountains (pictured) just east of Phoenix, Ariz. The elusive mine is also said to be cursed, a belief furthered by the 2012 discovery of the body of a man who went missing in the area on a treasure hunt three years earlier.

Gold fever has inspired many a tale that’s spread like wildfire and eventually — thanks to greed and lots of wishful thinking — become accepted as fact. Few stories have gained as much treasure-hunting traction as that of El Dorado, the supposed kingdom of extreme wealth and gold dust-covered regents that sent many 16th-century explorers probing into the jungled nether regions of Colombia, Venezuela, and Guyana (including the expedition of Francisco Pizarro, pictured, the Spanish conquerer of Peru). Other overhyped New World wealth centers included the City of the Caesars (said to be located in the Andes Mountains between Chile and Argentina) and the Seven Cities of Gold, which caused hapless Spanish explorers to prod as far as modern-day Kansas.

Still semimythical for now, another lost city of untold wealth is La Ciudad Blanca, believed to be located in the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras. La Ciudad Blanca (Spanish for “The White City”) was also known as the “Lost City of the Monkey God” as locals were said to worship a gigantic monkey sculpture. First reported to Western ears by Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés, Ciudad Blanca has been stuck in the collective imagination ever since. It was even reportedly spotted from overhead in 1927 by aviator Charles Lindbergh. In 2013, archeologists using new air-to-ground detection technology (necessary to penetrate the area’s extremely dense jungle vegetation) claimed they might have finally located Ciudad Blanca once and for all — but they’re not saying where.

According to biblical history, the Tower of Babel marks the spot where God, displeased over humans getting too chummy and cheeky, caused them to start speaking mutually unintelligible languages as they built an audacious tower to the sky. Historians long believed the tower itself must have been located southwest of modern-day Baghdad, but newer analysis has placed it in what’s now northeastern Syria.

Other geographical victims of a wrathful biblical God include the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, infamous for their wanton disregard for the holier things in life. Most scholars agree that the towns (just two of the Bible’s Cities of the Plain) must have been located near the Dead Sea. Some believe Sodom has been found near the modern-day Bab edh-Dhra, while others contend it was at Tall el-Hammam, both in Jordan. Today’s Mount Sodom in eastern Israel, with its Lot’s wife pillar, also lays claim to ancient Sodomite heritage.

Nearly a full millennium before Christopher Columbus and 500 years before the Vikings, some believe that Ireland’s early traveling monk Saint Brendan made it as far as modern-day North America in his evangelizing journeys. Back on the other side of the Atlantic and in the year 512, he also purportedly founded the monastic Saint Brendan’s Island off the coast of northern Africa. Though it’s never been positively identified, the early Christian atoll was long believed to lay northwest of the Canary Islands.

For all of the story’s stickiness in the American consciousness, historians now believe that 16th-century Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León probably never traipsed about Florida seeking an age-reversing Fountain of Youth, but that such was rather an invention by a later writer out to discredit his importance. Whatever Ponce de León’s motives, there’s no disputing his significance in exploring Florida for the Spanish, and today St. Augustine’sFountain of Youth Archaeological Park stands on the spot where he might have first landed in 1513. Want more like this? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter so that we can inspire you every day.