Scientists tell us the world is warming up and that mankind is to blame. Jeremy Clarkson tells us it isn’t and that anyone who doesn’t agree should shut up. Who to listen to? It’s a tricky one. Perhaps we should listen to neither and just accept the planet for what it is: too hot, too cold, whatever. With that in mind, we’ve compiled four destinations that represent perfectly each of the four fundamental elements:  Air, Fire, Earth and Water.

Iceland - AIR

When submariners step out of a vessel after a long period underwater, it is quite common for them to promptly puke their guts up. It’s the smell, which is caused by impurities in the atmosphere, that does it. After spending three months inhaling only the freshest and purist of air, the odour of the outside world is, to their chaste nasal passages, one of unbearable foulness.

If these seafaring folk were to disembark in Reykjavik Harbour, however, they might wonder if they’d disembarked at all, and instead had died and gone to heaven. The Icelandic air is, you see, exceptionally clean. There are two reasons for this. The first is that polluted air swirling northward from Europe and America is cleansed of its nasties before reaching Iceland by a constant buffer zone of rain and clouds, and air gusting southward has come straight from the Arctic. The second is that more than 80% the country’s power is generated almost entirely by geothermal sources (Iceland is essentially one big ‘hydrocaust’), which are both renewable and natural.

Sicily - FIRE

The island of Sicily, the football that’s being toe-poked by Italy’s boot, is still a work in progress. This is due to the colossal Mount Etna, the highly volatile volcano on the east coast, which has been belching new land on an almost constant basis for the last few thousand years.

Volcanoes can be roughly grouped into two types: shield and composite. Mount Etna falls into the latter category, meaning it looks and acts just like the volcanoes you see in Hollywood blockbusters: conical, tall and pant-wettingly explosive. It is one of the world’s 16 ‘Decade Volcanoes’, which have been identified as needing particular attention due to their destructive track record and closeness to human settlements. Indeed, Etna is the arch villain of some of the most appalling tales in Sicilian history. To take just one example, on a spring day in 1669, it blew its lid with even more force than usual, and within hours 10 villages had been engulfed in lava.

If you want to get up close and personal, various tour companies can cater.

Australia - EARTH 

Drive away from any of Australia’s coastline for a few miles and you’ll find yourself in the Outback. In a country that encompasses roughly 3 million square miles, that’s a lot of Outback. Truth be told, there’s not much going on there (a few cattle stations, the odd 2,000-mile strip of tarmac, a fair sprinkling of orange dust) which is something reflected by the relatively few visitors it receives.

In fact, were it not for a gigantic red rock sitting like a bullseye smack bang in the middle of that vast and barren landscape, few people would venture into at all. As it is, though, Ayers Rock – or Uluru, to use both its official and unknown name – draws quite a crowd. It seems so out of place in its flat surrounds that you could be forgiven for assuming it’s a meteor that’s enjoyed a rather soft landing, but in actual fact, it’s a remnant from what was once a considerably higher landscape, weathered away by unimaginable forces over an unimaginable amount of time. Extraordinary.

South Africa - WATER

South Africa’s Cape Town is so surrounded by water it’s practically an island. It sits at the southerly-most tip of the African continent, embraced by the Atlantic and Indian oceans which seep together into a cobalt expanse of nothingness. Sail east and the next landmass will be South America; go south and the ice fields of Antarctica will be the first things to smudge the horizon; head west for Australia.

Or you could just stay put, for the waters in the immediate vicinity offer quite enough excitement to deter you from tackling epic voyages. Great white sharks patrol the area, for instance, and if you’re made of the right stuff, you can join them – in a cage, we hasten to add. If the prospect of making eye contact with something that soars above you in the food chain causes concern, then perhaps you could try staying above sea-level and surfing one of the monster waves that crash down upon Dungeons Reef, just south of the city. Alternatively, you could simply view the ocean from Table Mountain. Your choice.

Hawaii...

The more attentive of you may have noticed a slight discrepancy in this article: some of the destinations overlap with their elements. Mount Etna, for example, may represent fire, but it also represents earth; Cape Town may be surrounded by water, but with those fresh and constant ocean breezes, it also makes a strong case for life-enhancing air.

None, however, could justifiably claim all four at once, and this is where Hawaii, the remote archipelago in the heart of the Pacific, marches in.

Volcanoes, you will no doubt remember, can be grouped into two types: shield and composite. Unlike Mount Etna, Mauna Loa, the volcanic mountain which sits in the middle of Hawaii’s Big Island, falls into the former category, meaning it looks and acts nothing like the volcanoes you see in overrated films. It’s active, too, so that ticks off earth and fire. There is an observatory towards the summit of Mauna Loa, and it is here that the cleanest air on the planet has been recorded. The water element hardly needs further explanation, apart from to say waves that rival those of Cape Town are common here. Oh, and a great white was spotted recently, too. Not fair really, is it?

For comprehensive guides to the countries or regions covered in this article, follow the links.

Will Jones, My Destination

January 2012

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