Places Where You Can See for Yourself That the Earth Is Not Flat

Deep in the southern Atlantic Ocean, Gough Island, home to a meteorological research station staffed by a rotating crew of about 14 people, rises from a landscape featureless and blue. A rugged outpost of Tristan da Cunha, a volcanic archipelago owned by Britain, Gough Island’s closest neighbors include Saint Helena (1,343 miles away), Cape Town, South Africa (1,511 miles away), and the Falkland Islands (2,166 miles away). It’s the perfect location for maybe only one thing: Proving that the Earth is not flat. With endless mile after endless mile of ocean beyond Gough’s rocky shores, it’s hard not to notice that the water gently curves in the distance—there’s literally nothing else to see. Whether you observe it with the naked eye, binoculars, or a telescope, the Earth in the distance looks the same: Round, round, round.