Sitting in the sands that separate two salt lakes, the enormous Chott El Djerid and smaller Chott El Gharsa, Mos Espa is an one of several former Star Wars sets that are scattered across the Tunisian desert. Many of the exterior sets for the desert planet Tatooine—named after the very real nearby town of Tataouine—were purpose-built for the films and then abandoned to the sands and the fans once filming was over.

Fans will no doubt recognize this hotel in the village of Matmâta as Luke Skywalker’s childhood home , as many of the most memorable scenes of the saga were filmed inside. This building and the village where it stands is a prime example of traditional Amazigh architecture such as the adobe caverns dug into the sandstone. While the exact history of the settlement is unknown, local legend claims that they date back at least to the times of Punic wars from 264 to 146 B.C.

Collecting Star Wars memorabilia is its own specific hobby, and there is no one with so fervent a passion for it than Steve Sansweet, owner and curator of Rancho Obi-Wan, which is the largest collection of Star Wars items in the entire world. The impressive collection began as Sansweet's personal hoard of Star Wars toys, models, promotional items, and assorted ephemera, and grew into a fantasyland for Star Wars fans.

Located in Northern Guatemala, Tikal is one of the largest of the ancient cities of the Maya civilization. You might recognize the ruined temples peeking out over the treetops as Yavin 4, a jungle-covered moon that housed the headquarters of the rebel alliance in A New Hope.

Skellig Michael is a precipitous, rocky island situated eight miles from the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. It is the larger of two jagged islands that jut out from the swell of the Atlantic Ocean. Once relatively little known, the remote island was thrust into fame when its precarious cliffside stairs and beehive-shaped huts were used as the setting for Luke Skywalker’s isolated hideaway seen at the end of The Force Awakens and again in The Last Jedi.

A university in Germany transformed its hilltop observatory into the charming likeness of R2-D2. The blue and white building looks like an oversized replica of the beloved droid. The project that transformed the building into this pop culture homage was led by Dr. Hubert Zitt, an immense fan of the Star Wars franchise who even gives lectures on the films. He and his students painted the observatory and turned it into the quirky attraction it is today.

Spread out across more than 4,000 square miles, Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world. The endless sheet of hexagonal tiles (created by the crystalline nature of the salt) is dotted with pyramids of salt. This spectacular landscape was the filming location for the planet Crait, the site of a major battle in The Last Jedi.

While enjoying the success of his first blockbuster, American Graffiti in 1973, George Lucas settled into his San Anselmo home to work on a script that would eventually become Star Wars. In the following years, Lucas also began working on his other career-defining franchise, Indiana Jones. To commemorate the role that San Anselmo played in the creation of both of these iconic series, Lucas donated Imagination Park to the community in 2013.

Nearly half a million people enter through the doors of the Washington National Cathedral each year, many of them just to admire its breathtaking beauty. It's perhaps fitting, then, that the cathedral offers a bit of tongue-in-cheek eye candy for the dedicated architecture enthusiast—a well-hidden, but very official, carving of Darth Vader perched high among its many spires.

In Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker have a legendary lightsaber battle in the middle of a molten lava landscape. Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, served as a real-world reference for the fiery volcanic planet of Mustafar. Star Wars was filming in Italy when Mount Etna began erupting in 2002, so they sent film crews to capture footage of the lava flows, which were incorporated into the background of the lightsaber duel.