Sometimes the extremes on Earth are so extreme they help us understand and prepare for other planets’ environments. Imagine this. You just booked a plane ticket to the biggest island in the world. But you’d better check the weather before your pack up your surfboard, sunglasses, and swimsuit. This island isn’t tropical. Most of it is covered in ice!

We’re talking about not-so-green Greenland. The country sits far north, right where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Arctic Ocean. Cold ocean currents surround the frigid country. Thanks to its position near the top of the globe, central Greenland has no sunrises from the end of May to the end of July. Some parts have freezing weather even in summer. In places, the ice measures more than 10,000 feet thick. The ice sheet stretches about as big as the United States and Mexico combined!

Ready for another extreme? Take a trip to the Atacama Desert in Chile. Here, orange dust swirls all around, sticking to your face and shoes. The sunbaked landscape is often called the driest place in the world. Almost nothing green grows here. No people build cities. Instead, the wind carves breathtaking canyons while flamingos look for food in salt lakes. The Atacama sits in a “rainshadow” beside the Andes Mountains. Rain falls on the other side of the mountain range. A cold current from the Pacific Ocean also makes wind in the Atacama Desert unable to pick up moisture from the sea. In the Atacama Desert, decades can pass without a single drop of rain falling!

If you’re into extremes, your travels are just beginning. Check out:

The windiest place in the world—Commonwealth Bay, Antarctica

The wettest place—Mawsynram, India

The flattest place—Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

The coldest place—the East Antarctic Plateau in Antarctica