I wouldn’t typically call an elevator ride a tourist attraction but Budget Travel would beg to differ when it comes to 12 that they mentioned in a recent article.

BT says when it comes to elevators, function usually trumps form and the ride is usually forgettable. Not so with these lifts—some look like they belong in sci-fi thrillers, others could be theme park attractions, but a trip on any one of them will earn you a lifetime of bragging rights.

I figured that the article was worth a look and saw that I had (kind of) been on 2 of these elevators with one other being close to home.

Here is the list:

1. The Gateway Arch- St. Louis, Missouri
2. Bailong Elevator- Hunan, China
3. The Falkirk Wheel- Falkirk, Scotland
4. AquaDom- Berlin, Germany
5. Hammetschwand Lift- Lake Lucerne, Switzerland
6. SkyView- Stockholm, Sweden
7. Lloyd’s Building- London, England
8. Taipei 101- Taipei, Taiwan
9. Luxor Inclinator- Las Vegas, Nevada
10. Long Island City Business Center- Queens, New York
11. Mercedes-Benz Museum- Stuttgart, Germany
12. Sky Tower- Auckland, New Zealand

During our visit to Germany (back in September), we spent a couple of nights at the Radisson Blu in Berlin. The hotel lobby has an amazing and massive fish tank right in the middle of the lobby (photo above). While we didn’t pay to ride the elevator through the middle of the tank, we (especially Lucas) got to enjoy amazing views of it from the regular hotel elevators.

Kim and I visited the Sky Tower in Auckland years back and enjoyed awesome views of the city during the elevator ride up to the top. We decided to have dinner at the rotating restaurant at the top which was not exactly an enjoyable experience. I don’t recommend going for dinner at a place where the floor is constantly rotating if you get any kind of motion sickness!

Find out about all of the elevators in Budget Travel’s article HERE.