It wasn’t that long ago – 200 years, 300 tops – that everything was remote. For most people, if you crossed the Atlantic at all, it was likely only going to be once. But as automobile engineer Karl Benz and the folks at Boeing conspired to make the world smaller, we have come to value places that are difficult to reach in roughly inverse proportion to how many places there are that are actually difficult to reach.

Easter Island used to be the back of beyond, a place clouded in mystery. Now there are daily flights from Santiago and, if you go, there’s a hot dog stand I can recommend. It’s between the eco-hotel and the French restaurant, right next door to the surf shop.

And as the film Everest, which opened this week, reminds us: Getting to the top comes with great risk even if the climb isn’t as uncommon as it used to be. More and more people are spending the time and money to check off this ultimate bucket-list item. The bloom is a bit off that particular alpine rose. Stories of Everest these days are more likely to include phrases such as “traffic jam” and “busiest month yet” than they are to hit notes of triumph and discovery.

So what’s an adventurer to do? Well, you could climb Everest anyway and, like Alexander the Great, weep that there are no more lands to conquer. Or you could tick off an item on this list.