Compare 576 Travel Destinations

America's oldest state capital (1610) at 7,200 feet — a high-desert city built in Pueblo adobe style where the Palace of the Governors is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the US. Canyon Road's 80 galleries make this the densest concentration of art in North America. Meow Wolf's immersive art installation is unlike anything else on Earth. "Red or green?" (chile sauce) is the official state question.

The oldest European-settled city in the Americas, with a UNESCO colonial zone, merengue-fueled nightlife, and Dominican cuisine. Gateway to the country's beaches and mountains.

Savannah is Spanish moss, cobblestone streets, and 22 garden squares laid out in 1733 — one of the most perfectly preserved colonial grids in America. It's also a to-go-cup town where SCAD art students, ghost tours, and century-old dining rooms like Mrs. Wilkes share the same shady blocks. Beach day at Tybee Island is 20 minutes east.

Seattle sits on a stretch of Puget Sound backed by the Cascades — with Mt. Rainier dominating the skyline on clear days. Pike Place Market's fish-tossing, the Space Needle's rotating deck, Chihuly glass art, and a coffee culture that invented the global latte. Ferries to Bainbridge and island-hop weekends are part of the deal.

St. Louis sits where the Missouri meets the Mississippi — a Midwestern river city defined by Eero Saarinen's 630-foot Gateway Arch, Forest Park (larger than Central Park, with five free major museums), and a stubborn small-city food culture built on toasted ravioli, gooey butter cake, and tomato-sweet pork-steak BBQ. The population peaked at 856,000 in 1950 and has fallen to roughly 280,000, leaving an oversized skyline, brick neighbourhoods, and two-day weekends that still feel like a 1.5-million-person town. Cardinals baseball at Busch Stadium and the free Anheuser-Busch brewery tour anchor the calendar.

Florida’s Gulf-coast counterweight to Miami — a working city of 395K (3.4M metro) wrapped around the largest open-water estuary in Florida. Ybor City, the 1885-founded Cuban-Spanish-Italian cigar district, is where the Tampa Cuban sandwich was invented (the official sandwich of Tampa by city ordinance) and where wild chickens still roam between the brick streets descended from cigar-rollers’ birds. Add Busch Gardens (the densest concentration of major rollercoasters in the southern US), the 4-km waterfront Riverwalk, the Florida Aquarium’s 500,000-gallon coral reef tank, and the legendary Bern’s Steak House (largest restaurant wine collection on Earth, 500,000 bottles). Tampa International Airport regularly tops US traveller-satisfaction rankings; Clearwater Beach (regularly named America’s best beach) is 40 minutes west.

A 2,600-person Victorian town wedged into a box canyon at 8,750 ft, walled in on three sides by 13,000-ft San Juan peaks — the most dramatic setting of any ski town in the Lower 48. The free public gondola, the only one of its kind in North America, connects historic Telluride to Mountain Village at 9,500 ft in 13 minutes, running 7am-midnight in ski and summer seasons. Bridal Veil Falls plunges 365 ft at the canyon's eastern dead-end, the tallest free-falling waterfall in Colorado. The whole town is a National Historic Landmark District. Bluegrass Festival in June and Telluride Film Festival each Labor Day weekend draw devoted national crowds.

Canada's largest city holds the CN Tower (553m), the world's most multicultural population (200 languages spoken), and St. Lawrence Market (National Geographic's #1 food market in the world). The Distillery District is the largest collection of Victorian industrial architecture in North America. From Kensington Market's bohemian stalls to the waterfront Islands ferry and the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto delivers a world-class city without the pretension — and Niagara Falls is 90 minutes away.

UNESCO-listed colonial city frozen in the 18th century — founded in 1514, Trinidad's pastel-painted houses and cobblestone streets have barely changed since sugar wealth peaked. Plaza Mayor is the finest colonial square in Cuba. Valle de los Ingenios preserves the sugar-plantation landscape that made the city rich and enslaved thousands.

Tucson sits in a Sonoran Desert basin ringed by five mountain ranges and saguaro forests so dense they got their own national park (split into east and west units that bracket the city). It's the oldest continuously inhabited place in the US — 4,000+ years of history layered through the Tohono O'odham, the Spanish mission of San Xavier del Bac (1797), Mexican rule, and the Wild West railroad town. The food scene is the only UNESCO City of Gastronomy in the US, built on Sonoran-Mexican traditions with chimichangas (invented here), sonoran hot dogs, and fresh tortillas at decades-old neighborhood spots.

Vancouver is where mountains meet the Pacific — snowboard in the morning, kayak in the afternoon, and eat world-class sushi for dinner. Stanley Park, Granville Island, and the Capilano Suspension Bridge are highlights, but the city's real draw is its setting. The food scene reflects its Asian-Pacific crossroads, especially in Richmond's Chinese restaurants.

The nation's capital delivers a staggering amount of world-class culture for free — 20+ Smithsonian museums, the National Gallery, every major memorial on the Mall. Beyond the monuments, Georgetown's cobblestones, U Street's jazz history, and Eastern Market's weekend bustle give DC a neighborhood depth many visitors miss.

North America's flagship ski destination — a purpose-built resort village 125 km north of Vancouver via the Sea-to-Sky Highway, set at the foot of two side-by-side mountains. Whistler (2,182 m) and Blackcomb (2,436 m) hold 200+ marked runs across 8,171 acres, joined by the PEAK 2 PEAK Gondola whose 3.024 km unsupported span is the longest of any cable car on earth. Blackcomb's 1,609 m vertical drop is the largest at any North American resort. The Village core is fully pedestrian — no cars allowed. Co-host of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Summer flips to lift-served downhill biking at the largest bike park in North America.