Compare 576 Travel Destinations

The most contested 0.9 km² on Earth — the Old City's four quarters hold the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock, and the Via Dolorosa in such proximity that the city's air itself feels charged with 3,000 years of prayer. Beyond the walls: Yad Vashem is the world's most important Holocaust memorial; the Israel Museum holds the Dead Sea Scrolls; Mahane Yehuda market is one of the Middle East's best food markets. Check current advisories.

South Africa's economic powerhouse is reinventing itself with vibrant arts districts in Maboneng and Braamfontein, the sobering Apartheid Museum, and Constitution Hill. Gateway to Kruger National Park safaris and the Cradle of Humankind.

Joshua Tree spans 800,000 acres at the meeting point of the Mojave and Colorado deserts in southern California, two hours east of Los Angeles. The park is famous for the namesake yucca trees that cluster in the higher Mojave half, the surreal monzogranite boulder piles at Hidden Valley and Jumbo Rocks, and one of the best concentrations of single-pitch climbing and bouldering in the world (1,400+ routes). Skull Rock, the Cholla Cactus Garden, and Keys View over the Coachella Valley are the can't-miss roadside stops. Twentynine Palms and Yucca Valley are the gateway towns; the season runs October through May.

An hour south of Tokyo on the JR Yokosuka Line, Kamakura was Japan's de facto capital from 1185 to 1333 — the seat of the country's first samurai government. The Great Buddha at Kotokuin (a 13.4 m bronze cast in 1252, now sitting open-air after the temple hall was washed away) is the icon. Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine anchors the town's main approach; Hasedera adds an 11-headed Kannon and a hydrangea garden. Yuigahama beach gives Tokyoites a summer surfing weekend, and Komachi-dori is the snack street running back toward Kamakura Station.

A drowsy riverside town on Cambodia's south coast where the Praek Tuek Chhu river curls past faded French shophouses and the Elephant Mountains rise abruptly inland. Kampot is the world capital of one specific thing: Kampot Pepper, a Protected Geographical Indication crop whose long-pepper, black, red, and white varieties end up on Michelin tables in Paris and Tokyo. Days are spent on plantation tours, kayaking the river, riding up to the abandoned French hill station and casino at Bokor National Park, or taking the 30-minute hop east to Kep for crab market lunches. The slowest, friendliest base in Cambodia.

Japan's best-kept secret — the only major Japanese city never bombed in World War II, meaning 99% of pre-war Edo-period architecture survives. Kenroku-en is one of Japan's Three Great Gardens; the Higashi Chaya geisha district, unchanged since 1820, is the finest preserved teahouse quarter outside Kyoto. The Maeda clan ruled for 300 years and spent lavishly on arts — Kanazawa has more registered National Treasures per capita than any Japanese city outside Kyoto and Nara.

Sri Lanka's highland capital and the last kingdom to fall to the British (1815) — the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic is Buddhism's most important pilgrimage site, housing a tooth of the Buddha in a golden reliquary. The Esala Perahera festival in July/August is one of Asia's greatest spectacles — 100 elephants, 10,000 participants, and 10 days of nightly processions. The scenic Kandy–Ella train journey through tea plantations is among the world's most beautiful rail routes.

Kansas City is two cities (Missouri and Kansas) on opposite banks of the state line, but the Missouri side holds the heart: world-class barbecue (Joe's, Q39, Arthur Bryant's, Gates), the 18th & Vine jazz district where Charlie Parker and Count Basie made their names, the Country Club Plaza (the country's first car-oriented shopping district, 1923, modeled on Seville), and more public fountains than any city outside Rome. The food obsession runs deeper than just BBQ — Boulevard beer, KC strip steaks, and a pizza style of its own. The Chiefs' Super Bowl runs and the Royals' Kauffman Stadium round out one of the most underrated US cities.

Taiwan's sunny port city features the stunning Lotus Pond temples, revitalized Pier-2 Art Center, and some of the island's best night markets. A more laid-back alternative to Taipei with easy access to Kenting beaches and Fo Guang Shan monastery.

Pakistan's port megacity of 16 million on the Arabian Sea — a sprawling, restless capital of commerce, culture, and contradiction. Mughal-era shrines sit beside colonial Bunder Road, Mohatta Palace's pink Jodhpur sandstone glows at sunset, and Clifton Beach draws families on Friday evenings. The country's most diverse food city: Bohra, Memon, Sindhi, Pashtun, Punjabi, Hyderabadi cuisines all served within blocks of each other.

Karlovy Vary is the great-grandfather of European spa towns — founded around 1349 by Charles IV (who allegedly discovered the healing thermal springs while hunting deer), peaked in the 19th century when it hosted Beethoven, Goethe, Tsar Peter the Great, and 26,000 annual guests, and still draws spa-goers to its 80+ hot springs and 16 designated drinking fountains. The Mlýnská kolonáda (Mill Colonnade) and the cast-iron Sadová kolonáda anchor the river-valley promenades, and locals carry porcelain sipping cups (lázeňský pohárek) shaped like little teapots between the fountains. The Becherovka herbal liqueur was invented here in 1807 — the unofficial '13th spring' of Karlovy Vary.

Kathmandu is the spiritual heart of the Himalayas — a chaotic, colorful valley of ancient temples, prayer flags, and stunning mountain views. Durbar Square, Boudhanath Stupa, and Swayambhunath (the Monkey Temple) are highlights. The city is the staging ground for Everest treks and Annapurna circuits, with Thamel's backpacker district providing gear and guides.

The oldest of the main Hawaiian islands at 5.1 million years — long enough for erosion to carve the cathedral-green Na Pali Coast cliffs (1,200 m straight from the Pacific) and Waimea Canyon, the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific". Mount Waiʻaleʻale at the centre is among the wettest spots on Earth (~9,500 mm of rain a year), feeding seven rivers that pour out across taro-field valleys to Hanalei Bay’s 3-km golden crescent. The county forbids any building taller than a coconut palm, half the island remains undeveloped, and the only road around it dead-ends 27 km short of completing the loop — making the Na Pali Coast accessible only by foot, boat, or helicopter. The "Garden Isle" is the slowest-paced and most photogenic of the Hawaiian islands.

"God's Own Country" — India's tropical southwestern coast, where 900 km of palm-fringed beaches meet a 1,500 km maze of backwater canals. Overnight kettuvallam houseboat cruises out of Alleppey (Alappuzha), tea plantations blanketing the Munnar hills at 1,500m, the colonial spice port of Fort Kochi, Kathakali face-painted dance, and Periyar Tiger Reserve. Ayurvedic massage is everywhere. Monsoon June-September is dramatic but most travel is October-March.

The southernmost point in the continental US — 90 miles to Cuba, an island that seceded from the United States in 1982 (the Conch Republic) and never quite came back. Hemingway lived here and wrote some of his best work; his six-toed cats still roam his Whitehead Street home. The 1.25-mile Duval Street is the “longest bar in America”, the nightly Mallory Square sunset celebration is a 50-year-old ritual, and Fort Zachary Taylor State Park is the best beach on the island. Pair Old Town’s Conch architecture with a Yankee Freedom day trip to the remote Dry Tortugas National Park.

Khövsgöl Nuur is northern Mongolia's Dark Blue Pearl — a 136 km long, 262 m deep alpine lake near the Russian border that holds roughly 1 percent of the planet's surface fresh water and is over two million years old. It sits at 1,645 m in a basin of larch-and-cedar taiga, ringed by 3,000 m peaks of the Khoridol Saridag range. The Tsaatan reindeer herders camp in the surrounding forest, reached only by multi-day horse trek from the gateway village of Hatgal. Summer means horse trekking, kayaking, and bird-watching; from January the lake freezes a metre solid and the March Ice Festival fills the surface with horse races and shaman ceremonies.

Africa's cleanest capital spread across lush hills — a city of remarkable transformation, powerful genocide memorials, thriving coffee culture, and the gateway to mountain gorilla trekking.

A small County Kerry town that exists almost entirely as the gateway to two of Ireland's signature experiences — the 179 km Ring of Kerry coastal drive, and Killarney National Park, the country's first national park (1932) covering 26,000 acres of lakes, oak woods, and the McGillycuddy's Reeks mountains. Inside the park: 15th-century Muckross Abbey, Victorian Muckross House, the 15th-century Ross Castle on Lough Leane, and jaunting cars (horse-drawn pony carts) that still ferry visitors to the Gap of Dunloe. The town fills with coach groups May through October.

Kerala's port city and commercial capital, where four centuries of Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonial layers stack on top of a much older Arab and Chinese spice-trade harbour. Fort Kochi - the historic peninsula across the harbour from the modern mainland - holds the Chinese fishing nets along Vasco da Gama Square, St Francis Church (where Vasco da Gama was first buried in 1524, the oldest European-built church in India), the 1568 Paradesi Synagogue in Jew Town, and the Mattancherry Palace with its Hindu mythology murals. The city is also the standard launching point for Kerala's backwater houseboats out of Alleppey, 90 minutes south.

Koh Phi Phi is six islands in the Andaman Sea between Phuket and Krabi, the most famous of which are Phi Phi Don, the inhabited backpacker hub with no roads and a maze of pedestrian sois, and Phi Phi Leh, the uninhabited limestone fortress whose Maya Bay starred in The Beach. Maya Bay reopened in 2022 with daily caps, mooring bans, and a strict no-swimming-on-the-bay-side rule that lets the coral recover. Ferries take 90 minutes from Phuket or Krabi. Days revolve around longtail island-hopping and snorkel stops; nights revolve around fire-show beach bars on Loh Dalum Bay and the cheapest bucket cocktails in Thailand.

Thailand's second-largest island after Phuket (228 km²), in the Gulf of Thailand off the eastern coast — circled by a single 50-kilometre ring road that takes about 90 minutes to drive in full and connects every major beach. There were no roads on Samui at all until 1970, and the Bangkok Airways-built Samui Airport (USM, 1989) transformed the island in a single generation. The 12-metre golden Big Buddha (Wat Phra Yai) on the connected islet of Koh Faan has greeted arriving flights since 1972 and remains the most visible landmark. Chaweng Beach is the longest and liveliest stretch on the east coast; Lamai is the second beach, calmer; Bophut's Fisherman's Village preserves Chinese-Thai shophouses. The Full Moon Party rave is on neighbouring Koh Phangan (20 minutes by ferry); Koh Tao for diving sits two hours further north. Crucially, Samui's weather is opposite to Phuket's — wet October through December (when Phuket is dry), dry January through September.

Home of the Komodo dragon and some of Indonesia's best diving. Pink beaches, manta rays, and the dramatic Padar Island viewpoint make this a nature lover's paradise.

A medieval walled town at the head of Europe's southernmost fjord — Adriatic drama with Venetian architecture, fortress hikes with jaw-dropping bay views, and a fraction of Dubrovnik's crowds and prices.

Southern Thailand's Andaman coast is limestone-karst country — Railay's boat-only beach cliffs, Phra Nang Cave, Ao Nang's mainland base, and ferries to Phi Phi and Koh Lanta. The Tiger Cave Temple's 1,260-step climb rewards with the panorama. Rock climbing mecca, kayaking through mangroves at Ao Thalane, and roughly half the price of Phuket.