Compare 576 Travel Destinations

The only fortified city north of Mexico — Old Quebec (UNESCO) is a living 17th-century French colonial town perched on the St. Lawrence clifftops. The Château Frontenac is the world's most photographed hotel. Carnaval de Québec is North America's largest winter festival. French is the heartbeat of this city, which feels more like Brittany than Toronto.

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world — bungee jumping was invented here, and the stunning Southern Alps and Lake Wakatipu provide the backdrop for everything from skiing to skydiving. Beyond the adrenaline, there's a sophisticated food and wine scene, and Milford Sound is a day trip away. New Zealand's most photogenic town.

Ecuador's Andean capital sits at 2,850m on the equator — the highest official capital in the world. Its colonial Old Town (UNESCO 1978) is among Latin America's best-preserved, with golden baroque churches like La Compañía de Jesús and the cobblestone La Ronda block. The TelefériQo gondola climbs Pichincha volcano to 4,100m, and the Mitad del Mundo straddles 0°0'0". Gateway to Galápagos and the Amazon.

Morocco's capital since 1912 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2012 — a city that feels both imperial and restrained. The 12th-century Hassan Tower overlooks the Mausoleum of Mohammed V; the Kasbah of the Udayas descends in cobbled blue-and-white alleys to the Atlantic; Chellah is a Roman-Islamic ruin where storks nest on 14th-century Merenid minarets. Rabat is the antidote to Marrakech chaos — cleaner, calmer, and much less targeted at tourists.

Raleigh is North Carolina's state capital and the southern point of the Research Triangle (Raleigh – Durham – Chapel Hill) — three universities (NC State, Duke, UNC) and the Research Triangle Park anchor one of the densest concentrations of PhDs in America. Downtown is built around the 1840 NC State Capitol, the free North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (the largest natural-history museum in the Southeast), the NC Museum of Art's outdoor sculpture park, and Fayetteville Street's restaurants and bars. The college-town energy from NC State (37,000 students) means the food scene punches well above a city this size, and the surrounding Triangle area gives you Durham's renovated tobacco district and Chapel Hill's basketball.

The world's northernmost capital is a tiny, colorful city that punches way above its weight. Reykjavik is the base for Iceland's otherworldly landscapes — the Golden Circle, Blue Lagoon, northern lights, and glacier hikes are all accessible as day trips. The city itself has excellent restaurants, a lively bar scene, and that unmistakable Nordic cool.

Latvia's capital holds the world's finest collection of Art Nouveau architecture — over 800 buildings along Alberta iela and Elizabetes iela, designed in the early 1900s when Riga was the Russian Empire's third-largest city. The UNESCO Old Town (Vecrīga) has medieval guild halls and the House of the Blackheads; the Central Market occupies repurposed Zeppelin hangars. A Baltic gem that delivers a serious European city for budget prices.

Rio de Janeiro is one of the world's most dramatic cities — Christ the Redeemer watches over a landscape of granite peaks, tropical forest, and golden beaches. Copacabana and Ipanema are iconic, the Carnival is legendary, and the carioca lifestyle of samba, beach volleyball, and acai bowls is infectious. A city that pulses with energy.

The self-styled Yoga Capital of the World sits where the Ganges descends from the Himalayas into the plains of north India — 280+ ashrams, 100+ yoga schools, the iconic Lakshman Jhula and Ram Jhula suspension bridges, and the abandoned Beatles Ashram (Chaurasi Kutia) where Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr wrote much of the White Album in February-April 1968. The entire city is officially vegetarian and alcohol-free by municipal law. Add white-water rafting on the Class III-IV upper Ganges, the nightly Ganga Aarti fire ceremonies at Triveni Ghat and Parmarth Niketan, and the spectacular setting in the Himalayan foothills, and Rishikesh is the most spiritually distinctive destination in India that doesn't require pilgrim-level commitment.

Saudi Arabia's capital is the most rapidly transforming city in the Gulf — a desert plateau metropolis of 14 million whose Vision 2030 reset has brought tourist eVisas (since 2019), women drivers, public concerts, and the city-scale Riyadh Season festival running each October to March. The skyline is dominated by the Kingdom Centre Tower with its 65th-floor Sky Bridge, the National Museum sits in the King Abdulaziz Historical Centre, and Diriyah — the mud-brick UNESCO seat of the original Saudi state — is being restored on the city's western edge. Ninety minutes northwest, the Edge of the World cliffs (Jebel Fihrayn) drop 300 metres into a pink desert. Summer is brutal at 45°C plus; visit November through March.

The Eternal City layers 2,800 years of history into a living, breathing metropolis. Ancient ruins sit alongside Renaissance palaces and bustling trattorias. Rome rewards slow exploration — every alley reveals a hidden piazza, a crumbling fountain, or a neighborhood trattoria serving the best carbonara you've ever had.

Germany's best-preserved medieval walled town — a 11,000-person Bavarian time capsule sitting on a hilltop above the Tauber River, surrounded by an unbroken 2.5 km circuit of 14th-century ramparts you can walk in their entirety. The Plönlein corner (a half-timbered house wedged between two gate towers) is one of Europe's most-photographed viewpoints. The Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas Museum runs year-round, the Schneeballen pastries are unique to the town, and the Romantic Road threads through. By night, after the day-trip buses leave for Munich and Nuremberg, the town belongs to a few hundred overnight guests and the Nightwatchman tour.

New Zealand's geothermal capital — the Taupo Volcanic Zone's heat manifests in boiling mud pools, shooting geysers, and sulfurous steam rising from the city streets. Pohutu Geyser at Te Puia is the Southern Hemisphere's largest at up to 30 metres. Wai-O-Tapu's Champagne Pool is a vivid orange-rimmed acid lake. The Whakarewarewa Living Village has been continuously inhabited above geothermal ground for centuries.

Europe's largest port and one of the world's great modern architecture cities — bombed flat in 1940 and rebuilt as a laboratory of 20th and 21st-century design. Piet Blom's Cube Houses, MVRDV's Markthal (Europe's largest food market hall), the Erasmus Bridge (nicknamed 'the Swan'), and the SS Rotterdam ocean liner form an architectural tour unlike any other European city.

The official capital of Finnish Lapland, straddling the Arctic Circle line (66°33'N) — home to Santa Claus Village with Santa's official post office, the Arktikum Arctic research museum, and Ranua Wildlife Park with polar bears and lynx 2 hours south. Aalto-designed post-WWII city plan after 1944 razing. Aurora visible September to March, midnight sun in June–July, and a dense menu of reindeer and husky safaris. Accessible from Helsinki by 1hr flight or 8hr overnight VR sleeper train.

Oman's southern Dhofar capital, a tropical anomaly on the Arabian Peninsula where the Khareef monsoon turns 1,000 km of desert green between June and September. While the rest of the Gulf is hitting 45°C, Salalah sits under a cool 25-30°C drizzle, drawing Saudi and Emirati families to its banana plantations, frankincense-scented mountains and Indian-Ocean beaches. The Frankincense Trail UNESCO sites run through the suburbs — Sumhuram on the Khor Rori lagoon, Al Baleed in the city, and the desert outpost of Wubar — and the Hilton and Anantara Al Baleed beach resorts anchor a coastline lined with date palms and old fishing villages.

Salamanca is the golden city — a small UNESCO old town in Castilla y León built almost entirely from Villamayor sandstone that turns honey-orange at sunset. The University of Salamanca (founded 1218) is Spain's oldest and the third-oldest in continuous operation in Europe; the 18th-century Plaza Mayor is regularly cited as Spain's most beautiful square; the carved facade of the old university hides the famous frog-on-a-skull that students must spot to pass exams. Half the population are students, which gives a town of 145,000 the bar density of a city three times its size.

The 1847 Mormon pioneer capital at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains — a perfect numbered grid radiating from Temple Square (the LDS Church world headquarters and the most-visited tourist site in Utah), 11 ski resorts within an hour's drive (more than any other US city), and the Great Salt Lake stretching to the horizon west of town. Unusually walkable for the western US (free downtown TRAX light rail, flat grid, generous sidewalks), with the famous "Greatest Snow on Earth" at Park City, Snowbird, Alta, and Deer Valley. The Sundance Film Festival (late January), Antelope Island bison herds, and the surreal Bonneville Salt Flats are all day-trip distance.

Salta — full name Salta la Linda, 'Salta the Beautiful' — is the colonial capital of northwest Argentina, sitting at 1,152 m in a green Andean valley with the country's best-preserved 18th-century centre. The pink-and-yellow Cathedral and the Cabildo frame Plaza 9 de Julio; the MAAM museum holds three Inca child mummies discovered frozen on Llullaillaco volcano in 1999; the Tren a las Nubes climbs to 4,220 m on one of the world's highest railways. Salta is the gateway to Cafayate's high-altitude Torrontés vineyards, the Salinas Grandes salt flats, and the multicoloured Quebrada de Humahuaca two hours north.

Brazil's first capital (1549-1763) and the heart of Afro-Brazilian culture. The pastel-painted Pelourinho (UNESCO 1985) is a colonial maze of cobblestones, baroque churches, and gold-leafed Igreja São Francisco. Birthplace of capoeira, candomblé, and samba-reggae — Olodum still drums Tuesdays. Acarajé from street vendors, moqueca from neighborhood spots, and a Carnival that rivals Rio's for the world's largest street party. Beaches strung along the Atlantic coast.

Mozart's birthplace is a Baroque masterpiece nestled against Alpine peaks. The Altstadt (Old Town) is a UNESCO site of domes, spires, and elegant plazas, while the Hohensalzburg Fortress towers above. Sound of Music fans will recognize the surroundings, but Salzburg's real draw is its combination of culture, mountain scenery, and Austrian charm.

The jewel of the Silk Road, Samarkand's Registan Square is one of the most breathtaking architectural ensembles on earth. Turquoise-tiled madrasas, the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, and Tamerlane's mausoleum transport you to the height of the Timurid Empire.

San Antonio is the seventh-largest US city (1.5M) and the most Mexican-feeling major city in the United States, anchored by the Alamo and a 3-mile pedestrian River Walk that runs 20 feet below street level through downtown. The five Spanish colonial missions (Mission San Jose plus the Alamo and three others) form a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the King William Historic District holds Victorian mansions, and the Pearl District has turned a 19th-century brewery into the city's best food and shopping zone. Tex-Mex was effectively invented here.

Southern California's laid-back beach-and-burrito capital — 70 miles of Pacific coast, 70°F year-round, and an arc from surfy Ocean Beach through La Jolla's sea-lion coves to Coronado's Hotel del Coronado and the Mexican border at Tijuana. Balboa Park packs 17 museums and the world-class San Diego Zoo into 1,200 acres. The Gaslamp Quarter anchors downtown nightlife; North Park and Liberty Station handle the craft-beer + food-hall crowds. The nation's largest naval base shapes the skyline with destroyer silhouettes.