All Destinations

The gateway to Morocco's south and the Hollywood of Africa — Atlas Studios is the largest film studio in the world by area. Gladiator, Game of Thrones, The Mummy, and Lawrence of Arabia were all filmed within an hour's drive of here, most at the UNESCO ksar of Aït Benhaddou 30km west. Restored Kasbah Taourirt anchors the town; the High Atlas is behind you, the Sahara ahead. Calm, low, and built of rammed earth the same colour as the surrounding desert.

Sicily's capital is one of the Mediterranean's great cities — 2,700 years of Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arab, Norman, and Spanish layers have created an extraordinary palimpsest. The Cappella Palatina (1143) is the world's finest example of Arab-Norman architecture. Ballarò Market has operated for over 1,000 years. The 8,000 mummies of the Capuchin Catacombs are the world's most striking memento mori.

California's mid-century modern oasis — a 50,000-person resort city tucked against the 10,800 ft wall of San Jacinto Peak, 1.5 hours east of Los Angeles in the Coachella Valley. The town carries the highest concentration of preserved 1950s-60s desert modernism in the country (Modernism Week every February draws 162,000 attendees). The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway climbs 8,500 vertical ft to alpine wilderness in 10 minutes; Joshua Tree National Park is 30 minutes east. Pool culture is the local religion — over 100 hotels are designed around the courtyard pool. Coachella and Stagecoach drop into nearby Indio in April; summers spike to 45°C, but Oct-May is dry, mild, and built for cocktails.

A modern skyline rising above a historic old quarter (Casco Viejo), with the famous Panama Canal, tropical biodiversity, and a crossroads-of-the-Americas energy.

Paris lives up to the hype. The City of Light delivers world-class museums, iconic architecture, and some of the best food on the planet. Each arrondissement has its own personality — the Marais for trendy boutiques, Saint-Germain for literary cafes, Montmartre for bohemian charm. The city is surprisingly walkable and the Metro makes everything else easy to reach.

Utah's flagship ski town and the closest big-airport-to-resort drive in the US — 32 miles east of Salt Lake City via I-80, just 40 minutes from SLC International. Two world-class resorts share the basin: Park City Mountain (the largest ski resort in the US at 7,300 acres after the 2015 Canyons merger) and Deer Valley (skiers-only, perennially ranked the nation's top resort by SKI Magazine readers). Historic Main Street is a preserved 1890s silver-mining town with 64 buildings on the National Register, hosting Sundance Film Festival each January. At 7,000 ft base it's lower than Colorado giants — easier acclimation. Summer brings world-class mountain biking and the Utah Olympic Park.

Thailand's Gulf-coast resort city, 150 km southeast of Bangkok and 90 minutes by minivan from Ekkamai bus terminal. Pattaya is unapologetically commercial — the 4 km arc of Pattaya Beach faces the Walking Street nightlife strip while quieter Jomtien Beach stretches south for families and weekenders. Beyond the bars sit the half-finished 105-metre all-wood Sanctuary of Truth, the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden with its Thai dance and elephant show, Coral Island day trips from Bali Hai Pier, the Khao Phra Tamnak hilltop viewpoint, Cartoon Network water park, and more than 25 golf courses within an hour. U-Tapao (UTP) airport sits 30 minutes south, but most travellers still arrive via Bangkok BKK or DMK.

America's first UNESCO World Heritage City — where both the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787) were signed. Reading Terminal Market, Eastern State Penitentiary, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Liberty Bell are all within walking distance. The cheesesteak was invented here, and Philadelphians are passionate about all of it.

Cambodia's rapidly changing capital where French colonial architecture meets modern riverside development. The Royal Palace, sobering Tuol Sleng museum, and legendary street food scene at Central Market make it a compelling stop between Angkor Wat and the southern beaches.

America's fifth-largest city and the heart of the Valley of the Sun — 1.6 million in the city proper, nearly 5 million across the metro, sprawling across the northern Sonoran Desert at 1,086 ft elevation. The signature trio is Camelback Mountain (a 1.3-mile rock-scramble up to a city-and-desert panorama), Old Town Scottsdale (boutique-and-margarita strip 20 minutes east), and the Desert Botanical Garden (50,000 plants on 140 acres). Brutal Jun-Sep heat regularly hits 45°C, but Nov-Apr is shirtsleeve perfection — the same window the Cactus League brings 15 MLB teams here for spring training. Phoenix is also the practical gateway: Sedona is 2 hours north, the Grand Canyon 4 hours.

The only fully intact Ming and Qing Han Chinese walled city in the country — a UNESCO-listed grid of grey-brick courtyards in Shanxi province ringed by 6km of 14th-century walls you can climb for the panorama. Rishengchang on South Street was the world's first draft bank when it opened in 1823, sending silver bills as far as Mongolia. The Confucian Temple, the County Government complex, and Shuanglin and Zhenguo temples nearby fill out the historical depth. Four hours from Beijing by G-train via Taiyuan, with siheyuan courtyard guesthouses inside the walls.

Slovenia's only proper Adriatic port — a Venetian Gothic peninsula town at the tip of the country's tiny 46-km coastline. Three hundred years under Venice gave Piran the same painted house facades, the same loggia and bell tower, and the same Italianate fish-bone street pattern as the lagoon city itself. The Tartini Square sweeps marble-paved from the harbour to the Cathedral of St George on the cliff above. Hand-harvested fleur de sel still comes off the Sečovlje salt pans 8 km south using Roman-era methods. Old town is car-free and 2 hours by car from Ljubljana.

The Steel City reborn as a tech and medicine capital — three rivers (Allegheny, Monongahela, Ohio) meeting at the tip of Point State Park, 446 bridges (more than any city in the world), and 712 sets of public city steps climbing the hillsides. Andrew Carnegie's flour-and-steel empire built world-class museums (the Carnegie, the Andy Warhol, the Frick), and the city's unique topography means the Mt. Washington overlook delivers one of America's great urban skylines. Stronger transit than peers expect (free downtown T light rail, two surviving 1870s funicular Inclines), the Strip District for food markets, Primanti Brothers sandwiches since 1933, and dramatically cheaper hotels than peer Eastern US cities.

The Riviera Maya's most walkable beach town, an hour south of Cancun airport on Highway 307. The pedestrianised Quinta Avenida runs four kilometres parallel to the sand, packed with restaurants, bars, gelato counters and silver-jewellery boutiques that do not close until 1 am. Mamita's Beach anchors the casual beach-club scene to the north; the all-inclusive resort cluster pushes south toward Tulum. Ferries depart every half hour for Cozumel (35 minutes) and there is a separate boat to Isla Mujeres, which makes Playa a useful base for a Caribbean island day trip without committing to staying offshore.

Six thousand years old and counting — one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe, draped across seven hills in the Maritsa River plain two hours south of Sofia. The Roman Theatre cut into a saddle between two hills has hosted performances since 90 AD and still does in summer; the Old Town climbs a cobbled hill of timbered Bulgarian Revival mansions; the Kapana creative district below it has turned former Ottoman bazaar workshops into wine bars and design studios. Plovdiv was the 2019 European Capital of Culture and remains the most stylish small city in the Balkans.

Nepal's adventure capital sits at 830m on Phewa Lake with the Annapurna massif filling the horizon — Annapurna I (8,091m), the sacred unclimbed Machhapuchhre Fishtail (6,993m), and Dhaulagiri all visible from town on a clear morning. Lakeside (Baidam) is the laid-back tourist district — paragliding from Sarangkot is world-class. Trek launch point for Annapurna Circuit, ABC, and Poon Hill. The new Pokhara International Airport opened 2023. Domestic flight from Kathmandu is 25 minutes.

Portland is still weird, still rainy, and still one of the best small food + beer + coffee cities in America — though its downtown is in real transition since 2020. Powell's City of Books anchors the west side, food cart pods dot every neighborhood, Forest Park is a 5,200-acre wilderness in the city, and Mt. Hood plus the Columbia River Gorge are 45 minutes east.

Porto is Lisbon's grittier, more authentic northern sibling — a UNESCO-listed riverside city of blue-tiled churches, port wine cellars, and medieval alleyways. The Ribeira waterfront is stunning, the Livraria Lello bookshop inspired Harry Potter, and a port wine tasting in Vila Nova de Gaia is essential. Outstanding value with incredible food.

Prague is a fairy-tale city that somehow survived centuries of war intact. Gothic spires, baroque palaces, and art nouveau facades line cobblestone streets. The beer is world-class and cheaper than water, the food is hearty and satisfying, and the Charles Bridge at dawn is one of Europe's most magical experiences.

The Chilean Patagonia gateway to Torres del Paine, set on the milky-blue Última Esperanza Sound, three hours south of the park entrance by paved road. Once a wool-export port, Puerto Natales now turns over almost entirely on the W trek, the O circuit, and the Navimag four-day fjord ferry that arrives from Puerto Montt twice a week. Eberhard Avenue and Calle Bories make up the compact restaurant and brewpub strip, with Baguales microbrewery, Kau Lodge fireplaces, and outfitters renting tents and stoves on every block. Mylodon Cave 24 kilometres north preserves the giant ground sloth fossil that gave Bruce Chatwin his trip-opening pretext for In Patagonia.

A Pacific resort town on Banderas Bay where the Sierra Madre tumbles directly into the sea — 1.5 km of sculpture-lined Malecón, the cobblestoned Romantic Zone with its crown-towered Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, and 42 distinct beaches around the bay from family-friendly Los Muertos to roadless Yelapa to the offshore Marietas Islands' Hidden Beach. Hollywood put Puerto Vallarta on the map when John Huston filmed The Night of the Iguana here in 1963 with Burton and Taylor; it has since become Latin America's most LGBTQ+ friendly destination. Tourist infrastructure is excellent and English widely spoken; humpback whales calve in the bay December-March. The all-inclusive Hotel Zone is generic; the Romantic Zone is where Vallarta's charm actually lives.

The biggest city on Croatia's Istrian peninsula, anchored by the Pula Arena — the 6th-largest surviving Roman amphitheatre on earth and one of only six anywhere with all four side towers still standing. Built in the 1st century under Vespasian, the limestone oval still hosts summer concerts and the Pula Film Festival every July. Around it sit the Temple of Augustus on the Forum, the Triumphal Arch of the Sergii and a working harbour. Pula is also the gateway to Brijuni Islands National Park and the heart of Istria's truffle and olive oil country. About 2 hours by car from Trieste.

Puno sits on the Peruvian shore of Lake Titicaca at 3,827m (12,556 ft) — the highest navigable lake in the world and the second-largest in South America. The city itself is a brick-and-corrugated-iron working port that most travelers use as a base for two boat trips: the Uros floating reed islands (man-made platforms of bundled totora reeds, inhabited by ~2,000 Uros people who built them centuries ago to escape Inca and then Colla incursions) and the Quechua-speaking weaving island of Taquile. Add the pre-Inca chullpa burial towers at Sillustani (40 km north) and the cross-border bus to La Paz, Bolivia, and Puno earns its 1-2 nights for travelers heading south.

A small Hindu pilgrimage town in central Rajasthan built around a sacred lake ringed by 52 ghats and dominated by the only major Brahma temple in India - the rare temple to the creator god in a country that overwhelmingly favours Vishnu and Shiva. Pushkar is a strict vegetarian and alcohol-free zone year round, anchoring a slow backpacker scene of rooftop cafes and Aravalli sunset hikes for most of the calendar. Once a year, on the November full moon, the desert outside town fills with the Pushkar Camel Fair: 50,000-plus camels, horses, and cattle traded over five days in the year's flagship Rajasthani spectacle. Ajmer railhead is 30 minutes east.