All Destinations

Spain's vibrant capital pulses with energy from late-night tapas bars to world-class museums like the Prado and Reina Sofía. The city lives outdoors — grand plazas, Retiro Park, and a nightlife scene that doesn't start until midnight.

South India's temple capital — Meenakshi Amman Temple is one of the world's great Hindu complexes, with 14 gopuram towers encrusted in 33,000 painted stucco figures, the tallest soaring 52 metres above the old city. 15,000 pilgrims visit daily; the temple never closes. Madurai is one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, with Greek accounts from 300 BCE, and is nicknamed 'the city that never sleeps.' The Gandhi Museum houses the dhoti the Mahatma was wearing when assassinated.

Picasso's birthplace on the Costa del Sol — a sun-drenched port city with world-class museums, Moorish fortresses, superb tapas, and beach life just steps from the historic center.

The Christian-majority capital of North Sulawesi province, perched on a tropical bay 1.5 degrees north of the equator and almost entirely visited as the launch point for Bunaken Marine Park — a 75,000-hectare protected reserve whose vertical reef walls drop 1,500 metres into the Sulawesi Sea and routinely deliver mantas, barracuda tornadoes, hawksbills and 70+ coral species on a single dive. Inland, the cool Tomohon plateau hosts Indonesia's most fragrant flower market and the Pasar Beriman extreme market where Minahasan cooks shop for paniki, rica-rica and tinutuan porridge. Bitung and Lembeh Strait, an hour east, deliver world-class muck diving for rare critters.

Manaus is the unlikely metropolis dropped into the middle of the Amazon — a city of 2.2 million people 1,400 km up the river from the Atlantic, reachable by air or by multi-day boat and absolutely not by road from anywhere most travellers come from. The fortunes of the rubber boom (1879-1912) built the pink Teatro Amazonas opera house — Italian marble, French chandeliers, all hauled up the river in pieces — and you visit Manaus today for two reasons: the city itself (the opera house, the Adolpho Lisboa market, the Meeting of the Waters where the black Rio Negro and sandy Solimões flow side by side without mixing for 6 km) and as the launchpad for jungle lodges and riverboat trips into the Amazon proper.

The Philippines' chaotic, colorful capital is a melting pot of Spanish colonial history, shopping malls, incredible street food, and warm Filipino hospitality — and a gateway to 7,000+ islands.

Mozambique's capital on Maputo Bay — the City of Acacias has broad Portuguese colonial boulevards, the Eiffel-designed Iron House (Casa de Ferro, 1892), and seafood restaurants serving piri-piri prawns since the 1940s. The Maputo Special Reserve protects elephants just south of the city. One of Africa's most underrated coastal capitals.

Marrakech is a sensory explosion — the call to prayer echoing over terracotta rooftops, the maze-like medina packed with spice sellers and artisans, the Jemaa el-Fnaa square transforming nightly into an open-air theater of food stalls, musicians, and storytellers. Stay in a traditional riad and you'll feel transported centuries back in time.

France's oldest and most diverse city sits on the Mediterranean coast with the stunning Calanques national park at its doorstep. A gritty, authentic port city famous for bouillabaisse, the Vieux-Port, and the hilltop Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica.

One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world — humans have lived in the tufa-rock caves of the Sassi for 9,000 years, making Matera older than Jericho. The UNESCO-listed cave-dwelling labyrinth was Italy's "national shame" until the 1950s when the entire population (16,000 living without running water) was forcibly relocated; abandoned for 25 years, the Sassi were reborn from the 1990s as a remarkable boutique-hotel district. Mel Gibson, Pasolini, and the makers of "No Time to Die" all filmed here for the biblical-Jerusalem aesthetic. Pair the Sassi labyrinth with the cliffside Cathedral panorama, the Crypt of Original Sin ("the Sistine Chapel of rupestrian art"), and the Tibetan Bridge sunset walk across the Gravina canyon.

Medellin's transformation from notorious to innovative is one of the great urban comeback stories. The City of Eternal Spring (year-round 22°C) is now known for cable car transit connecting hillside barrios, a thriving startup scene, and a nightlife that rivals anywhere in Latin America. The Botero sculptures in Plaza Botero are a must-see.

A small UNESCO World Heritage city on the Strait that gives the strait its name, layered with five centuries of conquest. Portuguese forces took the Sultanate in 1511 and left the laterite ruin of A Famosa, the Dutch arrived in 1641 and built the brick-red Stadthuys and Christ Church around the central square, the British took over in 1824 — each layer still visible inside a 30-minute walk. The old town today is trishaws decorated with plastic flowers and LED lights blasting Malay pop, the Friday-to-Sunday Jonker Street Night Market for satay celup and chicken-rice balls, and Peranakan Nyonya cuisine that originated here. About two hours south of Kuala Lumpur and four hours from Singapore by direct coach.

Melbourne is Australia's cultural capital — a city obsessed with coffee, street art, food, and sport. The laneway culture of hidden bars and cafes, the Queen Victoria Market, and the Great Ocean Road day trip are highlights. More laid-back than Sydney, with a European-influenced food scene that's consistently ranked among the world's best.

Memphis is the soul-music capital of the American South — Beale Street neon, Sun Studio's tiny tile-floor room where Elvis cut his first record in 1954, the Stax studio where Otis Redding and Booker T. recorded, and Graceland 9 miles south where Elvis lived from 1957 until his death in 1977. The Mississippi River bluff downtown looks across to Arkansas; the National Civil Rights Museum is built into the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Add some of the best slow-cooked dry-rub barbecue in America (Rendezvous, Central BBQ, Payne's) and you have a city where music and history sit on every corner.

Argentina's wine capital sits in the Andean foothills at 750m — Malbec country. Three regions deliver: Maipú's classic vineyards close to the city, Luján de Cuyo's premium Malbecs, and Uco Valley's high-altitude trendy bodegas. Tree-lined streets after the 1861 earthquake rebuild, the huge Parque San Martín, and Aconcagua (the Americas' highest peak at 6,961m) within striking distance. Vendimia harvest festival in early March is the year's headline event.

The colonial capital of Yucatán founded by Francisco de Montejo in 1542 on the site of the Maya city of T'hó — the conquistadors used dismantled Maya pyramid stones to build the cathedral, which you can still see in the walls. Mérida is consistently ranked among the safest cities in Mexico, the cultural capital of the Yucatec Maya (the only Mexican city where you regularly hear an indigenous language in everyday life), and the gateway to Chichén Itzá, Uxmal, and the Yucatán cenotes. The Paseo de Montejo is a French-influenced boulevard lined with henequen-boom mansions; the Mercado Lucas de Gálvez serves the best cochinita pibil in the country; the Sunday Bici-Ruta closes the city centre to cars. Heat April-May is brutal — visit November-February.

Mexico City is one of the world's great megacities — a sprawling, vibrant metropolis built on the ruins of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. The food scene rivals any city on earth (from street tacos to world-ranked restaurants), the museums are extraordinary, and the neighborhoods are endlessly walkable. A cultural powerhouse at altitude.

Miami is tropical America with a Latin pulse — pastel Art Deco along Ocean Drive, Wynwood's street-art galleries, Little Havana's dominoes and cafecito, and some of the country's best clubbing. The Everglades and Florida Keys are day-trip distance, and Miami Beach's Atlantic sand is steps from downtown.

Italy's economic engine and undisputed fashion capital — the Duomo's Gothic spires over the rooftop terraces, Leonardo's Last Supper on a refectory wall, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II's 19th-century glass vault, aperitivo hour on the Navigli canals, and La Scala opera house whose opening night (December 7th, Sant'Ambrogio) stops the city every year. Milan generates 10% of Italian GDP and hosts the world's most important design and fashion events.

Milwaukee earned its German-immigrant brewing reputation honestly — Pabst, Schlitz, Miller, and Blatz all started here, and the beer halls and corner taverns still anchor the city's social life. The Lake Michigan shoreline gives Milwaukee a 1,000-mile-long swimming pool, the white sail-like Calatrava-designed art museum is the most photographed building in Wisconsin, and the cobblestoned Third Ward warehouse district has become the food and craft hub. Add the Harley-Davidson Museum (the company was founded here in 1903), Bucks championship-era basketball, fish fries every Friday night, and you've got the quintessential Great Lakes city.

The Mississippi River city built around St. Anthony Falls — the only natural waterfall on the entire 2,340-mile river — with 22 lakes inside city limits, the 50-mile Grand Rounds parkway connecting them all, and the world's largest enclosed Skyway system (9.5 miles of climate-controlled second-floor corridors connecting 80 downtown blocks for the brutal winters). Prince was born and lived almost his entire life here; Paisley Park and First Avenue are the music pilgrimage sites. The Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Institute of Art (permanently free) are world-class; the Mall of America is 12 miles south. Twin city to St. Paul, 11 miles east — one airport, one transit system, no clear hierarchy between them.

Jamaica's second city and tourism capital offers white-sand beaches, reggae culture, jerk chicken, and a gateway to the Blue Mountains and Dunn's River Falls.

Uruguay's laid-back capital stretches along the Río de la Plata with beautiful rambla boardwalks, Art Deco architecture, and the legendary Mercado del Puerto for grilled meats. A relaxed, walkable city with mate culture on every corner.

Montreal is the most European city in North America — French-speaking, festival-obsessed, and blessed with a food scene that rivals any major city. Old Montreal's cobblestone streets and basilica, the Plateau's colorful staircases, and the underground city are highlights. The bagels are better than New York's (don't @ us), and poutine is a religion.