Ten hand-picked places in each of 51 countries — major cities, historic sites, coastlines, national parks and a few places most lists leave out. Filter by the kind of trip you want, or jump straight to a country. One entry, Syria, is a heritage overview rather than a trip to plan, and is marked as such.
South America
Tango and steak in Buenos Aires, glaciers and granite peaks in Patagonia, Andean vineyards, painted northern canyons and the thunder of Iguazu, across one of the longest countries on earth.
Buenos Aires, on the Río de la Plata
Argentina's capital: a city of European architecture and Latin passion, with Plaza de Mayo, Recoleta Cemetery, San Telmo, La Boca, Teatro Colón, tango and some of the best food and nightlife in the Americas.
Don't miss A slow dinner of grilled beef and Malbec in Palermo at 10pm, followed by a milonga where the dancers do not stop until dawn.
Explore Destination — Buenos AiresSanta Cruz, southern Patagonia
The gateway to Los Glaciares National Park, with the spectacular Perito Moreno Glacier, boat trips to the Upsala and Spegazzini glaciers, ice trekking and Patagonian estancias.
Don't miss Standing on the walkways as a house-sized block of ice breaks away and thunders into the lake.
Explore Destination — El Calafate and the Perito Moreno GlacierSanta Cruz, southern Patagonia
A hiker's paradise in Los Glaciares National Park, with day walks to Laguna de los Tres and Laguna Torre beneath some of the world's most dramatic granite peaks.
Don't miss Reaching Laguna de los Tres at dawn, as the first light turns the Fitz Roy needles orange above the frozen lagoon.
Explore Destination — El Chaltén and Fitz RoyMisiones, north-east Argentina
The Argentine side of Iguazú Falls holds most of the 275 cascades, seen from a network of circuits and walkways in a subtropical rainforest national park, with the Devil's Throat as its finale.
Don't miss The walkway over the lip of the Devil's Throat, where the roar is deafening and mist surrounds you.
Explore Destination — Iguazú Falls (Argentine side)Río Negro and Neuquén, northern Patagonia
Argentina's lakes and mountains playground: Nahuel Huapi National Park, the Circuito Chico, Llao Llao, Cerro Catedral, the Seven Lakes road and Villa La Angostura, with skiing in winter and hiking in summer.
Don't miss The Circuito Chico at sunset, with the lake turning pink and Llao Llao on its peninsula.
Explore Destination — Bariloche and the Lake DistrictMendoza, Cuyo, central Andes
Argentina's premier wine region: Luján de Cuyo, Maipú and the Uco Valley, plus the elegant city of Mendoza, the Andean road to Aconcagua and outdoor adventures.
Don't miss A long lunch with a Malbec in hand on a winery terrace, with the snowy Andes on the horizon.
Explore Destination — Mendoza Wine CountrySalta and Jujuy, north-west Argentina
A colourful region of Salta's colonial centre, the canyons of Cafayate, the UNESCO-listed Quebrada de Humahuaca, Purmamarca's coloured hill, Salinas Grandes and the Train to the Clouds.
Don't miss The Hill of Seven Colours at Purmamarca, glowing at dawn above the adobe village and the market.
Explore Destination — Salta, Jujuy and the North-WestTierra del Fuego, southern tip of Argentina
A port at the end of the world, with Beagle Channel cruises, Tierra del Fuego National Park, the End of the World Train, penguins and the departure point for Antarctic cruises.
Don't miss Sailing the Beagle Channel past sea lions and the red-and-white Les Éclaireurs lighthouse, with the mountains behind.
Explore Destination — Ushuaia and Tierra del FuegoChubut, Atlantic coast of Patagonia
One of the best wildlife-watching places in the Americas: whales from June to December, elephant seals, sea lions, penguins, guanacos and, at the right tide, hunting orcas, all in a UNESCO-listed reserve.
Don't miss A southern right whale mother and calf surfacing beside your boat in the calm waters of Golfo Nuevo.
Explore Destination — Península ValdésCorrientes, north-east Argentina
One of South America's largest freshwater wetlands, a remote nature reserve of lagoons and marshes, with boat safaris, walking, horse riding, and a pioneering rewilding project.
Don't miss Drifting in a small boat at dawn among floating islands, with caimans, capybaras and hundreds of birds in every direction.
Explore Destination — Esteros del IberáOceania
A continent-sized country of harbour cities, red desert, coral reef, tropical rainforest and the world's oldest living cultures, where the distances are vast and the outdoors is the main attraction.
New South Wales, east coast
Australia's largest city: the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, The Rocks, the Botanic Garden, Bondi and Manly beaches, cliff walks, ferries and a lively food and café scene.
Don't miss A ferry across the harbour at sunset, with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge lit gold behind you.
Explore Destination — SydneyFar North Queensland
Two UNESCO World Heritage wonders in one: reef trips from Cairns and Port Douglas, and the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation, plus the scenic railway to Kuranda.
Don't miss Floating over a coral garden on the outer reef, with turtles and shoals of fish drifting past.
Explore Destination — Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef and the DaintreeNorthern Territory, central Australia
A UNESCO-listed desert landscape of Uluru and Kata Tjuta, owned by the Anangu people, with base walks, sunsets, cultural experiences and Kings Canyon within a day's drive.
Don't miss Uluru at sunrise, as the rock turns from purple to orange to red.
Explore Destination — Uluru and the Red CentreVictoria, south-east Australia
A sophisticated city of coffee culture, street art, grand Victorian architecture, galleries, markets and sport, with day trips to the Yarra Valley, Phillip Island and the Great Ocean Road.
Don't miss Wandering the laneways with a flat white in hand, from Hosier Lane's murals to the hidden cafés behind Flinders Street.
Explore Destination — MelbourneVictoria, south-west coast
A war memorial road built by returned soldiers, winding past Bells Beach, Lorne, Apollo Bay, the Otway rainforest and the Twelve Apostles, with wildlife, waterfalls and shipwreck history.
Don't miss The Twelve Apostles at sunset, as the limestone stacks glow gold in the surf.
Explore Destination — The Great Ocean RoadTasmania, island state south of the mainland
Australia's island state: Hobart and MONA, Cradle Mountain, Freycinet and Wineglass Bay, Port Arthur, Bruny Island and a wilderness of national parks, with a superb food scene.
Don't miss The view of Wineglass Bay from the lookout, a perfect white crescent of sand between pink granite peaks.
Explore Destination — TasmaniaQueensland, central coast
A group of tropical islands on the Great Barrier Reef, with Whitehaven Beach, Hill Inlet, sailing, snorkelling, reef trips and the resort island of Hamilton.
Don't miss Hill Inlet at low tide, where swirling sand and turquoise water form patterns you can see from the lookout.
Explore Destination — The WhitsundaysNew South Wales, west of Sydney
A UNESCO-listed wilderness two hours from Sydney, with Katoomba's Three Sisters, Scenic World, Wentworth Falls, cliff walks, Leura's gardens and the Jenolan Caves.
Don't miss The Three Sisters at sunset from Echo Point, as the valley turns blue and the cliffs glow orange.
Explore Destination — The Blue MountainsWestern Australia, south-west
Perth's Kings Park, Fremantle and Cottesloe Beach, the quokkas of Rottnest Island and the wineries, caves, surf and forests of Margaret River, in Australia's remote west.
Don't miss Sunset over the Indian Ocean from Cottesloe Beach, or a glass of cabernet in the Margaret River vines.
Explore Destination — Perth and Margaret RiverNorthern Territory, tropical north
Australia's largest national park, a UNESCO site for both nature and culture, with Ubirr and Nourlangie rock art, Yellow Water cruises, Jim Jim Falls and Litchfield, reached from Darwin.
Don't miss Sunset from Ubirr, looking over the floodplains after a walk past thousands of years of rock art.
Explore Destination — Kakadu and the Top EndCentral Europe
Imperial Vienna's palaces and coffee houses, Salzburg's baroque old town, and an Alpine landscape of lakes and peaks that made half the country a postcard before photography existed.
Vienna
Austria's imperial capital, its Habsburg-era palaces, opera houses and coffee houses still central to how the city lives today.
Don't miss Schönbrunn Palace's gardens at golden hour, the former imperial summer residence's gravel paths stretching toward a hilltop gloriette.
Explore Destination — ViennaSalzburg
Mozart's baroque birthplace, its UNESCO-listed old town crowned by a hilltop fortress and surrounded by Sound of Music countryside.
Don't miss The view from Hohensalzburg Fortress at dusk, the baroque old town's spires and the Salzach River spread out below as the light fades.
Explore Destination — SalzburgSalzkammergut, Upper Austria
Austria's most photographed village, its pastel houses wedged between a mountainside and a turquoise Alpine lake.
Don't miss The classic view of Hallstatt from across the lake, the village's church spire and pastel houses stacked beneath the mountains and reflected in the water.
Explore Destination — HallstattTyrol
Tyrol's capital, its medieval old town wedged so tightly between the Alps that the mountains dominate the view from nearly every street.
Don't miss The view down Maria-Theresien-Strasse toward the snow-capped Nordkette range, the old town's baroque facades framed directly by the mountains behind them.
Explore Destination — InnsbruckStyria
Austria's second city, its UNESCO-listed old town and lively university culture underrated relative to Vienna's fame.
Don't miss The view from Schlossberg hill at dusk, Graz's red-tiled old town spreading out below as the clock tower's silhouette catches the last light.
Explore Destination — GrazLower Austria
A UNESCO-listed Danube valley of terraced vineyards, castle ruins and riverside wine villages, worth more than a passing glance from a train window.
Don't miss The view from Dürnstein's castle ruins over the Danube, terraced vineyards curving with the river below and the village's blue-domed church spire in the foreground.
Explore Destination — Wachau ValleyTyrol
A medieval Tyrolean town turned world-famous ski resort, home to the legendary Hahnenkamm downhill race and a charming Alpine old town.
Don't miss The view from the top of the Hahnenkamm mountain, the legendary Streif downhill course dropping away below toward the town's colourful rooftops.
Explore Destination — KitzbühelSalzburg province
A lakeside Alpine resort town beneath Austria's highest peak, paired with the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, one of Europe's most dramatic mountain drives.
Don't miss The view from the Edelweissspitze viewpoint on the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, glaciated peaks stretching in every direction from over 2,500 metres.
Explore Destination — Zell am See & the Grossglockner High Alpine RoadBurgenland
Burgenland's low-key capital and a shallow steppe lake shared with Hungary, at the centre of Austria's warmest, most overlooked wine region.
Don't miss Sunset over Lake Neusiedl's reed-lined shore, the shallow steppe lake's wide horizon a different Austrian landscape from the Alps most visitors expect.
Explore Destination — Eisenstadt & Lake NeusiedlVorarlberg
Austria's westernmost city, on the shore of Lake Constance where Austria, Germany and Switzerland meet, home to a spectacular floating opera stage.
Don't miss The Bregenz Festival's floating stage on Lake Constance at dusk, a surreal setting for opera with the lake and mountains as a backdrop.
Explore Destination — Bregenz & Lake ConstanceSouth America
Samba and beaches in Rio, the world's greatest waterfalls at Iguazu, the Amazon and the Pantanal's wildlife, colonial towns and a culture of music, football and warmth.
Rio de Janeiro State, south-east Brazil
Brazil's most famous city: Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf Mountain, Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, the Tijuca rainforest, Santa Teresa, samba and Carnival.
Don't miss Sunset from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, as the city lights come on around the bay.
Explore Destination — Rio de JaneiroParaná, on the border with Argentina
One of the world's great waterfalls: a UNESCO-listed complex of cascades on the Iguazu River, seen from panoramic Brazilian walkways and the closer, more varied Argentine trails.
Don't miss Standing on the platform above the Devil's Throat, wrapped in mist and rainbows as the river plunges into the abyss.
Explore Destination — Iguazu FallsBahia, north-east Brazil
A UNESCO-listed colonial city on a bay, with the Pelourinho, the Elevador Lacerda, Afro-Brazilian traditions, capoeira, candomblé, beaches and unique Bahian food.
Don't miss Night falling over the Pelourinho, with drums echoing off the pastel facades and baianas selling acarajé.
Explore Destination — SalvadorAmazonas State, northern Brazil
Manaus and the Rio Negro: the Meeting of the Waters, jungle lodges, the Anavilhanas archipelago, pink river dolphins, giant water lilies and the Teatro Amazonas.
Don't miss Gliding by canoe through flooded forest at dawn, with monkeys calling and the river black as coffee.
Explore Destination — The Amazon and ManausMato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, central-west Brazil
One of the world's best places for wildlife: jaguars at Porto Jofre, caimans, capybaras, giant otters and hundreds of bird species, seen by boat, safari truck and horseback.
Don't miss A jaguar padding along the riverbank in the golden light of late afternoon, from a small boat on the Cuiabá River.
Explore Destination — The PantanalCosta Verde, Rio de Janeiro State
A UNESCO-listed colonial town on a bay, with cobbled streets, cachaça distilleries and schooner trips, plus the traffic-free island of Ilha Grande with jungle trails and beaches.
Don't miss A schooner cruise around the bay, with swims off deserted islands and cachaça in hand.
Explore Destination — Paraty and Ilha GrandeSão Paulo State, south-east Brazil
Brazil's financial and cultural capital: Avenida Paulista and MASP, Ibirapuera Park, the Municipal Market, Beco do Batman, Liberdade and a spectacular food and nightlife scene.
Don't miss A mortadella sandwich in the Mercado Municipal, followed by an evening among the murals of Vila Madalena.
Explore Destination — São PauloPernambuco, Atlantic Ocean archipelago
A UNESCO-listed island 350 km off the north-east coast, with turquoise bays, marine life, snorkelling, diving and a low-key, high-price resort atmosphere.
Don't miss The Baía do Sancho at sunrise, reached down a cliff-side ladder to an empty crescent of sand.
Explore Destination — Fernando de NoronhaMaranhão, north-east Brazil
A national park of about 1,500 square kilometres of dunes and seasonal lagoons on Brazil's north coast, explored from Barreirinhas and Santo Amaro by 4x4, boat and on foot.
Don't miss Wading through a warm, clear lagoon between dunes at sunset, with not another person in sight.
Explore Destination — Lençóis MaranhensesMinas Gerais, south-east Brazil
One of Brazil's first UNESCO sites: a colonial mining town with baroque churches, museums, cobbled hills and mineiro food, with historic Mariana and other colonial towns nearby.
Don't miss The interior of the Church of São Francisco de Assis, with its ceiling by Ataíde and sculptures by Aleijadinho.
Explore Destination — Ouro Preto and Minas GeraisAsia
Angkor's ancient temples, the Mekong, quiet beaches and a warm, resilient welcome.
Siem Reap Province, north-west Cambodia
A UNESCO World Heritage Site covering over 400 square kilometres, with Angkor Wat, the faces of the Bayon, the jungle-wrapped Ta Prohm and dozens of other temples.
Don't miss Watching the towers of Angkor Wat emerge from the dark at sunrise.
Explore Destination — Angkor Archaeological ParkSiem Reap Province
A relaxed city with Pub Street, the Old Market, Phare circus, Royal Gardens and trips to the Tonle Sap floating villages.
Don't miss Eating fish amok in the old market after a day among temples.
Explore Destination — Siem Reap and Tonle SapPhnom Penh Municipality
A busy riverside capital with the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda, National Museum, Central Market, Tuol Sleng, Choeung Ek and a growing food scene.
Don't miss Watching the sun set over the river from a rooftop after a day of palaces and markets.
Explore Destination — Phnom PenhBattambang Province, north-west Cambodia
A relaxed provincial capital with French architecture, a contemporary arts scene, the bamboo train, Phnom Sampov bat cave and temples.
Don't miss Riding the rattling bamboo train through green fields.
Explore Destination — BattambangKampot and Kep Provinces, southern coast
A relaxed southern coast with colonial architecture, Kampot pepper, river cruises, Bokor Hill, Kep crab market and Rabbit Island.
Don't miss Floating down the Kampot river at sunset, then eating crab in Kep.
Explore Destination — Kampot and KepPreah Sihanouk Province, Gulf of Thailand
Two islands with beaches, snorkelling, jungle trails and a relaxed beach vibe, reached by ferry from Sihanoukville.
Don't miss Swimming through glowing plankton at night on a quiet beach.
Explore Destination — Koh Rong and Koh Rong SamloemKratie Province, north-east Cambodia
A riverside provincial town with Irrawaddy dolphins at Kampi, Koh Trong island, sunsets over the Mekong and French-era buildings.
Don't miss Watching Irrawaddy dolphins surface in the golden light of the Mekong.
Explore Destination — KratieMondulkiri Province, eastern Cambodia
A cool highland province with Sen Monorom, Bunong culture, waterfalls, elephant sanctuaries and wild forest.
Don't miss Walking with rescued elephants through the hills of Mondulkiri.
Explore Destination — MondulkiriPreah Vihear and Siem Reap Provinces
Two remote Khmer sites: Beng Mealea, a half-collapsed temple swallowed by the jungle, and Koh Ker, a 10th-century capital with a dramatic pyramid.
Don't miss Climbing a seven-tier pyramid in the forest with almost no one else around.
Explore Destination — Koh Ker and Beng MealeaSiem Reap Province
A day trip north of Angkor: the delicate Banteay Srei, the River of a Thousand Lingas at Kbal Spean, and the sacred Kulen Mountain with waterfalls.
Don't miss Examining carvings so fine they look like lace, at the "citadel of women".
Explore Destination — Banteay Srei and Kulen MountainNorth America
Turquoise glacial lakes, French colonial old towns and a thundering waterfall shared with the United States, spread across the world's second-largest country.
Alberta
The postcard image of the Canadian Rockies, home to Lake Louise, Moraine Lake and a charming mountain town in Canada's first national park.
Don't miss Standing at Lake Louise's shoreline at sunrise, the water so still it perfectly mirrors the glacier and peaks behind it.
Explore Destination — Banff & Lake LouiseAlberta
A wilder, quieter half of the Canadian Rockies, home to the walkable Athabasca Glacier, Maligne Lake's Spirit Island and one of the world's largest dark sky preserves.
Don't miss Standing on the Athabasca Glacier's ancient ice, a river of frozen water older than any city on Earth flowing imperceptibly beneath your boots.
Explore Destination — Jasper National ParkBritish Columbia
A rare city where mountains, forest and ocean all meet downtown, home to Stanley Park, Granville Island and some of North America's best Asian food.
Don't miss Cycling the Stanley Park seawall at golden hour, downtown's glass towers on one side and the Coast Mountains rising straight from the water on the other.
Explore Destination — VancouverBritish Columbia
North America's largest ski resort, reached via the scenic Sea to Sky Highway, with genuine year-round mountain adventure beyond winter sports.
Don't miss Riding the Peak 2 Peak Gondola between Whistler and Blackcomb, the valley floor over 400 metres below the world's longest unsupported cable span.
Explore Destination — WhistlerOntario
Canada's largest and most multicultural city, home to the CN Tower, the Distillery District's Victorian warehouses and neighbourhoods representing the world.
Don't miss Standing on the CN Tower's glass floor, 342 metres of open air the only thing between your feet and the street below.
Explore Destination — TorontoOntario
One of the world's most powerful waterfalls, straddling the US-Canada border, with Niagara-on-the-Lake's wine country just up the parkway.
Don't miss Standing at the rail as the boat pushes right into Horseshoe Falls' mist, the roar suddenly drowning out every other sound.
Explore Destination — Niagara FallsQuebec
North America's most European-feeling city, home to French colonial Old Montreal, Notre-Dame Basilica and a food scene built for eating well.
Don't miss Standing beneath Notre-Dame Basilica's deep blue, gold-starred ceiling, one of the most ornate church interiors anywhere on the continent.
Explore Destination — MontrealQuebec
The only walled city north of Mexico in North America, home to Château Frontenac, Old Quebec's colonial streets and Montmorency Falls nearby.
Don't miss Watching the sun set from Dufferin Terrace, Château Frontenac glowing above the St Lawrence River exactly as it has for well over a century.
Explore Destination — Quebec CityPrince Edward Island
Canada's smallest province, home to the red sand beaches and farmland that inspired Anne of Green Gables, plus some of the country's best seafood.
Don't miss Walking a red sand beach at low tide, the cliffs behind glowing rust-orange in the evening light exactly as they do in the books that made this island famous.
Explore Destination — Prince Edward IslandManitoba
A remote town on Hudson Bay famous for wild polar bears, summer beluga whales and some of the best northern lights viewing in North America.
Don't miss Watching wild polar bears from the safety of a Tundra Buggy as they wait on the shore for Hudson Bay to freeze.
Explore Destination — ChurchillSouth America
Desert, glaciers, volcanoes and vineyards stretched along the Pacific, with Easter Island far offshore.
Santiago Metropolitan Region
Chile's capital and gateway: Plaza de Armas, La Moneda, Mercado Central, bohemian barrios, hill-top parks and Maipo Valley wineries within an hour.
Don't miss Looking out from Cerro San Cristobal as the Andes glow pink at dusk.
Explore Destination — SantiagoValparaiso Region, central coast
A UNESCO-listed port with 42 hills, cable-car lifts, street art, the Neruda house and the seaside resort of Vina del Mar nearby.
Don't miss Riding a century-old funicular up a hillside of painted houses.
Explore Destination — ValparaisoAntofagasta Region, northern Chile
A small oasis town in the Atacama Desert at 2,400 metres, base for the Valle de la Luna, El Tatio geysers, flamingo lagoons, salt flats and astronomy tours.
Don't miss Stargazing in one of the driest places on Earth after a day of salt lakes and geysers.
Explore Destination — San Pedro de AtacamaMagallanes Region, Chilean Patagonia
A UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in southern Patagonia, famous for the W Trek, the O Circuit, Grey Glacier, guanacos and pumas.
Don't miss Hiking to the base of the three granite towers at sunrise, when they glow red.
Explore Destination — Torres del PaineValparaiso Region, Pacific Ocean
One of the most remote inhabited islands on Earth, a UNESCO site with nearly 900 moai, crater lakes, beaches and Rapa Nui culture.
Don't miss Watching the sun rise behind fifteen giant moai at Ahu Tongariki.
Explore Destination — Easter Island (Rapa Nui)Los Lagos Region, southern Chile
An island archipelago with 16 UNESCO-listed wooden churches, palafito stilt houses, Chilote cuisine, penguin colonies and folklore.
Don't miss Eating curanto cooked in an earth pit, then watching penguins from a boat.
Explore Destination — ChiloeLa Araucania Region, Lake District
A lakeside adventure town with a volcano climb, rafting, hot springs, araucaria forests and Mapuche culture.
Don't miss Climbing the active Villarrica volcano at dawn and sliding down on your boots.
Explore Destination — Pucon and VillarricaCoquimbo Region, northern Chile
A green valley in the Andean foothills with pisco distilleries, observatories, the village of Pisco Elqui, Gabriela Mistral's home and stargazing.
Don't miss Sipping pisco in a village under one of the clearest night skies in the world.
Explore Destination — Elqui ValleyAysen Region, Patagonia
One of the world's great road trips, from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins, passing Queulat, Marble Caves, Cerro Castillo and the Northern Patagonian Ice Field.
Don't miss Drifting by boat through blue marble caves on Lake General Carrera.
Explore Destination — Carretera AustralLos Lagos Region
A relaxed lakeside base for Petrohue Falls, Lake Todos los Santos, Vicente Perez Rosales National Park and kuchen cafes.
Don't miss Watching Osorno volcano turn pink at sunset over Lake Llanquihue.
Explore Destination — Puerto Varas and the Lake DistrictEast Asia
A country so large that its bullet trains cover the distance of Western Europe, with three thousand years of continuous history at one end of the line and neon megacities at the other.
Beijing Municipality
China's capital for most of the last eight centuries, where a walled Ming palace, tai-chi parks and some of the country's best duck sit inside a modern megacity of 22 million.
Don't miss The Forbidden City — 980 buildings and nearly 9,000 rooms, the seat of Chinese emperors for nearly five hundred years.
Explore Destination — BeijingShaanxi
China's ancient capital for eleven dynasties and over a thousand years, where an emperor's buried army meets a walled old city and the best street food in the country.
Don't miss The Terracotta Army — over 8,000 individually sculpted life-size warriors, discovered by farmers digging a well in 1974.
Explore Destination — Xi'anShanghai Municipality
China's financial capital and its most international city, where a preserved 1920s waterfront stares across the river at a skyline that is barely three decades old.
Don't miss The Bund at dusk — a row of 1920s European banking houses facing the futuristic towers of Pudong across the Huangpu River.
Explore Destination — ShanghaiGuangxi
China's most photographed landscape: limestone karst peaks by the thousand, a slow river cruise between two towns, and rice-paddy cycling at the quieter end.
Don't miss The Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo — four hours drifting between thousands of forested karst peaks rising straight out of the water.
Explore Destination — Guilin & YangshuoHunan
China's strangest national park: over three thousand sandstone pillars, a glass bridge slung between two cliffs, and the tallest outdoor elevator on earth.
Don't miss The Avatar Hallelujah Mountain — a needle-thin sandstone pillar wreathed in cloud that directly inspired the floating mountains of Avatar.
Explore Destination — ZhangjiajieSichuan
Sichuan's capital, where giant pandas, the country's spiciest food and an unhurried pace of life make the case for slowing an itinerary down.
Don't miss The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding — dozens of pandas, from newborn cubs to full-grown adults, in naturalistic enclosures best seen at their most active in the early morning.
Explore Destination — ChengduHong Kong Special Administrative Region
A Special Administrative Region of China with its own laws, currency and border, where dense high-rise city meets green mountains, fishing villages and some of the best dim sum on earth.
Don't miss The Star Ferry crossing Victoria Harbour at dusk — the cheapest, best view in the city, skyscrapers lighting up on both shores at once.
Explore Destination — Hong KongYunnan
China's most ethnically diverse province, where a UNESCO-listed canal town, snow-capped mountains and terraced valleys sit far from the country's historic east-coast centres.
Don't miss Lijiang's Old Town at dawn — canal-lined cobbled lanes and Naxi-style wooden houses, quiet before the day's crowds arrive.
Explore Destination — Lijiang & YunnanAnhui
The mountain that shaped a thousand years of Chinese landscape painting, with Ming and Qing-dynasty villages preserved almost untouched at its base.
Don't miss Sunrise over Huangshan's sea of clouds — granite peaks breaking through mist below the summit hotels, the single image most associated with classical Chinese landscape painting.
Explore Destination — Huangshan & the Anhui VillagesJiangsu & Zhejiang
Two canal-and-lake cities under ninety minutes from Shanghai, one built around the most celebrated classical gardens in China, the other around a lake that has shaped a thousand years of poetry.
Don't miss The Humble Administrator's Garden in Suzhou — the largest and most celebrated classical garden in China, its pavilions, ponds and rockeries composed like a three-dimensional painting.
Explore Destination — Suzhou & HangzhouSouth America
Caribbean walled cities, Andean coffee hills, a reinvented Medellín, wax palms, cloud-forest hikes and a warmth that surprises everyone who comes.
Bolívar, Caribbean coast
A colourful walled port city with the Clock Tower, San Felipe fortress, Getsemaní's street art, Caribbean seafood, nightlife and boat trips to the Rosario Islands.
Don't miss Watching the sun set from the old city walls with a cold drink as the plazas fill with music.
Explore Destination — CartagenaCundinamarca, Andean highlands
Colombia's capital at 2,640 metres, with La Candelaria's colonial streets, the Gold and Botero museums, Monserrate, street art, restaurants and the Zipaquirá Salt Cathedral.
Don't miss Riding the cable car to the Monserrate sanctuary for a view over the vast city.
Explore Destination — BogotáAntioquia, Aburrá Valley
Colombia's innovation city, with Comuna 13's street art and escalators, Plaza Botero, Metrocable rides, Parque Arví, El Poblado's restaurants and a mild climate all year.
Don't miss Riding the Metrocable up to the hillside neighbourhoods, with the whole valley spread out below.
Explore Destination — MedellínAntioquia, east of Medellín
A colourful town on a reservoir near Medellín, with painted zócalos, the 200-metre El Peñol rock, boat trips and lakeside walks.
Don't miss The view from the top of El Peñol, over a maze of islands and reservoir arms.
Explore Destination — Guatapé and El PeñolQuindío, Coffee Cultural Landscape
The heart of Colombia's Coffee Axis, with the pretty village of Salento, the Cocora Valley's 60-metre wax palms, coffee farm tours, hummingbirds and trout.
Don't miss Walking among the world's tallest palms, rising out of the mist above green pastures.
Explore Destination — Salento and the Cocora ValleyMagdalena, Caribbean coast
Tayrona National Park's hidden beaches and forest trails, the colonial port of Santa Marta, the cloud forest village of Minca and the multi-day trek to Ciudad Perdida.
Don't miss Reaching Cabo San Juan, a palm-fringed beach with a hammock hut on a rocky point, after a walk through the jungle.
Explore Destination — Tayrona and Santa MartaBoyacá, Andean highlands
A perfectly preserved colonial town three hours from Bogotá, with the huge Plaza Mayor, whitewashed streets, Iguaque hikes, waterfalls, fossils and wineries.
Don't miss Standing in the vast Plaza Mayor, a cobbled square the size of several football pitches, with the town's white walls and red roofs around it.
Explore Destination — Villa de LeyvaSantander, north-east Andes
A beautifully preserved colonial town of white walls and terracotta roofs, with a stone cathedral, artisan workshops, the Camino Real hike to Guane and outdoor sports in nearby San Gil.
Don't miss Walking the old stone Camino Real trail from Barichara to the village of Guane.
Explore Destination — BaricharaSan Andrés y Providencia, western Caribbean
A small coral island 775 km from the Colombian mainland, with Johnny Cay, Rocky Cay, snorkelling, scuba diving, the Hoyo Soplador blowhole and Raizal Creole culture.
Don't miss Floating in the shallow, seven-shades-of-blue water off Johnny Cay.
Explore Destination — San AndrésMeta, Serranía de la Macarena
A remote river in the Serranía de la Macarena whose rocks and aquatic plants turn vivid colours during the rainy-to-dry transition, reached only by flight and guided tours.
Don't miss Wading beside a rock pool where red aquatic plants glow beneath crystal-clear water.
Explore Destination — Caño CristalesCentral America
Rainforest, volcanoes and two coasts, with some of the most accessible wildlife in the world.
Alajuela Province, northern Costa Rica
An adventure hub at the foot of Arenal Volcano, with La Fortuna Waterfall, natural hot springs, hanging bridges, Lake Arenal and wildlife.
Don't miss Soaking in a warm river as the Arenal volcano towers overhead.
Explore Destination — Arenal and La FortunaPuntarenas Province, Tilaran Mountains
A high-altitude cloud forest community with biodiversity reserves, canopy walks, ziplines, night walks and coffee farms.
Don't miss Walking a hanging bridge through the clouds and spotting a resplendent quetzal.
Explore Destination — MonteverdePuntarenas Province, central Pacific coast
Costa Rica's most visited park, with beaches, forest trails, wildlife, rafting nearby and views from the hills of Quepos.
Don't miss Spotting a sloth overhead, then swimming at a hidden beach.
Explore Destination — Manuel AntonioLimon Province, northern Caribbean coast
A remote Caribbean national park of rainforest canals, turtle nesting beaches, caimans, monkeys and birdlife.
Don't miss Watching a green turtle haul itself ashore to nest at night.
Explore Destination — TortugueroPuntarenas Province, southern Pacific coast
A remote peninsula holding Corcovado National Park, one of the last large tracts of Pacific lowland rainforest, with Drake Bay and Puerto Jimenez as bases.
Don't miss Walking at dawn on a remote beach with scarlet macaws overhead.
Explore Destination — Corcovado and the Osa PeninsulaGuanacaste Province, north-west Pacific coast
The most developed beach area of Costa Rica, with surfing at Tamarindo, quieter beaches like Conchal and Flamingo, turtle nesting and the Guanacaste dry forest.
Don't miss Catching a sunset surf lesson, then dinner on the sand.
Explore Destination — Tamarindo and GuanacasteLimon Province, Caribbean coast
A relaxed stretch of coast with Cahuita National Park, Punta Uva, surf at Salsa Brava, chocolate tours and Afro-Caribbean food.
Don't miss Cycling along the coast to a black-sand beach with howler monkeys overhead.
Explore Destination — Puerto Viejo and CahuitaSan Jose Province, Central Valley
Costa Rica's capital and transport hub, with the National Theatre, gold museum, central market and day trips to volcanoes and coffee farms.
Don't miss Sipping coffee at a market, then visiting the gold museum under the National Theatre's dome.
Explore Destination — San JoseGuanacaste Province, north-west Costa Rica
A national park around an active volcano, with fumaroles, waterfalls, hot springs, canopy tours and horseback rides.
Don't miss Soaking in a volcanic stream after a morning on the waterfall trail.
Explore Destination — Rincon de la ViejaPuntarenas Province, Nicoya Peninsula
A rugged southern Nicoya coast with Santa Teresa, Malpais, Montezuma, waterfalls and some of the best surf in Costa Rica.
Don't miss Surfing at sunrise, then eating fresh fish on the sand.
Explore Destination — Santa Teresa and the Nicoya PeninsulaSouthern Europe
The Adriatic's walled cities and impossibly blue islands, backed by waterfalls that look retouched even before you've cropped the photo.
Dalmatia
The Adriatic's most complete medieval walled city, home to nearly two kilometres of intact fortifications, a marble old town and Fort Lovrijenac.
Don't miss Walking the full circuit of the City Walls at sunrise, the Old Town's terracotta rooftops glowing below and the Adriatic stretching out on the other side.
Explore Destination — DubrovnikDalmatia
A 1,700-year-old Roman emperor's palace that never stopped being a living city, Croatia's second city and the main gateway to the Dalmatian islands.
Don't miss Sitting for a coffee in the Peristyle at dusk, Roman columns and a sphinx from Luxor lit up exactly where Diocletian once held court.
Explore Destination — SplitDalmatia
Croatia's glamorous lavender island, a medieval harbour town backed by a hilltop fortress, with the pine-covered Pakleni Islands scattered just offshore.
Don't miss Watching the sun set from Fortica's ramparts, Hvar Town's terracotta rooftops and the Pakleni Islands glowing below.
Explore Destination — HvarLika
Croatia's most famous national park, sixteen terraced turquoise lakes cascading into each other through travertine dams and waterfalls.
Don't miss Standing on a boardwalk with turquoise water flowing directly beneath your feet, Veliki Slap thundering into the pool ahead.
Explore Destination — Plitvice LakesCentral Croatia
Croatia's underrated Central European capital, home to St Mark's colourfully tiled church roof, the Museum of Broken Relationships and a genuine café culture.
Don't miss Sitting for a slow coffee on Tkalčićeva Street, the whole city seemingly in no hurry to be anywhere else.
Explore Destination — ZagrebIstria
Istria's most photographed town, pastel houses rising straight from the Adriatic, with the region's celebrated truffle and wine country just inland.
Don't miss Watching the old town's lights come on from a boat just offshore, St Euphemia's bell tower catching the last of the sunset.
Explore Destination — RovinjDalmatia
A Dalmatian coastal city where the sea makes music through the Sea Organ, backed by a Roman Forum and one of the Adriatic's best sunsets.
Don't miss Sitting on the Sea Organ's steps at dusk, waves sighing through hidden pipes as the Monument to the Sun begins to glow underfoot.
Explore Destination — ZadarDalmatia
A quieter, equally beautiful alternative to Hvar, a walled medieval town that claims Marco Polo as a native son, surrounded by Korčula's own vineyards.
Don't miss Wandering the old town's herringbone streets, each angled just enough to block the wind and let the sea breeze cool every doorway.
Explore Destination — KorčulaDalmatia
A quieter alternative to Plitvice Lakes, cascading travertine waterfalls in the Dalmatian hinterland, centred on Skradinski Buk and Visovac Island's monastery.
Don't miss Watching Skradinski Buk's wide curtain of falls from the boardwalk, a monastery just visible on a tiny island upstream.
Explore Destination — Krka National ParkIstria
Home to one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres on Earth, Istria's largest city, gateway to Cape Kamenjak and the Brijuni Islands.
Don't miss Standing inside Pula Arena's full oval bowl, one of only a handful of Roman amphitheatres left this complete anywhere in the world.
Explore Destination — PulaCentral Europe
Prague's fairy-tale skyline, fairy-tale towns beyond it, and a beer culture so central to daily life that pubs function as the country's real town squares.
Bohemia
Central Europe's best-preserved historic capital, home to Prague Castle, Charles Bridge and one of the world's great beer cultures.
Don't miss Crossing Charles Bridge at first light, its baroque statues silhouetted against the castle before the day's crowds arrive.
Explore Destination — PragueCentral Bohemia
A once-fabulously wealthy medieval silver-mining town near Prague, home to the Sedlec Ossuary's bone-decorated chapel and the soaring Gothic St Barbara's Cathedral.
Don't miss Stepping into the Sedlec Ossuary and realising the chandeliers, garlands and coat of arms overhead are all built from real human bones.
Explore Destination — Kutná HoraSouth Bohemia
Bohemia's fairy-tale town, a UNESCO-listed medieval old town wrapped in a horseshoe bend of the Vltava River beneath a dramatic hilltop castle.
Don't miss Looking down from the castle tower at dusk, the old town's red rooftops curling around the river exactly as they have for centuries.
Explore Destination — Český KrumlovWest Bohemia
Bohemia's grandest 19th-century spa town, its mineral hot springs framed by ornate colonnades, the Grandhotel Pupp and forested hills.
Don't miss Sipping warm mineral water from a spa cup while strolling the Mill Colonnade's arcades, exactly as visitors have for two centuries.
Explore Destination — Karlovy VaryWest Bohemia
The birthplace of pilsner, home to the original Pilsner Urquell brewery, a soaring Gothic cathedral and Europe's second-largest synagogue.
Don't miss Watching unfiltered, unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell poured straight from an oak tank in the brewery's original cellars.
Explore Destination — PlzeňNorth Bohemia
A dramatic sandstone wilderness in North Bohemia, home to Europe's largest natural rock arch, deep river gorges and towering rock formations.
Don't miss Drifting silently through Edmund Gorge on a small boat, sheer sandstone walls rising on both sides of the narrow, still river.
Explore Destination — Bohemian SwitzerlandVysočina (Bohemian-Moravian Highlands)
A near-perfectly preserved Renaissance square on the Bohemia-Moravia border, its gabled arcaded houses and castle ringed by artificial ponds.
Don't miss Standing in the empty square at dawn, pastel Renaissance gables reflected perfectly in the still surface of the surrounding ponds.
Explore Destination — TelčSouth Moravia
Moravia's underrated capital, home to Špilberk Castle, the mummified Capuchin Crypt and the UNESCO-listed modernist Villa Tugendhat.
Don't miss Standing in Villa Tugendhat's open-plan living space, realising an entire century of modernist architecture traces back to this single 1930 house.
Explore Destination — BrnoSouth Moravia
A vast UNESCO-listed landscaped garden shared by two fairy-tale chateaux, Lednice and Valtice, at the heart of Moravia's wine country.
Don't miss Cycling a quiet lane between vineyard villages, stopping at a family-run cellar for wine poured by the person who actually made it.
Explore Destination — Lednice-ValticeCentral Moravia
Moravia's historic university city, home to the UNESCO-listed Holy Trinity Column, a striking socialist-realist astronomical clock and its own pungent cheese.
Don't miss Standing beneath the Holy Trinity Column at dusk, floodlights picking out four decades of baroque sculpture stacked 35 metres into the sky.
Explore Destination — OlomoucNorth Africa
A country where five-thousand-year-old monuments still stand in daily use as landmarks, and the Nile remains the reason anyone can live here at all.
Greater Cairo
Egypt's sprawling capital, home to the Great Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and a historic old city of mosques, museums and centuries-old bazaars.
Don't miss Standing at the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza, unable to fully comprehend that it was already over 2,000 years old when Cleopatra was born.
Explore Destination — Cairo & GizaUpper Egypt
The site of ancient Thebes, home to Karnak and Luxor temples, the Valley of the Kings, and a wealth of ancient sites often called the world's largest open-air museum.
Don't miss Drifting silently over the Valley of the Kings in a hot air balloon at dawn, the whole west bank of temples and tombs spread out below in the first light.
Explore Destination — LuxorUpper Egypt
Egypt's most relaxed Nile city, home to living Nubian culture, the beautifully relocated Philae Temple, and Abu Simbel's colossal cliffside statues.
Don't miss Watching the sun set over the Nile from a felucca, drifting slowly past Elephantine Island as Aswan's granite hills turn gold.
Explore Destination — AswanUpper Egypt
A multi-night journey between Luxor and Aswan, the classic way to see the Nile's temples at Edfu and Kom Ombo without repeated hotel changes.
Don't miss Waking up on deck to find the boat has moored beside a temple overnight, stepping straight off the gangplank into Kom Ombo before the day's heat sets in.
Explore Destination — A Nile CruiseMediterranean Coast
Egypt's Mediterranean second city, founded by Alexander the Great, home to a striking modern library, ancient catacombs and a long seafront corniche.
Don't miss Standing on the ramparts of Qaitbay Citadel, built from the fallen stones of the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria, waves from the same Mediterranean crashing below.
Explore Destination — AlexandriaSouth Sinai
Egypt's largest Red Sea resort town, home to Ras Mohammed National Park and some of the most extraordinary coral reef diving and snorkelling on Earth.
Don't miss Drifting over Ras Mohammed's coral wall, a sheer drop into deep blue water lined with more fish species than seems possible in one place.
Explore Destination — Sharm El SheikhSouth Sinai
Egypt's laid-back Red Sea diving town, a former Bedouin fishing village built around house-reef diving, the legendary Blue Hole and a famously relaxed backpacker pace.
Don't miss Sitting cross-legged on cushions at a seafront camp in Masbat, watching the sun rise pink over the Gulf of Aqaba after an early dive.
Explore Destination — DahabRed Sea
Egypt's original and largest Red Sea resort city, built around long beach hotels, offshore reef and wreck diving, and easy day trips to Giftun Island and El Gouna.
Don't miss Cutting the engine over the Abu Nuhas wrecks, sunlight falling through impossibly clear water onto a century-old ship's hull.
Explore Destination — HurghadaWestern Desert
A surreal Sahara landscape of wind-carved white chalk formations, reached via Bahariya Oasis and typically explored on an overnight desert camping safari.
Don't miss Lying back on a rug beside a campfire deep in the White Desert, its ghostly chalk formations glowing under an uninterrupted blanket of stars.
Explore Destination — White Desert & Bahariya OasisMatrouh Governorate
Egypt's most remote and culturally distinct oasis, home to the Oracle Temple of Amun, the ruined mudbrick town of Shali, salt lakes and the Great Sand Sea.
Don't miss Floating effortlessly in a warm salt lake at sunset, the crumbling towers of Shali's mudbrick old town glowing gold on the horizon.
Explore Destination — Siwa OasisWestern Europe
Alpine summits, Atlantic oyster beds, Roman ruins and the world's most visited city — inside one very well-connected country.
Île-de-France
France's capital packs more world-class museums, monuments and neighbourhood restaurants into six square miles than anywhere else in Europe. It rewards walking more than ticking off a list.
Don't miss The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and Sainte-Chapelle — three of Europe's great collections within one Métro ride of each other.
Explore Destination — ParisVaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
A landscape of ochre cliffs, perched stone villages and vineyards between the Rhône and the Alps, with the best-preserved Roman monuments outside Italy on its western edge.
Don't miss The Pont du Gard, a three-tier Roman aqueduct that has stood for two thousand years without mortar.
Explore Destination — Provence & the LuberonAlpes-Maritimes, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
France's fifth city curves around a two-mile bay of blue water, with an old town that was Italian until 1860 and a local rail line linking a dozen coastal villages.
Don't miss The Cours Saleya flower market, then the coastal train to Villefranche, Èze and Menton for €2 a hop.
Explore Destination — Nice & the French RivieraCentre-Val de Loire
France's royal playground for two centuries: Renaissance châteaux, formal gardens and crisp white wine strung along 170 miles of the country's longest river, an hour from Paris.
Don't miss Chenonceau, arched on five spans across the River Cher — the most beautiful building in France by most reckonings.
Explore Destination — The Loire ValleyManche, Normandy
A rock in a vast tidal bay, crowned by an abbey that took five centuries to build. Some three million people visit a year, and almost all of them leave before the best hours.
Don't miss The abbey after the day-trippers leave, when the village empties and the bay goes silent.
Explore Destination — Mont-Saint-MichelHaute-Savoie, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
A valley town beneath a 4,808-metre summit, where glaciers reach almost to the treeline and a network of lifts puts high-alpine terrain within reach of anyone.
Don't miss The Aiguille du Midi: a rock spire with a viewing terrace at 3,842 m, reached by the highest vertical-ascent cable car in the world.
Explore Destination — Chamonix & Mont BlancGironde, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
An 18th-century city of pale limestone facades along a curving river, transformed over two decades from soot-blackened port to one of France's most liveable cities.
Don't miss The Miroir d'Eau opposite the Place de la Bourse: the world's largest reflecting pool, and the best free show in France.
Explore Destination — BordeauxCalvados and Manche, Normandy
Five beaches, a dozen museums, cliff-top batteries and immaculately kept cemeteries, in a green farming region that also gave the world Camembert, cider and Calvados.
Don't miss The Normandy American Cemetery above Omaha Beach — 9,388 graves in white marble, looking down on the sand.
Explore Destination — Normandy & the D-Day BeachesBas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin, Grand Est
A region that changed nationality four times in seventy-five years and kept both cultures — French administration, German architecture, and a food and wine tradition that belongs to neither.
Don't miss Strasbourg Cathedral's astronomical clock and the 142-metre spire you can climb for a view into three countries.
Explore Destination — Strasbourg & AlsaceDordogne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine
A limestone valley of castles, walnut groves and honey-coloured villages, holding the densest concentration of prehistoric sites in Europe and France's richest regional cooking.
Don't miss Lascaux — the most sophisticated prehistoric art ever found, seen through a replica so exact you forget it is one.
Explore Destination — The Dordogne & SarlatCentral Europe
A federal country of sixteen states that never fully merged into one culture, from Bavarian beer halls to Hanseatic ports, threaded together by a rail network and a history it faces more directly than almost any other nation.
Berlin
Germany's capital: a city that confronts its 20th-century history directly, rebuilt into one of Europe's most creative, affordable and alive capitals.
Don't miss The Brandenburg Gate at dusk, once the literal dividing line of the city, now the backdrop to a Berlin that has spent three decades reunifying in more than just name.
Explore Destination — BerlinBavaria
Bavaria's capital: beer halls, world-class museums, a genuine mountain backdrop and a confident regional identity distinct from the rest of Germany.
Don't miss The Marienplatz's Glockenspiel chiming above the Gothic New Town Hall, with the Bavarian Alps visible on a clear day from the tower above.
Explore Destination — MunichBavaria
A signposted route through Bavaria's best-preserved medieval towns, ending at Neuschwanstein and the Alpine foothills — Germany's most fairytale corner.
Don't miss Neuschwanstein Castle rising from the forest above Hohenschwangau, the single most photographed building in Germany and the direct inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle.
Explore Destination — The Romantic Road & NeuschwansteinHamburg
Germany's great port city: a Hanseatic trading history, a working harbour, and a distinct maritime identity in the north.
Don't miss The Elbphilharmonie's glass wave-shaped crown rising above the harbour, a concert hall built on top of a century-old warehouse and now the city's defining new landmark.
Explore Destination — HamburgNorth Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate
Germany's fourth-largest city, its landmark Gothic cathedral, and the UNESCO-listed Rhine Gorge downstream — castles, vineyards and river towns in close succession.
Don't miss Cologne Cathedral's twin spires, the tallest twin-spired church in the world, somehow surviving World War II's bombing of the city around it almost completely intact.
Explore Destination — Cologne & the Rhine ValleySaxony
Saxony's capital: a baroque old town meticulously rebuilt after 1945's devastating bombing, holding some of Germany's finest art collections along the Elbe.
Don't miss The Frauenkirche's rebuilt dome, its facade a genuine patchwork of blackened original stones and pale new ones, standing again after firebombing left it a heap of rubble for over four decades.
Explore Destination — DresdenBaden-Württemberg
A dense forested mountain region in Germany's southwest, home to spa towns, cuckoo clocks, Black Forest gateau and some of the country's best hiking.
Don't miss Triberg's waterfall crashing through the forest, Germany's highest, and the small town beneath it that essentially invented the cuckoo clock as a global souvenir industry.
Explore Destination — The Black ForestBavaria
A medieval Franconian city, rebuilt after wartime destruction, carrying both a genuine imperial past and a direct, honestly presented Nazi-era history.
Don't miss The Kaiserburg's fortified silhouette above Nuremberg's rebuilt medieval old town, a skyline that has represented imperial power, propaganda and reckoning within the same century.
Explore Destination — NurembergBaden-Württemberg
A baroque university town on the Neckar river, its old town undamaged by the war, below a ruined castle and along a valley lined with more castles still.
Don't miss The view from the Philosophers' Walk across the Neckar to Heidelberg Castle and the old town below it, the single most reproduced postcard image of Romantic Germany.
Explore Destination — Heidelberg and the Neckar ValleyMecklenburg-Vorpommern
Germany's largest island, its white chalk cliffs and elegant seaside resorts forming a Baltic coastline most visitors never associate with the country.
Don't miss The Königsstuhl chalk cliff dropping sheer into the Baltic's blue-green water, framed by beech forest, one of Germany's most photographed natural views.
Explore Destination — Rügen and the Baltic CoastSouthern Europe
The birthplace of Western civilization's founding myths and monuments, spread across a mainland and thousands of islands where ancient ruins, Byzantine monasteries and whitewashed villages sit within a single, well-connected country.
Attica
Greece's capital, its ancient monuments standing directly within a lively modern city rather than curated apart from it.
Don't miss The Parthenon at dusk, floodlit above the city, the same silhouette that has crowned Athens for nearly 2,500 years.
Explore Destination — AthensCyclades
A volcanic caldera island, its whitewashed villages perched along the rim above brilliant blue water, Greece's most photographed island for real reason.
Don't miss Oia's blue-domed churches and cave houses at sunset, the single most photographed view in Greece, and deserving of the reputation.
Explore Destination — SantoriniCyclades
Greece's most famous nightlife island, its beautiful whitewashed old town and windmills often overshadowed by its reputation for beach clubs and parties.
Don't miss Little Venice's waterfront houses, their balconies hanging directly over the sea, lit warm at sunset alongside the row of historic windmills above.
Explore Destination — MykonosCrete
Greece's largest island, its scale rewarding a dedicated trip across Minoan ruins, Venetian harbour towns, mountain gorges and excellent beaches.
Don't miss The Palace of Knossos, the ceremonial heart of Europe's oldest advanced civilization, still standing nearly 4,000 years after it was first built.
Explore Destination — CreteDodecanese
A Dodecanese island pairing one of Europe's best-preserved medieval walled towns with the clifftop Acropolis of Lindos and dependable Aegean beaches.
Don't miss The medieval Old Town of Rhodes, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of Europe's largest inhabited medieval towns, its walls and knights'-era streets still standing largely intact.
Explore Destination — RhodesThessaly
Six working monasteries perched atop sheer sandstone pillars in central Greece, a UNESCO World Heritage site unlike anywhere else in the country.
Don't miss The Holy Trinity Monastery, standing alone atop its own isolated rock pillar, reachable only by a steep staircase carved into the stone itself.
Explore Destination — MeteoraCentral Greece
The ancient world's most important oracle site, its ruined sanctuary spread dramatically across a mountainside once believed to mark the centre of the earth.
Don't miss The Temple of Apollo, home to the Oracle of Delphi, whose pronouncements shaped decisions across the ancient Greek world for centuries.
Explore Destination — DelphiPeloponnese
An elegant Venetian port town paired with the Peloponnese's dense concentration of ancient sites, from Mycenae to Epidaurus.
Don't miss Nafplio's Bourtzi fortress, a small Venetian island castle sitting directly in the town's harbour, among the most photogenic sights in the Peloponnese.
Explore Destination — Nafplio and the PeloponneseIonian Islands
A lush Ionian island shaped by centuries of Venetian rule, its UNESCO-listed old town paired with striking coastline and green scenery.
Don't miss Corfu's Old Town, a well-preserved Venetian fortress town and UNESCO World Heritage Site, its architecture unlike anywhere else in Greece.
Explore Destination — CorfuCentral Macedonia
Greece's underrated second city, a Byzantine and Ottoman crossroads with a food and nightlife scene many Greeks rate above Athens's own.
Don't miss The White Tower on Thessaloniki's waterfront, the city's defining Byzantine and Ottoman-era landmark and the anchor of its lively seafront promenade.
Explore Destination — ThessalonikiEurope
Thermal baths beneath grand Habsburg boulevards, castle hills, sweet Tokaji wine, the wide plains of the puszta and a Danube capital that shines after dark.
Central Hungary, on the Danube
Hungary's capital, with the Parliament, Buda Castle, Fisherman's Bastion, Széchenyi thermal baths, the Great Market Hall, ruin bars and Danube views.
Don't miss The Parliament building lit up on the Danube at night, seen from a river cruise or the Buda bank.
Explore Destination — BudapestPest and Komárom-Esztergom, north of Budapest
A day-trip loop from Budapest to the baroque artists' town of Szentendre, the royal citadel at Visegrád and the basilica at Esztergom, along a picturesque stretch of the Danube.
Don't miss The view from Visegrád's citadel over the Danube's great S-shaped bend.
Explore Destination — The Danube BendHeves, northern Hungary
A baroque town with a 16th-century castle, Europe's northernmost minaret, thermal baths and family cellars in the Szépasszony-völgy, home of Egri Bikavér, Bull's Blood wine.
Don't miss Tasting Bull's Blood red wine in a cellar carved into the hillside of the Valley of the Beautiful Women.
Explore Destination — EgerTransdanubia, western Hungary
A 77-km-long lake with the Tihany Peninsula, Badacsony's basalt hills and wine, Balatonfüred's promenade and the Festetics Palace at Keszthely, popular for swimming, sailing and wine.
Don't miss Tihany Abbey on its peninsula above the lake at sunset, with lavender fields in July.
Explore Destination — Lake BalatonBorsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, north-east Hungary
A UNESCO-listed wine region and small town at the meeting of two rivers, with cellars, vineyard villages, sweet Aszú wine and dry Furmint.
Don't miss Tasting a glass of amber Tokaji Aszú in a centuries-old cellar cut into volcanic rock.
Explore Destination — TokajBaranya, southern Hungary
A Mediterranean-feeling city with early Christian tombs, the Gazi Kasim Pasha Mosque, a four-towered cathedral, Zsolnay ceramics and nearby Villány red wines.
Don't miss The Mosque-Church on Széchenyi Square, a domed Ottoman mosque topped with a cross.
Explore Destination — PécsHajdú-Bihar, Great Hungarian Plain
Hungary's oldest national park and a UNESCO cultural landscape, with the Nine-Hole Bridge, horse shows, traditional herding, birdwatching and crane migration.
Don't miss Riding horsemen across the open puszta at sunset under a huge sky.
Explore Destination — Hortobágy National ParkGyőr-Moson-Sopron, western Hungary
A well-preserved medieval town on the Austrian border, with the Fire Tower, Roman and Gothic remains, Baroque streets, Kékfrankos wine and an easy trip to Lake Fertő.
Don't miss The view from the Fire Tower's balcony over the medieval rooftops of the old town.
Explore Destination — SopronCsongrád-Csanád, southern Hungary
A lively southern city rebuilt after a great flood in 1879, with the Votive Church, Reök Palace, riverside promenades, halászlé fish soup and Szeged paprika and salami.
Don't miss The Votive Church's twin spires above Dóm Square, the heart of the city.
Explore Destination — SzegedNógrád, northern Hungary
A UNESCO-listed old village of about 55 preserved houses in the Cserhát hills, with a 13th-century castle, folk museums, Palóc crafts and Easter festivities.
Don't miss The Old Village's whitewashed houses and wooden gables in the hills, still lived in today.
Explore Destination — HollókőNorthern Europe
A volcanic island where glaciers, waterfalls, geysers and black sand beaches sit within a single day's drive of a capital city, under skies that barely darken in summer or brighten in winter.
Capital Region
Iceland's small, walkable capital, its colourful rooftops, geothermal pools and harbourfront concert hall anchoring almost every trip to the country.
Don't miss Standing at the foot of Hallgrímskirkja's 74-metre tower, the whole colourful, low-rise city spread out below toward the bay and the mountains beyond.
Explore Destination — ReykjavikSouthern Iceland
Iceland's most-visited route, looping past a UNESCO rift valley, an erupting geyser and a thundering waterfall within a single day from Reykjavik.
Don't miss Watching Strokkur's water dome swell for a few seconds before erupting in a sudden column of steam and spray, metres from where you're standing.
Explore Destination — The Golden CircleSouthern Iceland
Iceland's single most photographed stretch of coast, its waterfalls, black sand beaches and glaciers strung along one accessible road from Reykjavik.
Don't miss Walking the path that ducks fully behind Seljalandsfoss's curtain of falling water, the whole valley framed through it.
Explore Destination — The South CoastSouth-East Iceland
A glacier lagoon and ice cave country at the edge of Vatnajökull, Europe's largest ice cap by volume, with icebergs drifting to a black sand beach.
Don't miss Watching a seal surface between drifting icebergs at Jökulsárlón, Vatnajökull's blue-white ice cap rising behind the lagoon.
Explore Destination — Jökulsárlón and VatnajökullWestern Iceland
A compact peninsula holding glaciers, lava fields, black churches and dramatic coastline within a single day's loop, often called 'Iceland in miniature.'
Don't miss Kirkjufell's near-perfect cone reflected in its own waterfall's pool, one of the most photographed views in Iceland.
Explore Destination — Snæfellsnes PeninsulaReykjanes Peninsula, Southwest Iceland
A world-famous geothermal spa on Iceland's volcanic front doorstep, surrounded by lava fields, hot springs and a lighthouse at the edge of the sea.
Don't miss Sinking shoulder-deep into the Blue Lagoon's warm, milky-blue water with a silica mask on, steam rising into cold air around you.
Explore Destination — Blue Lagoon & the Reykjanes PeninsulaNorth Iceland
A geothermal lake region in North Iceland, ringed by lava formations, mudpots and waterfalls, with Akureyri and Húsavík's whale watching close by.
Don't miss Standing on the boardwalk at Hverir as sulphurous steam roars out of the ground around you, the air thick with the smell of a living volcano.
Explore Destination — Lake Mývatn & North IcelandNorthwest Iceland
Iceland's remote northwest arm, a maze of fjords with towering bird cliffs, a red sand beach and some of the country's least-visited scenery.
Don't miss Lying flat on the grass at the top of Látrabjarg as thousands of puffins bob on the sea far below, utterly alone but for the birds.
Explore Destination — The WestfjordsCentral Highlands, South Iceland
Iceland's remote volcanic highlands, home to a natural hot spring, rainbow-coloured rhyolite mountains and the multi-day Laugavegur trek.
Don't miss Soaking in Landmannalaugar's naturally warm stream as the low sun turns the surrounding rhyolite mountains shades of orange, pink and green.
Explore Destination — Landmannalaugar & the HighlandsVestmannaeyjar, South Iceland
A dramatic volcanic archipelago off Iceland's south coast, home to a 1973 eruption's frozen aftermath and vast puffin colonies.
Don't miss Standing on the rim of Eldfell, a volcano that didn't exist before 1973, looking down over the town it nearly buried.
Explore Destination — The Westman IslandsAsia
The Taj Mahal, Rajasthan's palace cities, the Ganges at dawn, Kerala's backwaters and the world's most varied food, in a country that rewards patience like no other.
Uttar Pradesh, northern India
Home to the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort and the abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri: three UNESCO sites that together define Mughal India.
Don't miss The Taj Mahal at sunrise, when the marble turns from grey to pink to white.
Explore Destination — AgraNational Capital Territory of Delhi, northern India
India's capital: a city of layered history with the Red Fort, Humayun's Tomb, the Qutb Minar, Jama Masjid, the boulevards of New Delhi and some of the country's best food.
Don't miss Humayun's Tomb in the late afternoon, and a plate of kebabs in Old Delhi afterwards.
Explore Destination — DelhiRajasthan, northern India
The capital of Rajasthan, a UNESCO-listed walled city with the Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Amber Fort, and India's best craft shopping.
Don't miss Amber Fort in the early morning, before the crowds and the heat.
Explore Destination — JaipurUttar Pradesh, Ganges plain
The holiest city in Hinduism, on the Ganges: bathing ghats, cremation grounds, the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Sarnath's Buddhist monuments and an atmosphere unlike anywhere else.
Don't miss A rowing boat at sunrise, drifting past the ghats as pilgrims bathe and pray.
Explore Destination — VaranasiRajasthan, southern Mewar
The most romantic city in Rajasthan: the City Palace on Lake Pichola, the Lake Palace, Jagdish Temple, the old bazaars and the surrounding Aravalli hills, with day trips to Ranakpur and Kumbhalgarh.
Don't miss A boat on Lake Pichola at sunset, with the City Palace glowing above the water.
Explore Destination — UdaipurKerala, south-western India
Kerala's slow, watery landscapes: houseboats and canoes on the Alleppey backwaters, the historic port of Fort Kochi, the tea hills of Munnar and a rich food and dance heritage.
Don't miss A dawn canoe ride on a quiet backwater canal, with kingfishers on the palms and village life waking up.
Explore Destination — Kerala: Backwaters and KochiMaharashtra, west coast
The financial and film capital of India, with the Gateway of India, the UNESCO-listed Victorian and Art Deco ensembles, Elephanta Caves, street food and a vibrant arts scene.
Don't miss A stroll along Marine Drive at dusk, as the lights come on along the Queen's Necklace.
Explore Destination — MumbaiGoa, west coast
A former Portuguese colony with 100 km of beaches, the UNESCO-listed churches of Old Goa, the Latin Quarter of Panjim, forts, markets and a food culture found nowhere else in India.
Don't miss Fresh fish and a cold drink at a beach shack, watching the sun drop into the Arabian Sea.
Explore Destination — GoaPunjab, north-western India
The Punjabi city of the Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple, with its free community kitchen, the Jallianwala Bagh memorial, the Partition Museum and the daily border ceremony at Wagah.
Don't miss The Golden Temple at dawn, when the gold reflects in the still water and the hymns begin.
Explore Destination — AmritsarKarnataka, southern India
A UNESCO-listed archaeological landscape of temples, palaces and markets from the 14th to 16th centuries, with a living temple town, river crossings and a rocky, otherworldly setting.
Don't miss Sunrise from Matanga Hill, with the boulders and temple towers glowing across the valley.
Explore Destination — HampiSoutheast Asia
The world's largest archipelago, where volcanoes, rice terraces, coral reefs and Komodo dragons sit scattered across more than seventeen thousand islands.
Bali
Bali's inland cultural centre, surrounded by rice terraces, ancient temples and a deep-rooted arts and wellness scene.
Don't miss Watching the Tegalalang rice terraces catch the late-afternoon light, their stepped green tiers dropping away down the valley.
Explore Destination — UbudBali
Bali's beach and nightlife corridor, mixing surf breaks, sunset beach clubs and easy access to Tanah Lot and Uluwatu's clifftop temples.
Don't miss Watching the sun drop into the Indian Ocean from a beach club sunlounger, a cocktail in hand and surfers silhouetted against the last light.
Explore Destination — Seminyak & KutaCentral Java
Java's cultural heart, home to a royal palace, batik and gamelan traditions, and two of Southeast Asia's greatest ancient temples nearby.
Don't miss Watching the sun rise over Borobudur's stone stupas as mist clears from the surrounding volcanoes, the temple's silhouette emerging first.
Explore Destination — Yogyakarta & BorobudurEast Java
An otherworldly volcanic landscape in East Java, centred on Mount Bromo's smoking crater and a vast sea of black volcanic sand.
Don't miss Standing on the Penanjakan viewpoint before dawn as the sky turns orange and Bromo's crater emerges from the mist, still faintly smoking.
Explore Destination — Mount Bromo & Tengger SemeruEast Nusa Tenggara
A dramatic island region in eastern Indonesia, home to wild Komodo dragons, pink sand beaches and some of the country's best diving.
Don't miss Standing on Padar Island's viewpoint at sunrise, three curved bays of black, white and pink sand spreading out below in every direction.
Explore Destination — Komodo National Park & FloresWest Papua
A remote archipelago off West Papua holding the richest marine biodiversity on Earth, its karst islands rising straight out of turquoise water.
Don't miss Looking down from the Piaynemo viewpoint over dozens of jungle-topped karst islands scattered across turquoise water in every direction.
Explore Destination — Raja AmpatWest Nusa Tenggara
A quieter alternative to Bali, home to three car-free Gili Islands, the trekking peak of Mount Rinjani and a distinct Sasak culture.
Don't miss Watching the sun set behind Bali's volcanoes from a Gili Trawangan beach bar, no cars or scooters anywhere in earshot.
Explore Destination — Lombok & the Gili IslandsJava
Indonesia's sprawling capital, home to a colonial old town, the country's tallest monument and a serious food scene.
Don't miss Watching the sun set behind Monas from Merdeka Square, the golden flame atop the monument catching the day's last light.
Explore Destination — JakartaNorth Sumatra
The world's largest volcanic lake, in the highlands of North Sumatra, ringed by the distinct architecture and traditions of the Batak people.
Don't miss Standing on Samosir Island looking back across the water at the caldera walls that ring the entire lake, still hard to believe the whole thing is one volcanic crater.
Explore Destination — Lake TobaWest Java
A cool highland city in West Java, ringed by volcanic craters and tea plantations, with some of Indonesia's best regional food.
Don't miss Standing at the rim of Kawah Putih, its pale turquoise lake and bone-white shoreline looking more like another planet than West Java.
Explore Destination — BandungNorthern Europe
A small island of green hills, sheer Atlantic cliffs and medieval towns, where a warm welcome and a good story are never far away.
Leinster
Ireland's capital, a compact, walkable city of medieval castles, world-class museums and a legendary pub and music culture.
Don't miss Standing in the Long Room of Trinity College's Old Library, beneath its barrel-vaulted ceiling and thousands of ancient volumes, feet from the Book of Kells.
Explore Destination — DublinCounty Kerry
A lakeland national park and Ireland's most famous scenic loop road, threading past mountains, coves and centuries-old estates in County Kerry.
Don't miss Pulling over at Ladies View on the Ring of Kerry as the clouds briefly part over the Lakes of Killarney below.
Explore Destination — Killarney & the Ring of KerryCounty Clare
Sheer 200-metre Atlantic cliffs and the otherworldly limestone karst of the Burren, two of Ireland's most striking natural landscapes side by side in County Clare.
Don't miss Walking the cliff-edge path near O'Brien's Tower as the Atlantic crashes 200 metres below and the full curve of the cliffs comes into view.
Explore Destination — The Cliffs of Moher & the BurrenCounty Galway
A compact, music-filled city on Galway Bay, known for its medieval Latin Quarter, festivals and easy access to Connemara and the west coast.
Don't miss Standing on the Spanish Arch as the tide comes in off Galway Bay, with a fiddle session already starting up in a pub across the street.
Explore Destination — GalwayCounty Cork
Ireland's food-loving second city and the historic harbour town of Cobh, the Titanic's last port of call and the departure point for millions of Irish emigrants.
Don't miss Standing at the rail of Cobh's harbourfront, looking out at the exact spot where the Titanic made her final stop before crossing the Atlantic.
Explore Destination — Cork & CobhCounty Galway
A wild stretch of bogland, mountains and jagged coastline west of Galway, home to Kylemore Abbey, wild ponies and some of Ireland's emptiest, most dramatic scenery.
Don't miss Rounding a bend on the Sky Road outside Clifden to a sudden, sweeping view of the Atlantic and its scattering of small green islands.
Explore Destination — ConnemaraCounty Kilkenny
A compact, exceptionally well-preserved medieval city in southeast Ireland, anchored by its castle, a 6th-century round tower and a genuine brewing heritage.
Don't miss Walking the Medieval Mile from the castle to St Canice's Cathedral as the round tower comes into view above the rooftops.
Explore Destination — KilkennyCounty Kerry
A compact peninsula of ancient beehive huts, a dramatic mountain pass and Dingle town, one of Ireland's most beloved harbour towns for food and music.
Don't miss Cresting Conor Pass and seeing the whole peninsula spread out below, mountains dropping straight into the Atlantic on both sides.
Explore Destination — The Dingle PeninsulaCounty Donegal
Ireland's remote northwestern county, home to Slieve League's towering sea cliffs, Glenveagh National Park and some of the country's least-visited coastline.
Don't miss Standing at the top of Slieve League as the cliffs drop 600 metres straight to the Atlantic, with barely another visitor in sight.
Explore Destination — DonegalCounty Galway
Three small, Irish-speaking islands off Galway Bay, criss-crossed with stone walls and home to Dún Aengus, a dramatic Iron Age cliff-edge fort.
Don't miss Standing at the unguarded edge of Dún Aengus, a 2,000-year-old fort perched on a sheer 100-metre cliff, with nothing but a drop to the Atlantic below.
Explore Destination — The Aran IslandsWestern Asia (Middle East)
The Old City of Jerusalem, a Crusader port, a desert fortress and a Mediterranean beach city, all within a morning's drive of each other.
Jerusalem District
One of the oldest cities in the world and a centre of pilgrimage for Jews, Christians and Muslims, with a dense Old City, a lively market and a fine museum.
Don't miss The Old City, where the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Dome of the Rock can be reached on foot in an hour.
Explore Destination — JerusalemTel Aviv District, Mediterranean coast
Israel's coastal, secular and cosmopolitan centre: a UNESCO-listed White City, a long beach promenade, excellent markets and food, and Jaffa's ancient port.
Don't miss The old port of Jaffa at sunset, with a promenade all the way back to Tel Aviv's white towers.
Explore Destination — Tel Aviv-JaffaNorthern District, Lower Galilee
Israel's largest freshwater lake, with Capernaum, Tabgha and the Mount of Beatitudes on its north shore, hot springs and Tiberias to the west, and swimming and boats all year.
Don't miss Capernaum, where the ruins of a 4th-century synagogue stand beside the traditional house of Peter on the water's edge.
Explore Destination — The Sea of GalileeNorthern District, Lower Galilee
A lively Arab town with major Christian pilgrimage sites, an old-city market and some of the best food in the north.
Don't miss The Basilica of the Annunciation, the largest church in the Middle East, built over the traditional site of Mary's home.
Explore Destination — NazarethSouthern District, Judean Desert
A UNESCO-listed hilltop fortress, the desert oasis of Ein Gedi, and the lowest, saltiest and strangest swim in the world.
Don't miss Watching the sun rise over the Dead Sea and the mountains of Jordan from the top of Masada.
Explore Destination — Masada & the Dead SeaHaifa District, Mount Carmel
Israel's third-largest city and a model of mixed communities, home to the Baháʼí World Centre, a UNESCO-listed garden and shrine complex, the German Colony and a strong food scene.
Don't miss The Baháʼí Gardens' terraces, and the view from the top of Mount Carmel across the bay to Acre.
Explore Destination — Haifa & the Baháʼí GardensNorthern District, western Galilee coast
One of the oldest continuously inhabited ports in the world, with Crusader halls, an Ottoman citadel, a working harbour and a lively Arab market.
Don't miss The Knights' Halls, a vaulted Crusader complex where the Order of St John's hospital stood, entered from a street of Ottoman shops.
Explore Destination — Acre (Akko) Old CityNorthern District, Upper Galilee
The highest city in Israel, a place of pilgrimage for Jewish mystical study, with an artists' quarter, cooler summers and views over the Galilee.
Don't miss The Old Jewish Quarter's lanes, with their ancient synagogues, blue doors and views towards Mount Meron.
Explore Destination — Safed (Tzfat)Northern District, Jezreel and Beit She'an valleys
Two of the country's best archaeological sites, both close to Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee: a UNESCO-listed tell of biblical significance, and one of the great Roman cities of the Decapolis.
Don't miss Beit She'an's Cardo, a Roman colonnaded street that runs uphill to a temple, with an intact theatre beside it.
Explore Destination — Megiddo & Beit She'anSouthern District, Negev Desert
A desert of canyons, craters and Nabataean cities, with a small town on the edge of the world's largest makhtesh and an easy base for hiking and stargazing.
Don't miss The rim of Makhtesh Ramon at dawn, a 40-km crater of coloured sandstone that falls 500 metres to the desert floor.
Explore Destination — The Negev & Mitzpe RamonSouthern Europe
More UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other country, twenty regions that cook completely differently, and the Alps and the Mediterranean in the same day's drive.
Lazio
The only capital where a Roman amphitheatre, a Renaissance basilica and a Baroque fountain are all a ten-minute walk apart, and where the best paintings are free in parish churches.
Don't miss The Pantheon — a working building since AD 126, still holding the largest unreinforced concrete dome on earth.
Explore Destination — RomeTuscany
A compact city holding the densest concentration of Renaissance art anywhere, with Chianti, Siena and the Val d'Orcia within an hour of its walls.
Don't miss Brunelleschi's dome of 1436 — still the largest masonry dome ever built, and you can climb inside it.
Explore Destination — Florence & TuscanyVeneto
The strangest working city in Europe — Byzantine mosaics, Tintoretto by the acre, cicchetti bars down alleys, and a lagoon of glass furnaces and coloured houses behind it.
Don't miss The Grand Canal from the deck of a number 1 vaporetto, which costs the price of a bus ticket.
Explore Destination — VeniceCampania
A UNESCO-listed stretch of Campanian cliff with lemon terraces, ceramic-domed churches, a Norman-Arab cathedral at Amalfi and Ravello's gardens hanging over the sea.
Don't miss The Path of the Gods — a ridge trail 600 metres above the water, looking down on Positano and across to Capri.
Explore Destination — The Amalfi CoastCampania
A UNESCO-listed historic centre of Greek street plans and Baroque churches, the museum holding everything dug out of Pompeii, and the birthplace of pizza.
Don't miss Pompeii — 66 hectares of a Roman town stopped mid-morning in AD 79, with the volcano that did it still on the skyline.
Explore Destination — Naples & PompeiiSicily
The Mediterranean's largest island and its most layered: Greek, Roman, Arab, Norman, Spanish and Baroque, with the best food in Italy and seven UNESCO listings.
Don't miss The Temple of Concordia at Agrigento — a Doric temple of the 440s BC still standing almost complete.
Explore Destination — SicilyLiguria
A UNESCO cultural landscape on the Ligurian coast where vines are grown on cliff terraces, no cars reach the villages, and the local train is the bus.
Don't miss Walking the coast path between the villages, four hundred metres above the sea on walls built by hand over eight centuries.
Explore Destination — The Cinque TerreTrentino-Alto Adige and Veneto
A UNESCO-listed range of nine mountain systems, with cable cars to 2,500 metres, mountain huts serving lunch, and a First World War front line still visible in the rock.
Don't miss The Tre Cime di Lavaredo — three vertical rock towers with a ten-kilometre loop path around their base.
Explore Destination — The DolomitesPuglia and Basilicata
The heel of Italy and the region above it: 800 km of coast, olive groves that have been worked since antiquity, three UNESCO sites and the best value in the country.
Don't miss The Sassi of Matera — a whole town carved into a ravine, lived in for millennia, emptied in the 1950s and reoccupied since.
Explore Destination — Puglia & MateraLombardy
The city most Italian itineraries skip, holding one of Europe's great cathedrals, a Leonardo fresco you must book months ahead, and a design culture that shapes how the world looks.
Don't miss The roof of the Duomo, among 135 marble spires, with the Alps on the horizon on a clear day.
Explore Destination — MilanEast Asia
A country that runs ultra-modern rail and neon-lit cities alongside centuries-old temples, imperial gardens and mountain villages, often within the same afternoon's travel.
Kanto
Japan's capital, a vast collection of distinct neighbourhoods spanning ultra-modern technology, deep tradition and one of the world's great food cities.
Don't miss Shibuya Crossing at rush hour, thousands of people crossing from every direction at once in a scene that somehow stays completely orderly.
Explore Destination — TokyoKansai
Japan's former imperial capital, its thousands of temples, shrines and gardens preserved with a continuity that survived the 20th century almost intact.
Don't miss Fushimi Inari Shrine's thousands of vermillion torii gates, forming an otherworldly tunnel up the mountainside behind the shrine.
Explore Destination — KyotoKansai
Osaka's street food energy and neon nightlife, paired with Nara's ancient temples and free-roaming deer, both within easy reach of each other.
Don't miss Dotonbori's neon canal-side signs, the giant mechanical crab and running man among them, lit up over crowds eating takoyaki straight from the stall.
Explore Destination — Osaka and NaraChugoku
Hiroshima's honest confrontation with the atomic bombing, paired with Miyajima island's floating torii gate, one of Japan's most iconic views.
Don't miss Itsukushima Shrine's vermillion torii gate, appearing to float on the water at high tide off Miyajima's shore.
Explore Destination — Hiroshima and MiyajimaChubu
Japan's iconic sacred mountain, paired with Hakone's onsen towns, volcanic valleys and lake views built around admiring it.
Don't miss Mount Fuji's near-perfect snow-capped cone rising above Lake Kawaguchiko, mirrored in the water on a still morning.
Explore Destination — Mount Fuji and HakoneHokkaido
Japan's northern island, its wilderness, powder snow and seafood offering a different pace and climate from the rest of the country.
Don't miss Furano's rolling lavender fields in full bloom, a different Japanese landscape from anywhere on the mainland.
Explore Destination — HokkaidoOkinawa
Japan's subtropical southern islands, their own Ryukyu Kingdom history, coral reefs and distinct food culture setting them apart from the mainland.
Don't miss Cape Manzamo's dramatic elephant-trunk-shaped cliff, dropping into brilliant turquoise water along Okinawa's western coast.
Explore Destination — OkinawaChubu
A preserved mountain merchant town paired with Shirakawa-go's UNESCO-listed thatched-roof farmhouse village, both rural and historic.
Don't miss Shirakawa-go's gassho-zukuri farmhouses under a blanket of winter snow, their steep thatched roofs designed specifically to shed it.
Explore Destination — Takayama and Shirakawa-goChubu
A preserved former castle town on the Sea of Japan coast, its historic districts, gardens and seafood rivalling Kyoto with a fraction of the crowds.
Don't miss Kenrokuen Garden's Kotoji-toro stone lantern beside the pond, one of the most photographed single images in Japanese garden design.
Explore Destination — KanazawaKanto
An elaborately decorated shrine complex and cedar-forest mountain scenery, an easy and rewarding day trip from Tokyo.
Don't miss Toshogu Shrine's Yomeimon Gate, covered in intricate carvings and gilding, considered one of Japan's most elaborate pieces of religious architecture.
Explore Destination — NikkoWestern Asia (Middle East)
A rose-red city carved into a cliff, a Martian desert you sleep in, and a Roman city that still has its chariot track — in a country you can cross in a day.
Ma'an Governorate, southern Jordan
The Nabataean capital that the desert hid from the West for centuries, with tombs, temples, a theatre and a colonnaded street cut from the sandstone of a hidden valley.
Don't miss The Monastery — an 800-step climb to a rock-cut facade almost as large as the Treasury, with a fraction of the crowd.
Explore Destination — PetraAqaba Governorate, southern Jordan
A protected desert of sandstone and granite that looks like another planet, explored by jeep, camel or on foot, and slept in under the stars.
Don't miss A night in a Bedouin camp, with a zarb dinner from the sand oven and a sky with almost no light pollution.
Explore Destination — Wadi RumAmman Governorate, central Jordan
Jordan's relaxed, layered capital, where Roman columns, Umayyad palaces and bustling souks sit beside cafés, galleries and a good museum.
Don't miss The Citadel at sunset, with the Temple of Hercules in the foreground and the white city spread across its hills below.
Explore Destination — AmmanJerash Governorate, northern Jordan
The ancient Decapolis city of Gerasa, with its arch, theatres, temples and colonnaded street still standing an hour north of Amman.
Don't miss The Oval Plaza and the Cardo, where a column-lined Roman street runs on for several hundred metres, still rutted by chariot wheels.
Explore Destination — JerashBalqa and Madaba governorates, western Jordan
A salt lake about 430 metres below sea level with spa hotels, mineral mud, hot springs, a canyon walk and the traditional site of the baptism of Jesus.
Don't miss Floating on your back in water too salty to sink in, with the hills of the West Bank across the water.
Explore Destination — The Dead SeaMadaba Governorate, central Jordan
A small Christian-majority town famous for Byzantine floor mosaics, and a nearby mountain that has drawn pilgrims for centuries.
Don't miss The Madaba Map, a Byzantine floor mosaic showing Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and the view from Mount Nebo across the Jordan Valley.
Explore Destination — Madaba & Mount NeboAqaba Governorate, southern Jordan
A relaxed Red Sea port city with warm winters, coral reefs, a Mamluk fort and a good base for Wadi Rum and Petra.
Don't miss Diving or snorkelling a coral reef in the morning, and standing in the Wadi Rum desert by the evening.
Explore Destination — AqabaTafilah Governorate, southern Jordan
A protected reserve of mountains, canyons and desert with an Ottoman-era village, a range of wildlife and Jordan's best walking.
Don't miss The Dana–Feynan trail, a one-way descent of about 16 km through changing landscapes to an eco-lodge lit only by candles and solar power.
Explore Destination — Dana Biosphere ReserveKerak and Ma'an governorates, southern Jordan
Two of the best-preserved medieval castles in the Middle East, built by the Crusaders in the 12th century and fought over by Saladin and the Mamluks.
Don't miss Kerak's underground galleries and corridors, a vaulted labyrinth that you can explore with a torch.
Explore Destination — Kerak & Shobak CastlesAjloun and Irbid governorates, northern Jordan
Northern Jordan's green highlands: a 12th-century Ayyubid castle above forested hills, and a Decapolis hilltop town with a view across three countries.
Don't miss Umm Qais at sunset, with the black basalt columns of ancient Gadara in the foreground and the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights beyond.
Explore Destination — Ajloun & Umm QaisWestern Asia (Middle East)
Phoenician harbours, the largest Roman temples ever built, cedar forests and monasteries in a mountain gorge, and a capital that never stops eating — in a country you can cross in three hours.
Beirut Governorate, Mediterranean coast
Lebanon's capital: a dense, cosmopolitan city of Ottoman houses and glass towers, with the National Museum, the Corniche, cafés, bars and a food scene that outclasses its size.
Don't miss A long dinner in Gemmayzeh or Mar Mikhael, after a sunset walk along the Corniche to the Pigeon Rocks.
Explore Destination — BeirutBaalbek-Hermel Governorate, Bekaa Valley
Roman Heliopolis, with the Temples of Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus, one of the greatest monuments of the ancient world — in a part of Lebanon where visiting has been affected by conflict since 2024.
Don't miss The Temple of Bacchus, close to complete after nearly two thousand years, and the six giant columns of the Temple of Jupiter beside it.
Explore Destination — BaalbekMount Lebanon Governorate, north coast
A small, charming coastal town of stone lanes, a Crusader castle and layers of ruins going back seven thousand years, 40 minutes north of Beirut.
Don't miss The Crusader castle above the Phoenician and Roman ruins, with the harbour and the sea behind.
Explore Destination — Byblos (Jbeil)North Governorate, Bsharri District, Mount Lebanon
A UNESCO-listed gorge of cliffside monasteries and caves near the village of Bsharri, birthplace of the poet Kahlil Gibran, with the Cedars of God grove and a ski resort above.
Don't miss Walking down into the Holy Valley to a monastery clinging to the cliff, after a morning among trees that have stood for a thousand years.
Explore Destination — Qadisha Valley & the CedarsSouth Governorate, southern coast
An ancient island-turned-peninsula with major Phoenician and Roman ruins and one of Lebanon's best beaches, in an area where travel has been heavily affected by conflict since 2023.
Don't miss The Roman hippodrome, one of the largest and best-preserved circuses of the ancient world, with a necropolis and triumphal arch beside it.
Explore Destination — Tyre (Sour)South Governorate, southern coast
A relaxed, atmospheric port city, 40 km south of Beirut, with a Crusader sea castle, a well-preserved old town, a soap museum and a lively fishing harbour.
Don't miss The Sea Castle, a Crusader fortress on a tiny island linked to the shore by a stone causeway, with the old harbour and souks beside it.
Explore Destination — Sidon (Saida)North Governorate, northern coast
A large, hard-working and rarely visited northern port city with a Crusader citadel, a labyrinth of Mamluk souks and khans, and the best sweets in the country.
Don't miss The Mamluk old town, one of the most complete in the Middle East, and the sweets at the shops that have made them for over a century.
Explore Destination — TripoliNorth Governorate, north coast
An easy-going coastal town 55 km north of Beirut, with Phoenician and Ottoman remains, a lively harbour, beaches, restaurants and vineyards in the hills behind.
Don't miss Sunset over the sea from the old harbour, with a glass of the town's famous lemonade or a bottle of local wine.
Explore Destination — BatrounMount Lebanon Governorate, Chouf District
A green, terraced mountain region 45 km south-east of Beirut, with Beiteddine Palace, the historic village of Deir al-Qamar, Druze and Christian villages and the Chouf Cedar Reserve.
Don't miss Beiteddine Palace, a huge 19th-century mountain palace of arcaded courtyards, mosaics and gardens, and one of the finest Ottoman-era buildings in the Levant.
Explore Destination — The Chouf & Beiteddine PalaceBekaa Governorate, Zahle District
A UNESCO-listed Umayyad city of arcades, palaces and baths, a short drive from the Ksara and Kefraya wineries — in a border area where visiting depends on current conditions.
Don't miss The Umayyad city's grid of streets, with tetrapylons at the crossroads and arcaded shops, and the snow-capped mountains behind.
Explore Destination — Anjar & the Bekaa Wine CountrySoutheast Asia
Rainforest, coastline and three distinct food cultures meeting at the twin towers of a thoroughly modern capital.
Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia's capital, home to the Petronas Towers, Batu Caves nearby, and some of Southeast Asia's best hawker food across three distinct communities.
Don't miss Standing at the base of the Petronas Towers at night, the twin spires lit against the sky above KLCC Park's fountains.
Explore Destination — Kuala LumpurPenang
George Town's UNESCO-listed streets, street art, clan jetties and a hawker food scene widely considered Malaysia's best.
Don't miss Wandering George Town's lanes at your own pace, turning a corner from a colourful mural straight into a century-old temple or a queue for assam laksa.
Explore Destination — PenangKedah
An archipelago off Peninsular Malaysia's northwest coast, known for beach resorts, a dramatic cable car and mangrove wildlife tours.
Don't miss Crossing the curved Sky Bridge at the top of the Langkawi cable car, rainforest and the Andaman Sea stretching out on either side.
Explore Destination — LangkawiMalacca
A historic trading port south of Kuala Lumpur, home to Jonker Street, Dutch colonial squares and Peranakan Nyonya heritage.
Don't miss Walking Jonker Street on a Friday or Saturday night, its shophouses and stalls lit up for the weekend street market.
Explore Destination — MalaccaPahang
A cool-climate hill station in Pahang, known for tea plantations, strawberry farms and the ancient Mossy Forest.
Don't miss Walking between rows of tea bushes at a Cameron Highlands plantation, the terraced hills stretching out in every direction.
Explore Destination — Cameron HighlandsSabah, Borneo
Sabah's capital and Borneo's main gateway, with Mount Kinabalu inland and the islands of Tunku Abdul Rahman Park just offshore.
Don't miss Watching the sun set from Kota Kinabalu's waterfront, with Mount Kinabalu's silhouette often visible on a clear evening.
Explore Destination — Kota KinabaluTerengganu
A pair of car-free islands off Malaysia's east coast, known for diving, snorkelling and a simple backpacker pace, open March through October.
Don't miss Snorkelling straight off the beach into clear water thick with reef fish, no boat trip required.
Explore Destination — Perhentian IslandsPahang
One of the world's oldest rainforests, reached by river boat from Kuala Tahan, with a canopy walkway and jungle trekking.
Don't miss Crossing Taman Negara's canopy walkway, the rainforest floor a genuine drop below and the forest canopy at eye level around you.
Explore Destination — Taman NegaraSarawak, Borneo
Sarawak's capital on Borneo, a riverside city known for its cat statues, and the gateway to wild orangutans and rainforest national parks.
Don't miss Watching a wild orangutan swing through the canopy at Semenggoh, close enough to feel like a genuine encounter rather than a zoo visit.
Explore Destination — KuchingPerak
A former tin-mining town in Perak, known for limestone cave temples, colonial-era old town streets and a widely praised food scene.
Don't miss Wandering Concubine Lane's narrow, lantern-strung alley, a leftover from Ipoh's tin-boom past now filled with food stalls.
Explore Destination — IpohNorth America
Aztec and Maya pyramids, silver-boom colonial cities, a food culture recognised by UNESCO and Caribbean beaches — in a country large enough to need two weeks and generous enough to reward twelve.
Ciudad de México, central Mexico
One of the great cities of the world: Aztec ruins beside a baroque cathedral, Frida Kahlo's house, leafy Roma and Condesa, and a food scene that runs from street stalls to global fine dining.
Don't miss The National Museum of Anthropology and, after it, a plate of tacos al pastor at midnight.
Explore Destination — Mexico CityOaxaca State, southern Mexico
A colourful colonial city in the Sierra Madre del Sur, the heart of Zapotec and Mixtec culture, with the country's best food, mezcal and handicrafts, and ruins and craft villages in the valleys around it.
Don't miss Monte Albán at opening, then mole and mezcal in the old city that evening.
Explore Destination — OaxacaYucatán State, Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán's cultural centre, with the New Wonder of Chichén Itzá, the Puuc ruins of Uxmal, Valladolid's convents and cenotes, and Mérida, a graceful colonial city with the best food on the peninsula.
Don't miss El Castillo at Chichén Itzá at opening, and a swim in a cenote before lunch.
Explore Destination — Mérida & Chichén ItzáQuintana Roo, Caribbean coast
Mexico's Caribbean coast south of Cancún: Tulum's cliff-top Maya ruins and beach, Cobá's jungle pyramid, swimmable cenotes, snorkelling with turtles and laid-back beach towns.
Don't miss The Tulum ruins above the sea in the early morning, followed by a swim in a jungle cenote.
Explore Destination — Tulum & the Riviera MayaGuanajuato State, Bajío highlands
A UNESCO-listed colonial city in a ravine, with baroque churches, winding alleys, underground tunnels, the Diego Rivera birthplace museum and a lively university atmosphere.
Don't miss The Callejón del Beso and the Pípila viewpoint, at dusk, as the hillside lights come on.
Explore Destination — GuanajuatoGuanajuato State, Bajío highlands
A UNESCO-listed highland town of baroque churches, bougainvillea and galleries, with a big expatriate community, excellent restaurants and hot springs nearby.
Don't miss The pink spires of the Parroquia at sunset, from a rooftop bar on the Jardín.
Explore Destination — San Miguel de AllendeState of Mexico, 50 km north-east of Mexico City
One of the largest cities of the ancient Americas, with the third-largest pyramid in the world, murals, a citadel and a two-kilometre ceremonial avenue, an hour from Mexico City.
Don't miss Climbing the Pyramid of the Sun or walking the Avenue of the Dead at opening, when the site is quiet and the light is low.
Explore Destination — TeotihuacánPuebla State, central highlands
A UNESCO-listed colonial city of tiled facades, cathedrals and convent kitchens, with the giant pyramid of Cholula, volcanoes and one of Mexico's great cuisines, two hours from the capital.
Don't miss Sunset from the church on the Great Pyramid of Cholula, with the volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl on the horizon.
Explore Destination — Puebla & CholulaJalisco State, western Mexico
A confident, cultured city of plazas, murals and street food, with a UNESCO-listed hospice, the birthplace of tequila and mariachi, and a day trip through agave landscape.
Don't miss A tequila distillery tour in the agave fields, followed by birria and mariachi in Guadalajara that night.
Explore Destination — Guadalajara & TequilaChiapas State, south-eastern Mexico
Mexico's deep south: Palenque's sculpted Maya city in the jungle, the waterfalls of Agua Azul, the Sumidero Canyon and San Cristóbal de las Casas, a colourful highland town with living Tzotzil and Tzeltal Maya culture.
Don't miss The Temple of the Inscriptions rising out of the rainforest at Palenque, with howler monkeys calling in the mist.
Explore Destination — Chiapas: Palenque & San CristóbalNorth Africa
Medinas older than most European cities, a blue mountain town, Sahara dunes at sunrise and a kasbah road across the Atlas — all within a day's drive of each other.
Marrakech-Safi, central Morocco
The most visited city in Morocco: a walled medina of souks, madrasas and palaces, the great square of Jemaa el-Fnaa, the Majorelle Garden and a hundred riads.
Don't miss Jemaa el-Fnaa at dusk, when the storytellers, musicians and food stalls take over the square.
Explore Destination — MarrakechFès-Meknès, northern Morocco
Morocco's spiritual and cultural capital: a 9th-century medina of thousands of lanes, the world's oldest surviving university, ornate madrasas and traditional crafts.
Don't miss A guided walk through Fes el-Bali, ending on a terrace above the tanneries.
Explore Destination — FesTanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceïma, Rif Mountains
The famous 'blue pearl' of Morocco: a hillside medina of blue-washed walls and stairways, a lively square, a spring-fed river and trails into the Rif.
Don't miss The blue lanes of the old medina at first light, before the tour groups arrive.
Explore Destination — ChefchaouenDrâa-Tafilalet, south-east Morocco
The gateway to Erg Chebbi, Morocco's biggest sand sea: camel treks, desert camps, Gnawa music and starry skies at the far end of the country.
Don't miss Watching the sunrise from the top of the highest dune at Erg Chebbi.
Explore Destination — Merzouga and the SaharaMarrakech-Safi, Atlantic coast
A whitewashed fortress town on the Atlantic, with a UNESCO-listed medina, a working port, long beaches and a relaxed, breezy atmosphere.
Don't miss Grilled fish straight from the boats at the harbour stalls, with gulls wheeling above the blue fishing fleet.
Explore Destination — EssaouiraDrâa-Tafilalet, southern Morocco
A UNESCO-listed earthen ksar, the film studios of Ouarzazate and the road of a thousand kasbahs, on the southern side of the High Atlas.
Don't miss Watching the sun set on the ksar of Aït Benhaddou from the far side of the river.
Explore Destination — Aït Benhaddou and OuarzazateCasablanca-Settat, Atlantic coast
A modern port city with a monumental oceanfront mosque, French colonial Art Deco streets, a small old medina, seafood and a lively café and arts scene.
Don't miss The Hassan II Mosque at the edge of the Atlantic, its minaret rising above the waves.
Explore Destination — CasablancaRabat-Salé-Kénitra, Atlantic coast
Morocco's capital: a UNESCO-listed city with the Hassan Tower, the Mohammed V Mausoleum, the Kasbah of the Udayas, the Chellah ruins and a relaxed medina.
Don't miss The Kasbah of the Udayas, with its blue-and-white lanes and Andalusian garden above the Bouregreg river.
Explore Destination — RabatMarrakech-Safi, High Atlas Mountains
A village base for walks in the Toubkal National Park, with valley treks between Amazigh villages, mule paths and the two-day ascent of Jebel Toubkal (4,167 m).
Don't miss The first view of the snow-capped Toubkal massif from the trail above Imlil.
Explore Destination — The High Atlas and ImlilFès-Meknès, northern Morocco
A UNESCO-listed imperial city built by Sultan Moulay Ismail, with vast gates and granaries, plus the Roman site of Volubilis and the holy town of Moulay Idriss nearby.
Don't miss The mosaics of Volubilis, still in place, with the Roman arch and the Zerhoun hills behind.
Explore Destination — Meknes and VolubilisWestern Europe
A country built below sea level, its canal-ringed capital, tulip fields and windmill-dotted polders covering a nation you can cross by train in under three hours.
North Holland
The Netherlands' canal-ringed capital, its UNESCO-listed waterways, world-class museums and cycling culture packed into a walkable centre.
Don't miss The canal ring at dusk, gabled townhouses lit from within reflecting in still water as cyclists cross humpbacked bridges.
Explore Destination — AmsterdamSouth Holland
The Netherlands' bold, rebuilt second city, its Cube Houses, Markthal and cable-stayed Erasmusbrug forming one of Europe's most striking modern skylines.
Don't miss The Cube Houses tilted at 45 degrees above the Blaak, a disorienting piece of 1980s architecture that still functions as ordinary housing.
Explore Destination — RotterdamSouth Holland
The Netherlands' seat of government and international law, its Mauritshuis art collection and Scheveningen beach giving it a different pace from Amsterdam.
Don't miss Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring at the Mauritshuis, a small painting that draws a disproportionate crowd of admirers to a quiet corner of one room.
Explore Destination — The HagueUtrecht
The Netherlands' fourth city, its uniquely two-level canal system and medieval Dom Tower making it a distinct alternative to Amsterdam.
Don't miss An evening drink on a wharf-level terrace along the Oudegracht, boats gliding past at eye level as the street traffic passes unseen a storey above.
Explore Destination — UtrechtSouth Holland
A compact, well-preserved canal city, home to Vermeer, Delftware pottery and one of the Netherlands' most beautiful market squares.
Don't miss The Markt square at dusk, the Nieuwe Kerk's spire catching the last light exactly as it does in countless 17th-century paintings of the same view.
Explore Destination — DelftSouth Holland (Lisse)
The world's largest flower garden, open only in spring, surrounded by the Bollenstreek's commercial tulip fields at their genuine, uncropped scale.
Don't miss A path through Keukenhof's historic woodland suddenly opening onto a river of thousands of tulips in a single colour, planted fresh every autumn for exactly this moment.
Explore Destination — Keukenhof & the BollenstreekOverijssel
A car-free canal village in rural Overijssel, its thatched farmhouses and wooden footbridges reachable only by boat or on foot.
Don't miss Piloting a silent electric 'whisper boat' along a quiet stretch of canal, thatched farmhouses and private wooden footbridges passing on either side.
Explore Destination — GiethoornNorth Holland
A collection of genuine historic windmills and green wooden houses on the Zaan river, an easy and worthwhile day trip from Amsterdam.
Don't miss A row of working windmills turning above the Zaan river, their sails catching the same wind that once powered an entire industrial region.
Explore Destination — Zaanse SchansLimburg
The Netherlands' southernmost major city, its Roman history, limestone cave network and relaxed border-town character setting it apart from the rest of the country.
Don't miss A coffee on the Vrijthof's wide square terraces, the twin towers of St. Servatius Basilica and St. John's Church framing a scene that feels more Belgian or French than Dutch.
Explore Destination — MaastrichtSouth Holland
A UNESCO World Heritage windmill network of 19 mills, still part of the water system that keeps the surrounding polder dry.
Don't miss The full row of 19 windmills reflected in still water at sunset, a working water-management system that happens to be one of the most photographed sights in the Netherlands.
Explore Destination — KinderdijkOceania
A dramatic pair of islands where fjords, glaciers, geothermal fields and volcanic alpine crossings sit within a few hours' drive of each other.
North Island
New Zealand's largest city, built across a volcanic isthmus between two harbours, with island vineyards and hiking cones a short trip from downtown.
Don't miss The view from the Sky Tower at sunset, two harbours and a scatter of volcanic islands spreading out in every direction.
Explore Destination — AucklandNorth Island
New Zealand's compact, hilly capital, its café culture, film industry and predator-free wildlife sanctuary packed into a walkable harbour city.
Don't miss A native bird calling from the bush at Zealandia at dusk, inside a predator-fenced sanctuary a ten-minute drive from Parliament.
Explore Destination — WellingtonSouth Island
The South Island's gateway city, rebuilt after 2011's earthquakes, its parks, river and Antarctic connections making it more than just a transit stop.
Don't miss Punting slowly down the Avon River through the Botanic Gardens, willows trailing in the water as the city's rebuilt skyline rises beyond the trees.
Explore Destination — ChristchurchSouth Island (Otago)
New Zealand's adventure capital, a lakeside town beneath the jagged Remarkables range, the birthplace of commercial bungee jumping.
Don't miss The view of The Remarkables from the Skyline Gondola at sunset, jagged peaks turning pink above Lake Wakatipu's still water.
Explore Destination — QueenstownNorth Island (Bay of Plenty)
New Zealand's geothermal heart, its bubbling mud pools and colourful thermal fields sitting alongside the country's strongest Maori cultural centres.
Don't miss The Pohutu Geyser erupting at Te Puia, water jetting up to 30 metres above the same ground Maori guides have lived and worked on for generations.
Explore Destination — RotoruaSouth Island (Fiordland National Park)
New Zealand's most famous fjord, its sheer rock walls, permanent waterfalls and resident seal colony reached by one of the world's great scenic drives.
Don't miss Standing on a cruise boat deck as Mitre Peak's near-vertical face rises 1,692 metres directly from the dark water beside you.
Explore Destination — Milford SoundNorth Island (Northland)
A sheltered coastline of 144 islands in New Zealand's far north, central to the country's history and its sailing culture alike.
Don't miss Cruising out through the Hole in the Rock, a natural arch worn clean through Motukokako Island by the sea.
Explore Destination — Bay of IslandsSouth Island (Tasman)
New Zealand's smallest national park, its golden beaches, sheltered bays and coastal track making it the country's easiest wilderness to enjoy.
Don't miss Stepping off a water taxi onto an empty golden-sand beach reachable no other way, with native bush rising straight behind it.
Explore Destination — Abel Tasman National ParkNorth Island (Central Plateau)
New Zealand's oldest national park, its active volcanic peaks and the world-famous Alpine Crossing making it a genuine highlight of any North Island trip.
Don't miss Reaching the Red Crater's summit ridge on the Alpine Crossing, the neon Emerald Lakes spread out below and Ngauruhoe's perfect cone rising behind.
Explore Destination — Tongariro National ParkSouth Island (West Coast)
Twin glaciers on New Zealand's West Coast, their ice descending unusually close to rainforest and coastline for a rare landscape combination.
Don't miss Standing on Franz Josef's ice by helicopter, the glacier's crevassed surface spread out beneath you and dense rainforest visible in the valley below.
Explore Destination — Franz Josef and Fox GlacierNorthern Europe
A country of fjords, mountains and arctic islands, where a single coastal drive can pass waterfalls, glaciers and villages clinging to sheer rock walls.
Eastern Norway
Norway's capital, a compact city of striking modern architecture, Viking history and world-class museums, ringed by forest and the Oslofjord.
Don't miss Standing beneath the Monolith at the centre of Vigeland Park, surrounded by over 200 bronze and granite sculptures of human life.
Explore Destination — OsloWestern Norway
A colourful harbour city ringed by mountains, home to the UNESCO-listed Bryggen wharf and the traditional gateway to Norway's fjords.
Don't miss Standing on Bryggen's uneven wooden boardwalk at dusk, the wharf's tilted, colourful facades lit up against the harbour water.
Explore Destination — BergenMøre og Romsdal, Western Norway
Norway's most iconic fjord, a narrow UNESCO World Heritage waterway beneath sheer cliffs, waterfalls and abandoned mountain farms.
Don't miss Watching the Seven Sisters waterfall drop in parallel streams straight into the fjord as your boat glides directly beneath it.
Explore Destination — GeirangerfjordNordland, Northern Norway
A chain of dramatic granite islands above the Arctic Circle, where jagged peaks rise straight from the sea beside red fishing villages.
Don't miss Looking down on Reine from the Reinebringen trail, its cluster of red rorbuer cabins scattered across the water between sheer granite peaks.
Explore Destination — The Lofoten IslandsRogaland, Southwestern Norway
A compact, food-forward Norwegian city, and the gateway to Preikestolen, the country's single most iconic day hike above Lysefjord.
Don't miss Reaching the flat edge of Preikestolen after the climb, the sheer 604-metre drop to Lysefjord opening up right at your feet.
Explore Destination — Stavanger & PreikestolenTroms, Northern Norway
Norway's Arctic capital, well above the Arctic Circle, one of the world's most accessible and reliable places to see the northern lights.
Don't miss Watching the aurora borealis ripple green overhead from the Arctic Cathedral's forecourt, the city lights of Tromsø spread out below.
Explore Destination — TromsøTrøndelag, Central Norway
Norway's historic pilgrimage capital, home to a soaring medieval cathedral and a colourful river district of old wooden warehouses.
Don't miss Crossing the red-painted Gamle Bybro at sunset, the Nidelva river glowing beneath rows of colourful old wooden warehouses on stilts.
Explore Destination — TrondheimMøre og Romsdal, Western Norway
A striking Art Nouveau harbour town in western Norway, beside the Atlantic Road, one of the world's most dramatic short coastal drives.
Don't miss Standing atop Aksla's 418 steps as the sun sets over Ålesund's Art Nouveau rooftops, spread across the islands below.
Explore Destination — Ålesund & the Atlantic RoadInnlandet, Central Norway
Norway's highest mountain range, home to the country's most famous hike, the Besseggen ridge, and a network of trails between staffed mountain huts.
Don't miss Walking the knife-edge Besseggen ridge with turquoise Lake Gjende on one side and deep blue Lake Bessvatnet on the other, both far below.
Explore Destination — JotunheimenSvalbard Archipelago, Arctic Norway
A remote Arctic archipelago home to more polar bears than people, reachable only by guided expedition from mainland Norway.
Don't miss Spotting a polar bear from a safe distance on the sea ice, its outline sharp against a landscape of glaciers and jagged Arctic peaks.
Explore Destination — SvalbardWestern Asia (Middle East)
The birthplace of Jesus, one of the oldest cities on Earth, a UNESCO terraced village and a monastery in a desert canyon — in the West Bank, with all the complexity that means.
Bethlehem Governorate, southern West Bank
A UNESCO-listed pilgrimage town ten kilometres south of Jerusalem, with the Church of the Nativity, an old town of stone lanes and olive-wood workshops, and warm hospitality.
Don't miss The Church of the Nativity, where you stoop through the Door of Humility and descend to the grotto marked by a silver star.
Explore Destination — BethlehemJericho Governorate, Jordan Valley
A palm-fringed oasis about 250 metres below sea level with Neolithic ruins, an Umayyad palace and mosaics, a Greek Orthodox monastery on a cliff and a cable car above it all.
Don't miss Tell es-Sultan, where a stone tower more than ten thousand years old is among the oldest monumental structures ever found.
Explore Destination — JerichoHebron Governorate, southern West Bank
A historic Palestinian commercial city and a pilgrimage site, with a Mamluk-era old city, glass and pottery workshops and a divided centre where visitors see the occupation at its most concentrated.
Don't miss The Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs), a Herodian-era enclosure over the traditional tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their wives.
Explore Destination — Hebron (Al-Khalil)Nablus Governorate, northern West Bank
The commercial and cultural capital of the northern West Bank, with a well-preserved Ottoman old city, a famous soap-making tradition, the best knafeh in Palestine and Roman remains close by.
Don't miss The old city's souk at breakfast, with knafeh coming out of huge trays and the smell of olive-oil soap in the air.
Explore Destination — NablusRamallah and al-Bireh Governorate, central West Bank
A modern, lively city 15 km north of Jerusalem with museums, a thriving arts and music scene, a good restaurant and bar scene, and the mausoleum of Yasser Arafat.
Don't miss The Arafat Museum and the Mahmoud Darwish Museum, then a long dinner of Palestinian food in the evening.
Explore Destination — RamallahBethlehem Governorate, west of Bethlehem
A UNESCO-listed farming village near Bethlehem, known for its terraced valley, its shared irrigation and its small green aubergines, and a gentle place to walk.
Don't miss The valley floor walk along the ancient irrigation channels, with olive, fig and vegetable terraces on one side and the old railway on the other.
Explore Destination — BattirBethlehem Governorate, southeast of Bethlehem
A striking man-made hill with the remains of Herod's palace, bathhouse and tomb, about 12 km south of Jerusalem and a short drive from Bethlehem.
Don't miss The tunnels beneath the mountain, first dug by Jewish rebels against Rome, and the view from the rim across the Dead Sea to Jordan.
Explore Destination — HerodiumNablus Governorate, northern West Bank
A small village on a hill above Nablus, built over the ruins of biblical Samaria and Roman Sebaste, with two thousand years of layers and almost no visitors.
Don't miss The Roman forum and its colonnade on the summit, with the olive groves of Samaria stretching away on all sides.
Explore Destination — Sebastia (Ancient Samaria)Bethlehem Governorate, Judean Desert
One of the oldest inhabited monasteries in the world, with cliff-hugging chapels, a tomb of St John of Damascus and a strict rule that admits only men, in a spectacular desert gorge east of Bethlehem.
Don't miss The view of the monastery's terraces and domes stacked against a bare desert cliff, best seen from the roof of the Women's Tower across the gorge.
Explore Destination — Mar Saba MonasteryRamallah and al-Bireh Governorate, central West Bank
A small hilltop village of stone houses and olive groves, 13 km from Ramallah, best known for the Taybeh Brewery, its Oktoberfest and its Christian heritage.
Don't miss A tasting at the Taybeh Brewery, followed by a walk through the old village to the ruins of the Byzantine church of St George.
Explore Destination — TaybehPalestinian Territories country guide Palestinian Territories travel guide
South America
A country of lost Inca cities, high-altitude lakes and desert oases, where three thousand years of history sit in plain sight above the clouds.
Cusco Region
The former capital of the Inca Empire, a high-altitude city where colonial architecture sits directly on Inca foundations, and Peru's essential gateway to Machu Picchu.
Don't miss Running a hand along Sacsayhuamán's massive stone walls, some blocks weighing well over 100 tonnes, fitted together without mortar so precisely a knife blade still can't slip between them.
Explore Destination — CuscoCusco Region
The Inca citadel high above the Urubamba River, one of the only major ancient wonders the Spanish conquest never found, and Peru's single most iconic sight.
Don't miss Watching the first sunlight hit the citadel's stone terraces from the classic overlook, Huayna Picchu's peak still wrapped in morning mist behind it.
Explore Destination — Machu PicchuCusco Region
The Inca Empire's fertile agricultural heartland, a valley of ruins, salt pans and living villages between Cusco and Machu Picchu.
Don't miss Standing at the rim of Moray's perfectly concentric circular terraces, each level once its own distinct microclimate for testing crops.
Explore Destination — The Sacred ValleyLima Region
Peru's coastal capital, a sprawling city of colonial grandeur, pre-Inca pyramids and a food scene now recognised among the best in the world.
Don't miss Watching the sun set over the Pacific from Huaca Pucllana's ancient clay pyramid, the modern skyline of Miraflores rising just beyond its earthen walls.
Explore Destination — LimaPuno Region
The world's highest navigable lake, home to the Uros people's floating reed islands and the traditional weaving villages of Taquile and Amantaní.
Don't miss Stepping onto a Uros floating island for the first time, the spongy reed ground shifting slightly underfoot, unlike anywhere else on Earth.
Explore Destination — Lake Titicaca & PunoArequipa Region
Peru's beautifully preserved white volcanic-stone city, paired with Colca Canyon, one of the world's deepest, and reliable Andean condor sightings.
Don't miss Watching an Andean condor rise on a thermal at eye level from Cruz del Cóndor, close enough to see every feather of its three-metre wingspan.
Explore Destination — Arequipa & Colca CanyonMadre de Dios Region
Peru's easiest gateway into the Amazon rainforest, home to giant river otters, macaw clay licks and some of the most biodiverse jungle on Earth.
Don't miss Watching dozens of macaws descend on a riverbank clay lick at dawn, a chaotic wash of red, blue and green against the mud.
Explore Destination — The Amazon (Puerto Maldonado)Ica Region
Massive ancient geoglyphs etched into Peru's southern desert, so large they're only fully legible from the air, and still not fully explained after a century of study.
Don't miss Watching the Hummingbird geoglyph resolve into perfect focus from a small plane window, a shape etched into the desert floor by people who never saw it from above.
Explore Destination — The Nazca LinesIca Region
A small, genuine oasis village surrounded by towering desert dunes, built almost entirely around dune buggy rides, sandboarding and desert sunsets.
Don't miss Cresting a towering dune at sunset in a dune buggy, the whole oasis suddenly visible below, a tiny green circle in an ocean of sand.
Explore Destination — HuacachinaCusco Region
A real mineral-striped mountain at over 5,000 metres above sea level, its bands of colour among the most photographed natural sights in the Andes.
Don't miss Cresting the final ridge after hours of high-altitude hiking to see Vinicunca's full band of colours spread out below, more vivid in person than in any photo.
Explore Destination — Rainbow MountainAsia
More than 7,000 islands of limestone lagoons, white-sand beaches, ancient rice terraces, Spanish-colonial towns and the friendliest people in Asia.
Palawan, western Philippines
A small Palawan town at the edge of Bacuit Bay, the base for island-hopping tours to the Big and Small Lagoons, Secret Lagoon, Shimizu Island and Nacpan Beach.
Don't miss Paddling a kayak through the narrow entrance of the Secret Lagoon into a hidden pool ringed by cliffs.
Explore Destination — El NidoPalawan, Calamian Islands
A base for the Calamian Islands, with world-class wreck diving, Kayangan and Barracuda Lakes, Twin Lagoon, Siete Pecados reef snorkelling and Maquinit hot springs.
Don't miss Swimming in the warm, glass-clear waters of Kayangan Lake, ringed by steep limestone cliffs.
Explore Destination — CoronCentral Visayas
A central Philippine island with the Chocolate Hills, Philippine tarsiers, Loboc River cruises, Baclayon church and the beaches and reefs of Panglao Island.
Don't miss The Chocolate Hills stretching to the horizon in the dry season, when the grass turns brown.
Explore Destination — BoholCentral Visayas
A long island and a city with Magellan's Cross and the Basilica del Santo Niño, plus Moalboal's sardine run, Kawasan Falls canyoneering, Oslob and Malapascua.
Don't miss Snorkelling in the middle of a swirling ball of millions of sardines at Moalboal.
Explore Destination — CebuAklan, Western Visayas
A 7-km island with White Beach, Puka Shell Beach, sunset paraw sailing, kitesurfing, and restaurants and nightlife, after a 2018 environmental clean-up.
Don't miss Watching the sails of the paraw boats glide across the water at sunset off White Beach.
Explore Destination — BoracayIfugao, northern Luzon
The Ifugao rice terraces, a UNESCO cultural landscape, with the Banaue viewpoint, the amphitheatre of Batad, Tappiya Falls, village trekking and Ifugao culture.
Don't miss The amphitheatre of Batad's terraces, seen from the viewpoint after a walk through the mountain.
Explore Destination — Banaue and BatadIlocos Sur, northern Luzon
A UNESCO-listed Spanish colonial town with Calle Crisologo, ancestral houses, calesa rides, the cathedral, pottery, and Ilocano food including empanada and longganisa.
Don't miss Riding a calesa along the cobbled Calle Crisologo lit by old-fashioned lamps at dusk.
Explore Destination — ViganMetro Manila, Luzon
The Philippine capital, with the walled city of Intramuros, San Agustin Church, Binondo Chinatown, Rizal Park, museums, malls and nightlife, and the gateway to the country.
Don't miss Walking the ramparts of Fort Santiago in Intramuros as the light softens over the old walled city.
Explore Destination — ManilaSurigao del Norte, north-eastern Mindanao
A laid-back island with the Cloud 9 surf break, the Sugba and Magpupungko lagoons and rock pools, Naked Island, Sohoton Cove and a growing café and yoga scene.
Don't miss Watching surfers ride the tubing waves of Cloud 9 from the boardwalk at sunrise.
Explore Destination — SiargaoPalawan, western Philippines
Palawan's gateway city, and the base for the UNESCO-listed Puerto Princesa Subterranean River, plus Honda Bay island hopping, firefly watching and city tours.
Don't miss Paddling in near darkness through the vast chambers of the Puerto Princesa Underground River, lit only by your guide's lamp.
Explore Destination — Puerto Princesa and the Underground RiverEurope
Rebuilt medieval squares, Baltic amber coast, Tatra peaks, primeval forest and a painful, powerful history, at some of the best prices in the European Union.
Lesser Poland, southern Poland
A UNESCO-listed old town with the Main Market Square, Wawel Castle, Kazimierz, Schindler's Factory and easy trips to Wieliczka Salt Mine and Auschwitz.
Don't miss The Main Market Square at dusk, with the trumpeter's call from St. Mary's tower and horse carriages passing the Cloth Hall.
Explore Destination — KrakówMasovia, central Poland
Poland's capital, with the reconstructed Old Town, the Royal Castle, Łazienki Park, the POLIN Museum, the Warsaw Uprising Museum, Palace of Culture and a lively restaurant and bar scene.
Don't miss The Old Town Market Square, meticulously reconstructed after 1945 from paintings and photographs, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Explore Destination — WarsawPomerania, Baltic coast
A Baltic port with a reconstructed Main Town, the Neptune Fountain, St. Mary's Church, the Crane, the European Solidarity Centre, the Museum of the Second World War and beaches at Sopot.
Don't miss The Long Market at dusk, with its ornate gables, Neptune's Fountain and the Motława waterfront glowing beyond.
Explore Destination — GdańskLower Silesia, south-western Poland
A lively riverside city with a pastel Market Square, Ostrów Tumski cathedral island, the UNESCO-listed Centennial Hall, the Racławice Panorama and a trail of gnome statues.
Don't miss Hunting for the city's little bronze gnomes across the colourful Market Square.
Explore Destination — WrocławLesser Poland, Tatra Mountains
The gateway to the Polish Tatras, with the carved-wood Zakopane style, Morskie Oko lake, the Kasprowy Wierch cable car, Giewont, hiking, skiing and smoked oscypek cheese.
Don't miss Morskie Oko, a glacial lake ringed by granite peaks, reached by an easy walk from the road.
Explore Destination — Zakopane and the TatrasLesser Poland, Oświęcim
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Kraków, where over a million people, most of them Jews, were murdered between 1940 and 1945.
Don't miss Standing at the gate of Birkenau, a place that asks visitors to remember and reflect.
Explore Destination — Auschwitz-BirkenauGreater Poland, western Poland
A relaxed western city with a colourful Old Market Square, a Renaissance Town Hall and its famous goats, Ostrów Tumski cathedral, the Croissant Museum and a base for the first Polish capital at Gniezno.
Don't miss The two mechanical goats emerging from the Town Hall clock at noon, to a crowd in the Old Market Square.
Explore Destination — PoznańKuyavia-Pomerania, northern Poland
A UNESCO-listed medieval town on the Vistula with a Gothic Old Town Hall, Copernicus's birthplace, brick churches and a gingerbread tradition dating back to the Middle Ages.
Don't miss The Gothic Old Town Hall and the brick skyline across the Vistula at night.
Explore Destination — ToruńPomerania, northern Poland
A UNESCO-listed Teutonic castle of red brick, the largest castle in the world by land area, with three sections, a Grand Master's palace, museums and an easy day trip from Gdańsk.
Don't miss The red-brick castle reflected in the Nogat river at sunset, seen from the far bank.
Explore Destination — Malbork CastlePodlaskie, eastern Poland
A UNESCO-listed ancient forest on the Belarus border, with European bison, old oaks, guided walks, horse-drawn carts and a quiet village with wooden houses.
Don't miss Watching a European bison emerge from the mist in the forest.
Explore Destination — Białowieża ForestSouthern Europe
Hillside capitals of tiled facades and yellow trams, a wine valley terraced for two thousand years, and an Atlantic coastline that stays uncrowded compared to its Mediterranean neighbours.
Lisbon
Portugal's hillside capital, its tiled facades and yellow trams climbing between viewpoints over the Tagus River.
Don't miss The view from Miradouro da Senhora do Monte at sunset, Lisbon's terracotta rooftops spilling down toward the Tagus River as the light turns gold.
Explore Destination — LisbonNorte
Portugal's second city, its riverside Ribeira district and the port wine cellars across the water worth a trip of their own.
Don't miss The view from the Dom Luís I Bridge's upper deck at sunset, Ribeira's colourful houses stacked above the river and Vila Nova de Gaia's port lodges glowing on the opposite bank.
Explore Destination — PortoLisbon district
A UNESCO-listed hillside town of fairy-tale royal palaces and misty forests, an easy and essential day trip from Lisbon.
Don't miss Pena Palace emerging from the mist above its forested hillside, its clashing red, yellow and violet towers looking more like a fantasy illustration than an actual 19th-century royal retreat.
Explore Destination — SintraAlgarve
Portugal's dramatic southern coastline, its limestone cliffs, sea caves and Atlantic beaches rivalling anywhere in the Mediterranean.
Don't miss The view over Ponta da Piedade at golden hour, its ochre limestone sea stacks and hidden grottoes glowing above the Atlantic near Lagos.
Explore Destination — The AlgarveNorte
A UNESCO-listed river valley of steeply terraced vineyards, the genuine birthplace of port wine and one of the world's oldest demarcated wine regions.
Don't miss The view from a Pinhão hillside terrace at golden hour, the Douro River curving between vineyard slopes that have been shaped by hand for over two thousand years.
Explore Destination — Douro ValleyAlentejo
A UNESCO-listed walled city in Portugal's Alentejo region, its Roman temple and bone-walled chapel among the country's most striking historic sights.
Don't miss The Roman Temple of Évora at dusk, its Corinthian columns floodlit against the sky at the heart of a city that's kept building around them for two millennia.
Explore Destination — ÉvoraOeste, Central Portugal
A tiny, intact medieval walled town, its full ring of 14th-century battlements walkable in under an hour, an easy day trip from Lisbon.
Don't miss The view from Óbidos's castle walls at sunset, whitewashed rooftops and bougainvillea spilling below as the walkable ramparts circle the entire town.
Explore Destination — ÓbidosBeira Litoral, Central Portugal
Portugal's great university city, its Renaissance-era campus, gilded baroque library and centuries of student tradition stacked on a hill above the Mondego River.
Don't miss Fado de Coimbra sung by cape-wearing students on the steps below the old cathedral, a different tradition from Lisbon's version of the music.
Explore Destination — CoimbraMadeira Autonomous Region
A subtropical volcanic island off the African coast, its levada footpaths, laurel forest and dramatic sea cliffs making it one of Europe's great hiking destinations.
Don't miss Standing above the clouds at sunrise on Pico do Arieiro, the island's jagged central ridge emerging from a sea of white as the sky turns pink.
Explore Destination — MadeiraAzores Autonomous Region
The largest and most-visited Azorean island, its volcanic crater lakes, thermal springs and dramatically green landscape feeling unlike anywhere else in Portugal.
Don't miss The twin crater lakes of Sete Cidades from the Vista do Rei viewpoint, one lake blue and one green, filling an extinct volcano's caldera far below.
Explore Destination — São Miguel, AzoresNorthern Europe
A land of misty mountains, whisky distilleries and island-studded coastlines, where dramatic history sits behind almost every castle wall.
Greater Glasgow
Scotland's largest city, home to world-class free museums, Victorian architecture and a legendary live music and nightlife scene.
Don't miss Wandering Kelvingrove's cathedral-like galleries, from a suspended Spitfire to a real stuffed giraffe, all free to enter.
Explore Destination — GlasgowInner Hebrides
Scotland's most iconic island, home to the Old Man of Storr, the Quiraing and the Fairy Pools, and some of the country's most dramatic Highland scenery.
Don't miss Standing beneath the Old Man of Storr's jagged pinnacle as low cloud drifts across the ridge above, one of Scotland's defining views.
Explore Destination — The Isle of SkyeThe Highlands
The UK's largest national park, a vast Highland wilderness of ancient Caledonian pine forest, ice-carved mountains and real wildlife around every glen.
Don't miss Watching a red deer stag graze quietly at dawn beside the River Muick, mist still hanging low over the surrounding glen.
Explore Destination — Cairngorms National ParkThe Highlands
Scotland's most famous loch, Urquhart Castle's dramatic ruins, and Inverness, the compact Highland capital, alongside the pivotal battlefield at Culloden.
Don't miss Standing in the ruins of Urquhart Castle as a sudden gap in the cloud lights up the full length of Loch Ness below.
Explore Destination — Loch Ness & InvernessFife
The home of golf and one of Scotland's oldest universities, a small coastal town of medieval ruins, the Old Course and windswept beaches.
Don't miss Watching golfers cross the Swilcan Bridge on the Old Course, the same stone crossing photographed by generations of the sport's greatest players.
Explore Destination — St AndrewsCentral Scotland
A compact city central to Scottish history, home to Stirling Castle, the Wallace Monument and the battlefields of Bannockburn and Stirling Bridge.
Don't miss Standing on Stirling Castle's esplanade as the view opens across the plain where Bruce and Wallace both changed the course of Scottish history.
Explore Destination — StirlingInner Hebrides
A trio of Hebridean islands: Mull's colourful Tobermory harbour, Iona's ancient abbey, and Staffa's extraordinary basalt sea cave.
Don't miss Stepping inside Fingal's Cave on Staffa, its perfectly hexagonal basalt columns and deep, echoing swell unlike anywhere else on Earth.
Explore Destination — Mull, Iona & StaffaNorthern Isles
A remote northern archipelago home to Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar and some of the best-preserved Neolithic sites anywhere in the world.
Don't miss Standing inside Skara Brae's stone houses, more complete and intact than most homes I've seen from centuries far more recent.
Explore Destination — The Orkney IslandsMoray
Scotland's whisky heartland, home to the highest concentration of distilleries anywhere in the country, strung along the scenic River Spey.
Don't miss Standing in Glenfiddich's original stillhouse as a distiller explains a process barely changed since the distillery's founding in 1886.
Explore Destination — SpeysideCentral Scotland
Scotland's first national park, home to Loch Lomond, Ben Lomond and the wooded hills of the Trossachs, an easy first taste of the Highlands from Glasgow.
Don't miss Watching morning mist lift slowly off Loch Lomond from the pier at Luss, the Highland hills just beginning to catch the first light.
Explore Destination — Loch Lomond & the TrossachsAfrica
Big Five safaris, a city beneath a flat-topped mountain, vineyards, penguin beaches, whale coasts and a democratic story that changed the world, all in one rewarding country.
Western Cape, south-west coast
One of the world's most beautiful cities: Table Mountain, the Waterfront, Robben Island, the Cape Peninsula's penguins and Cape Point, Kirstenbosch, Bo-Kaap and a superb food scene.
Don't miss The top of Table Mountain on a clear day, looking over the city, the bay and the Atlantic coast at your feet.
Explore Destination — Cape TownLimpopo and Mpumalanga, north-east South Africa
South Africa's flagship safari destination: 19,500 square kilometres of savanna with lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, buffaloes and more, visited by self-drive, guided drives and private reserves.
Don't miss A dawn game drive that ends with a leopard resting in a tree beside the road.
Explore Destination — Kruger National ParkWestern and Eastern Cape, south coast
A scenic coastal drive from Mossel Bay to Tsitsikamma, with Knysna's lagoon, Plettenberg Bay's beaches, ancient forests, the Storms River suspension bridge and the ostrich country of Oudtshoorn.
Don't miss The sea-carved cliffs and forest of Tsitsikamma, from the suspension bridge across the Storms River mouth.
Explore Destination — The Garden RouteWestern Cape, east of Cape Town
The heart of South African wine: Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl and Constantia, with historic estates, Cape Dutch architecture, food, art and superb scenery.
Don't miss A long lunch on a wine estate terrace, with a chilled chenin blanc and vineyards stretching to the mountains.
Explore Destination — The Cape WinelandsGauteng, north-east interior
South Africa's largest city and its historic heart: the Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill, Soweto's Vilakazi Street and Hector Pieterson Memorial, urban renewal in Maboneng and the Cradle of Humankind.
Don't miss Vilakazi Street in Soweto, where two Nobel Peace Prize winners lived a few doors apart.
Explore Destination — Johannesburg and SowetoKwaZulu-Natal, on the Lesotho border
A UNESCO-listed mountain range of dramatic escarpments, with the Amphitheatre and Tugela Falls, Cathedral Peak, Giant's Castle, San rock art, hiking, horse riding and mountain resorts.
Don't miss Standing beneath the Amphitheatre, a five-kilometre rock wall towering above the Royal Natal National Park.
Explore Destination — The DrakensbergMpumalanga, north-east South Africa
A scenic route through Mpumalanga's escarpment, with Blyde River Canyon, God's Window, the Three Rondavels, Bourke's Luck Potholes, waterfalls and the old gold town of Pilgrim's Rest.
Don't miss The view from God's Window across the lowveld, with the Blyde River Canyon and the Three Rondavels beyond.
Explore Destination — The Panorama RouteKwaZulu-Natal, north-east coast
South Africa's first UNESCO World Heritage Site: hippo and crocodile cruises on the St Lucia estuary, the beaches of Cape Vidal, diving at Sodwana Bay, turtle nesting, whales and nearby big-game parks.
Don't miss A boat cruise on the St Lucia estuary at sunset, surrounded by hippos and the sound of fish eagles.
Explore Destination — iSimangaliso and St LuciaEastern Cape, near Gqeberha
One of South Africa's most rewarding safari parks, malaria-free and easy to reach from Gqeberha, with dense elephant herds, the Big Five, dung beetle crossings and private reserves such as Shamwari.
Don't miss A herd of elephants arriving at a waterhole at dusk, with calves splashing in the mud.
Explore Destination — Addo and the Eastern CapeWestern Cape, south coast, Overberg
A seaside town 90 minutes from Cape Town with whales from June to November, plus shark-cage diving at Gansbaai, Cape Agulhas, wine in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley and coastal walks.
Don't miss A southern right whale mother and calf just metres from the cliff path, seen with no boat needed.
Explore Destination — Hermanus and the OverbergAsia
Palaces beside skyscrapers, temples in misty mountains, a volcanic island, fast trains, superb food and a culture that moves at its own electric pace.
Seoul Capital Area, north-west South Korea
South Korea's capital, with Joseon palaces, Bukchon Hanok Village, temples, markets, K-culture districts, night views from N Seoul Tower and some of the best food in Asia.
Don't miss Gyeongbokgung Palace at opening time, with the mountains behind and a hanbok-dressed crowd walking through its gates.
Explore Destination — SeoulBusan, south-east coast
South Korea's second city, with Gamcheon Culture Village, Haeundae Beach, Jagalchi Fish Market, the seaside temple of Haedong Yonggungsa and a strong seafood and street food scene.
Don't miss The pastel houses of Gamcheon Culture Village stacked up a hillside above the harbour.
Explore Destination — BusanNorth Gyeongsang, south-east South Korea
The ancient Silla capital, with the UNESCO-listed Bulguksa temple and Seokguram Grotto, giant royal burial mounds, Cheomseongdae observatory and the night-lit Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond.
Don't miss Bulguksa temple's stone stairways and wooden halls in the soft light of early morning.
Explore Destination — GyeongjuJeju, island south of the peninsula
South Korea's volcanic island, with Hallasan mountain, the Seongsan Ilchulbong tuff cone, Manjanggul Lava Tube, beaches like Hyeopjae, tangerine farms and the female divers of the haenyeo.
Don't miss Sunrise from the crater rim of Seongsan Ilchulbong, with the sea turning gold below.
Explore Destination — Jeju IslandNorth Jeolla, south-west South Korea
A UNESCO City of Gastronomy with a large hanok village, Gyeonggijeon Shrine, Nambu Market and Korea's best bibimbap, makgeolli and banquet-style side dishes.
Don't miss A bibimbap lunch in Jeonju Hanok Village, followed by a walk through tile-roofed lanes.
Explore Destination — JeonjuGangwon, north-east coast
South Korea's most beautiful mountain park, with the Ulsanbawi rock, Biryong Falls, the cable car to Gwongeumseong and hiking to Daecheongbong, plus the port town of Sokcho and its seafood market.
Don't miss A cable car to Gwongeumseong fortress, with the granite spires of Seoraksan spread out below in October.
Explore Destination — Seoraksan and SokchoGyeonggi, south of Seoul
A UNESCO-listed fortress of about 5.7 km of walls, gates and turrets, with Haenggung Palace, archery, a traditional market and a famous fried chicken street, an easy day trip from Seoul.
Don't miss Walking the fortress wall at sunset, with the gates and the city glowing below.
Explore Destination — Suwon and Hwaseong FortressNorth Gyeongsang, inland east
A UNESCO-listed clan village on the Nakdong River with thatched and tiled houses, Byeongsan Confucian Academy, the mask dance, Andong soju and jjimdak chicken.
Don't miss Watching the Hahoe mask dance beside old thatched houses, with the river curving around the village.
Explore Destination — Andong and Hahoe Folk VillageGyeonggi and Gangwon, north of Seoul
The Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, with tunnels, the Dora Observatory, Imjingak and, when open, the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom, visited on guided tours from Seoul.
Don't miss Looking across the border from an observatory at a landscape the two Koreas have watched each other across since 1953.
Explore Destination — The DMZ and PanmunjomGangwon, east coast
A relaxed east-coast city with Gyeongpo Beach, Ojukheon (home of the scholar Yulgok), the Anmok coffee street, the Danoje festival and a KTX link from Seoul in under two hours.
Don't miss Sipping a coffee on Anmok Beach while the waves roll in, in Korea's coffee capital.
Explore Destination — GangneungSouthern Europe
Moorish palaces, Atlantic surf, volcanic islands and a capital that eats at eleven — four distinct cultures inside one border.
Catalonia
Catalonia's capital pairs a dense Gothic core with the most ambitious modernista architecture in Europe, and puts a city beach at the end of the metro line.
Don't miss The Sagrada Família's stained glass at the right hour — blue-green in the morning, red-gold by late afternoon.
Explore Destination — BarcelonaAndalusia
A hillside city beneath the Sierra Nevada, holding the Alhambra — the finest surviving Islamic palace complex anywhere — and a tapas culture where the food still comes free with the drink.
Don't miss The Nasrid Palaces: honeycomb vaulting, carved stucco and courtyards designed entirely around water and light.
Explore Destination — GranadaAndalusia
The heart of southern Spain, where flamenco, tapas and Holy Week processions are living traditions rather than performances, wrapped around a medieval core of white walls and orange trees.
Don't miss The Real Alcázar — an Islamic palace rebuilt by Christian kings in the same style, and still a working royal residence.
Explore Destination — SevilleCommunity of Madrid
Spain's capital sits at 650 m on the Castilian plateau, with an art triangle no other European city matches and a nightlife that does not start until midnight.
Don't miss The Prado's Velázquez rooms — Las Meninas hangs where it can be walked around, in the light it was painted for.
Explore Destination — MadridGipuzkoa, Basque Country
Green, Atlantic and wet, the Basque Country is the Spain nobody expects: a belle-époque resort on a perfect bay, backed by mountains and the best food culture in the country.
Don't miss Pintxos in the Parte Vieja — bar counters loaded with food, paid for by the toothpick, four or five bars an evening.
Explore Destination — San Sebastián & the Basque CountryAndalusia
A compact Andalusian city on the Guadalquivir holding one of the most astonishing interiors in the world, plus flower-filled patios and Spain's best cold soup.
Don't miss The Mezquita's hypostyle hall — 856 columns under red-and-white double arches, with a cathedral built into the middle of it.
Explore Destination — CórdobaValencian Community
A Mediterranean city with a Gothic old town, Europe's most striking modern architectural complex, a city beach and the best-value eating of any major Spanish city.
Don't miss The Turia — a river diverted after a flood and turned into a green park running right through the middle of the city.
Explore Destination — ValenciaBalearic Islands
The largest Balearic island has a proper capital city, a mountain range along its entire northwest coast, and hundreds of coves that never appear in the package-holiday version of it.
Don't miss The Serra de Tramuntana — a UNESCO-listed mountain range of terraced olive groves dropping straight into the sea.
Explore Destination — MallorcaCanary Islands
A volcanic island 1,000 km from mainland Spain, with year-round warmth, a black-sand coastline and a national park caldera that looks like another planet.
Don't miss The cable car to 3,555 m on Teide, above the cloud layer, looking down on the other Canary Islands.
Explore Destination — Tenerife & Mount TeideGalicia
A granite cathedral city at the end of Europe's oldest pilgrimage route, in a region of rías, oyster beds and rainfall that looks and tastes nothing like the rest of Spain.
Don't miss The moment pilgrims walk into the Praza do Obradoiro after weeks on the Camino — worth seeing even if you arrived by train.
Explore Destination — Santiago de Compostela & GaliciaAsia
A teardrop island of ancient Buddhist kingdoms, rock fortresses, tea-covered hills, misty trains, leopards, elephants and golden beaches, all within a few hours of each other.
Central Province, Cultural Triangle
The 5th-century rock fortress of Sigiriya, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with frescoes, water gardens and lion's paw gates, plus Pidurangala Rock and the cave temples of Dambulla.
Don't miss Reaching the summit of Sigiriya Rock, with the ruined palace beneath your feet and the jungle spread to the horizon.
Explore Destination — Sigiriya and DambullaCentral Province, hill country
A hill-country city with the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, Kandy Lake, Kandyan dance, Peradeniya Botanical Gardens and the base for tea country trains.
Don't miss The evening puja at the Temple of the Tooth, with drummers, incense and pilgrims in white.
Explore Destination — KandySouthern Province
A 17th-century Dutch fort that is still a living community, with ramparts, a lighthouse, mosques and churches, boutiques, cafés and the beaches of the south coast nearby.
Don't miss Walking the ramparts of Galle Fort at sunset, with waves crashing below and the lighthouse glowing.
Explore Destination — GalleUva Province, hill country
A small hill-country village with Little Adam's Peak, Ella Rock, the Nine Arch Bridge, Ravana Falls and cafés overlooking the Ella Gap.
Don't miss Watching a blue train cross the Nine Arch Bridge among the jungle and tea bushes.
Explore Destination — EllaCentral Province, hill country
Sri Lanka's tea capital at 1,900 metres, with tea estate tours, colonial architecture, Gregory Lake and the Horton Plains' World's End and Baker's Falls.
Don't miss Standing at World's End on the Horton Plains at dawn, before the mist rolls in, with a 870-metre drop at your feet.
Explore Destination — Nuwara Eliya and Horton PlainsSouthern and Uva Provinces
Sri Lanka's most famous safari park, with one of the highest densities of leopards in the world, elephants, buffalo, crocodiles and birds, explored in jeep safaris.
Don't miss A leopard stretched along a rock in early morning light, watched from the safety of a jeep.
Explore Destination — Yala National ParkNorth Central Province
A UNESCO-listed ancient capital, active as a pilgrimage centre, with the Sri Maha Bodhi tree, the Ruwanwelisaya and Jetavanaramaya stupas, monasteries, ponds and palace ruins.
Don't miss Watching pilgrims in white circle the Ruwanwelisaya stupa at dawn with flowers and lamps.
Explore Destination — AnuradhapuraNorth Central Province
A UNESCO-listed 11th to 13th century capital, with the Gal Vihara Buddhas, Vatadage, the Royal Palace and Parakrama Samudra lake, plus Minneriya elephant safaris nearby.
Don't miss Standing before the Gal Vihara, four colossal Buddha figures carved from a single granite rock face.
Explore Destination — PolonnaruwaSouthern Province, south coast
A relaxed beach town on Sri Lanka's south coast, with whale and dolphin watching, Coconut Tree Hill, Parrot Rock, surfing at Weligama and seafood on the sand.
Don't miss Seeing the vast back of a blue whale rise from the Indian Ocean off Mirissa.
Explore Destination — MirissaWestern Province
Sri Lanka's commercial capital, with Galle Face Green, Pettah market, the Gangaramaya Temple, colonial Fort, the National Museum and a strong food scene, the gateway to the island.
Don't miss Watching kite-flying families and street-food vendors at sunset on Galle Face Green.
Explore Destination — ColomboEurope
Elegant cities, thousands of islands, folk traditions and the northern lights.
Stockholm County, east coast
Sweden's elegant island capital: Gamla Stan, the Royal Palace, the Vasa Museum, Skansen, City Hall, design shops and an archipelago on its doorstep.
Don't miss Wandering the cobbled lanes of Gamla Stan, then a waterside fika in the sun.
Explore Destination — StockholmVastra Gotaland County, west coast
Sweden's second city: Haga, Feskekorka fish market, Slottsskogen, Liseberg, the southern archipelago and some of the best seafood in the country.
Don't miss Eating fresh shrimp by the harbour, then a ferry to a car-free island.
Explore Destination — GothenburgSkane County, southern Sweden
Sweden's third city: Turning Torso, Lilla Torg, the medieval Malmohus castle, Ribersborg beach, Western Harbour and an easy hop to Copenhagen.
Don't miss Taking a cold plunge at Ribersborg then a falafel in Mollevangen.
Explore Destination — MalmoUppsala County, east-central Sweden
A historic cathedral and university city 40 minutes from Stockholm, with the Royal Mounds of Gamla Uppsala, botanical gardens and a lively river.
Don't miss Looking up at the towers of Scandinavia's largest cathedral.
Explore Destination — UppsalaGotland County, Baltic Sea
A UNESCO-listed Hanseatic town with a 3.4 km medieval wall, church ruins, and an island of raukar sea stacks, sandy beaches and medieval churches.
Don't miss Walking the ring wall at sunset, with ruined churches glowing in the light.
Explore Destination — Visby and GotlandNorrbotten County, Swedish Lapland
Swedish Lapland's star attractions: Abisko National Park and its aurora sky, the Kungsleden trail, Kiruna, Icehotel at Jukkasjarvi, reindeer and Sami heritage.
Don't miss Watching green curtains of aurora ripple over a frozen lake.
Explore Destination — Abisko and KirunaJamtland County, central Sweden
A year-round mountain playground: skiing at Are, Aresjutan, Storsjon lake, Tannforsen waterfall and hikes through the Jamtland mountains.
Don't miss Skiing under the lights with Lake Storsjon below, then a hot sauna.
Explore Destination — Are and JamtlandDalarna County, central Sweden
A region of lakes and forests with folk traditions, the Dala horse, Falun copper mine, Mora and Vasaloppet ski race, and Leksand midsummer festival.
Don't miss Dancing around a maypole at midsummer beside Lake Siljan.
Explore Destination — DalarnaKalmar County, south-east coast
A historic castle town linked by a long bridge to Oland, with the Southern Oland UNESCO landscape, windmills, beaches and sunny summers.
Don't miss Cycling past windmills on the limestone plain of Stora Alvaret.
Explore Destination — Kalmar and OlandStockholm County, Baltic Sea
A vast archipelago of around 30,000 islands with Vaxholm, Sandhamn, Grinda and Fjaderholmarna, perfect for sailing, kayaking and island hopping.
Don't miss Jumping off a warm granite rock into the Baltic, then fika on the pier.
Explore Destination — Stockholm ArchipelagoEurope
Alpine peaks, glacier-fed lakes, medieval old towns, mountain railways that run like clockwork and cheese, chocolate and wine to match, all packed into a country you can cross in a day.
Zurich, northern Switzerland
A compact, clean city on Lake Zurich, with a medieval old town, Bahnhofstrasse shopping, museums, river swimming and easy day trips to the mountains.
Don't miss The Limmat river with the twin towers of the Grossmünster and old-town rooftops from Lindenhof hill.
Explore Destination — ZurichCentral Switzerland, Lake Lucerne
A postcard old town on Lake Lucerne, with the Chapel Bridge, the Lion Monument, Mount Pilatus, Rigi and paddle-steamer trips, ideal as a Swiss base.
Don't miss Walking across the Chapel Bridge at sunset, with the Reuss river, the water tower and the snow-dusted Pilatus behind.
Explore Destination — LucerneBernese Oberland, central Switzerland
The Bernese Oberland's base for Lauterbrunnen's waterfalls, Grindelwald and the Eiger, the Jungfraujoch railway, Lake Brienz and Thun, with hiking, paragliding and cog railways.
Don't miss The train to Jungfraujoch, climbing through the Eiger itself to the highest railway station in Europe.
Explore Destination — Interlaken and the Jungfrau RegionValais, south-west Switzerland
A car-free Alpine village at the foot of the Matterhorn, with the Gornergrat railway, Riffelsee reflections, hiking, year-round skiing and the highest cable car in Europe.
Don't miss The Matterhorn's reflection in the Riffelsee at dawn, from the Gornergrat railway.
Explore Destination — Zermatt and the MatterhornGeneva, south-west Switzerland
A French-speaking lakeside city, with the Jet d'Eau, the old town and St. Peter's Cathedral, the Reformation Wall, UN and Red Cross sites, watches and chocolate.
Don't miss The Jet d'Eau shooting 140 metres into the air, with the Alps and Mont Blanc behind on a clear day.
Explore Destination — GenevaBern, western Switzerland
A relaxed capital with a UNESCO-listed old town, six kilometres of arcades, the Zytglogge clock tower, the Rosengarten viewpoint, the Bundeshaus, river swimming and Einstein's apartment.
Don't miss The old town's red roofs and the Aare's turquoise bend, seen from the Rosengarten.
Explore Destination — BernVaud, Lake Geneva
A UNESCO-listed stretch of vineyard terraces on Lake Geneva, with hillside Lausanne, its cathedral and Ouchy waterfront, the Château de Chillon at Montreux and lake steamers.
Don't miss Walking the Lavaux terraces with a glass of chasselas, the lake shining below and the Alps across the water.
Explore Destination — Lausanne, Lavaux and MontreuxTicino, southern Switzerland
The Italian-speaking south, with Lugano's lake and piazzas, Locarno and Ascona on Lake Maggiore, the castles of Bellinzona and the Verzasca Valley.
Don't miss Sitting on Lugano's lakefront under a palm tree, with Monte Brè across the water and an espresso in hand.
Explore Destination — Lugano and TicinoGraubünden, south-east Switzerland
Switzerland's high valley of lakes, with the resort of St. Moritz, the Bernina and Glacier Express UNESCO railways, Lake Sils, hiking and skiing in 322 days of sunshine.
Don't miss The Glacier Express crossing the Landwasser Viaduct, a curved stone bridge over a forested gorge.
Explore Destination — St. Moritz and the EngadinEastern Switzerland, Appenzell
A traditional region of gentle hills, with colourful Appenzell village, the Säntis peak, the cliffside Berggasthaus Äscher, Appenzeller cheese and folk customs, away from the crowds.
Don't miss Berggasthaus Äscher, a mountain inn built into an overhanging cliff, with a view of the valley 500 metres below.
Explore Destination — Appenzell and the SäntisWestern Asia (Middle East)
Damascus and Aleppo, two of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth, the ruins of Palmyra and the Crusader castles of the coast — a heritage the world is only beginning to reassess after fourteen years of war.
This is a heritage overview, not a trip to plan. Syria has lived through more than a decade of war and, since December 2024, an uncertain political transition. At the time of writing (mid-2026), most governments advised their citizens against all travel to Syria, or against all but essential travel, and security, medical care and consular help remained unreliable across much of the country. Landmines and unexploded ordnance are widespread. Advice changes, so check your own government's current guidance before drawing any conclusion.
Damascus Governorate
Syria's capital and one of the great ancient cities: a walled old city with the Umayyad Mosque, the Hamidiyeh souk and the Street Called Straight, which came through the war with relatively limited damage.
Best known for The Umayyad Mosque, one of the great buildings of early Islam, with its mosaics, its courtyard and a shrine to John the Baptist.
Read the overview — DamascusAleppo Governorate, northern Syria
One of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, with a medieval citadel, the Great Mosque, khans and about thirteen kilometres of covered market, much of which was damaged or destroyed between 2012 and 2016.
Best known for The citadel and the covered souks — the most heavily damaged of any Syrian historic centre, and the focus of the country's largest heritage reconstruction effort.
Read the overview — AleppoHoms Governorate, Syrian Desert
The ruins of the Roman-era caravan city of Tadmor, with a great colonnaded street, tower tombs and temples — some of which were destroyed by Islamic State in 2015.
Best known for The Great Colonnade, a kilometre-long avenue of columns running through the desert, much of which survives.
Read the overview — PalmyraHoms Governorate, western Syria
A 12th- and 13th-century Hospitaller fortress with two rings of walls, a great vaulted hall and a chapel, on a spur commanding the pass between the Syrian interior and the Mediterranean.
Best known for The concentric walls and the great hall, one of the finest surviving examples of Crusader military architecture.
Read the overview — Krak des ChevaliersDaraa Governorate, southern Syria
A Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic city built of dark volcanic stone, with a fortified theatre, one of the oldest mosques in the world and a monastery linked to the prophet Muhammad's youth.
Best known for The Roman theatre inside the Ayyubid citadel, one of the finest and best-preserved Roman theatres in the world.
Read the overview — BosraHama Governorate, Orontes Valley
A Hellenistic and Roman city founded around 300 BCE, famed for its long colonnaded main street, its theatre and its mosaics — and now one of the most looted archaeological sites in the world.
Best known for The Cardo Maximus, a 1.85-kilometre colonnade, some of whose columns are carved with twisting and fluted patterns.
Read the overview — ApameaHama Governorate, central Syria
A city on the Orontes with medieval waterwheels, an Ottoman governor's palace and a Great Mosque — and a painful modern history, marked by the 1982 massacre.
Best known for The norias, some over twenty metres in diameter, groaning as they turned in the river.
Read the overview — HamaRif Dimashq Governorate, Qalamoun Mountains
One of the last places in the world where a form of Aramaic is spoken, with Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic monasteries, Christian and Muslim families, and houses stacked up a rock face.
Best known for The Monastery of Saint Thecla, built against a sheer cliff beside a narrow gorge that, according to tradition, opened to let her escape.
Read the overview — MaaloulaLatakia Governorate, coastal mountains
A remote fortress on a spur between two ravines in the mountains east of Latakia, a Byzantine and then Crusader stronghold called Sahyun, captured by Saladin in 1188 and added to the World Heritage List with Krak des Chevaliers.
Best known for The rock-cut ditch and its 28-metre needle of stone, one of the most spectacular pieces of medieval military engineering in the world.
Read the overview — Saladin's Castle (Qal'at Salah ed-Din)Idlib and Aleppo governorates, limestone massif
A landscape of ruined villages, churches, tombs and farms from the 1st to 7th centuries, so well preserved that it shows how ordinary people lived in late antiquity; a World Heritage Site since 2011.
Best known for The great basilica of Saint Simeon Stylites, once among the largest church complexes in the world, built around the pillar where a hermit lived for decades.
Read the overview — The Dead Cities (Ancient Villages of Northern Syria)Africa
The great wildebeest migration, a volcanic crater alive with predators, Africa's highest mountain and the spice-scented beaches of Zanzibar, in one safari country.
Mara and Simiyu regions, northern Tanzania
A UNESCO-listed park of 14,750 square kilometres, home to the Great Migration of wildebeest and zebra, big cats, balloon safaris and classic acacia-dotted savannah.
Don't miss Watching a river crossing or a lion pride at sunrise from an open safari vehicle.
Explore Destination — Serengeti National ParkNgorongoro Conservation Area, Arusha Region
A UNESCO World Heritage caldera 600 metres deep and 20 kilometres wide, with dense wildlife, flamingo lakes and Maasai communities on the rim.
Don't miss Descending into the crater at dawn and finding a black rhino in the mist.
Explore Destination — Ngorongoro CraterManyara Region, northern Tanzania
Two compact parks on the northern circuit, famous for dry-season elephants, baobab landscapes, birdlife and the Rift Valley escarpment.
Don't miss Watching elephant herds feed beneath ancient baobab trees in the dry season.
Explore Destination — Tarangire and Lake ManyaraKilimanjaro Region, northern Tanzania
A trekkable giant with five climate zones, several routes, a UNESCO listing and gentler options like day hikes in the foothills and coffee farms.
Don't miss Standing on Uhuru Peak at sunrise after a midnight summit push.
Explore Destination — Mount KilimanjaroArusha Region, northern Tanzania
A bustling gateway city with markets, cafes and museums, plus Arusha National Park, Mount Meru treks and Lake Duluti.
Don't miss Walking among giraffes with a ranger in Arusha National Park, with Kilimanjaro on the horizon.
Explore Destination — Arusha and Mount MeruZanzibar City, Unguja island
A UNESCO-listed Swahili trading port with Omani, Indian, Arab and European influences, famous for carved doors, markets, palaces and seafood.
Don't miss Getting lost in the lanes, then watching the sun set over the harbour from a rooftop.
Explore Destination — Stone Town, ZanzibarUnguja island, Zanzibar
The north and east coast beaches of Zanzibar: Nungwi, Kendwa, Paje, Jambiani, Matemwe and Michamvi, plus snorkelling, kite-surfing and red colobus monkeys.
Don't miss Watching the tide drift out and a dhow sail past at sunset on a quiet beach.
Explore Destination — Zanzibar BeachesMorogoro and Lindi regions, southern Tanzania
A huge southern park with the Rufiji River, boat and walking safaris, African wild dogs and fewer visitors than the northern circuit.
Don't miss Drifting down the Rufiji River past hippos and crocodiles at dusk.
Explore Destination — Nyerere National Park (Selous)Iringa Region, southern Tanzania
A remote, wild park of 20,000 square kilometres with huge baobabs, big lion prides, greater kudu, sable and roan antelope.
Don't miss Watching a big lion pride at the Great Ruaha River with no other vehicles around.
Explore Destination — Ruaha National ParkPwani Region, Indian Ocean
A relaxed marine park island south of Zanzibar, known for diving, whale shark encounters, turtles and the ruins on Chole.
Don't miss Snorkelling beside a whale shark in the warm waters off Mafia.
Explore Destination — Mafia IslandSoutheast Asia
Golden temples and a former royal capital in ruins, limestone islands rising out of turquoise water, and a street food culture good enough that the fine dining scene has to compete with a plastic stool on the pavement.
Central Thailand
Thailand's capital, a genuine megacity where golden royal temples and river life sit directly alongside some of the best street food anywhere in the world.
Don't miss Wat Arun lit up across the Chao Phraya River at dusk, its porcelain-studded spires catching the last light as ferries cross below.
Explore Destination — BangkokNorthern Thailand
Northern Thailand's cultural capital, a moated old city of temples ringed by mountains, with a slower pace than Bangkok.
Don't miss Wat Phra That Doi Suthep at golden hour, its gilded chedi glowing above the city on the mountainside where a legend says a white elephant chose the temple's site.
Explore Destination — Chiang MaiCentral Thailand
The ruined former capital of the Siamese kingdom, its UNESCO-listed temple complexes an easy and worthwhile day trip from Bangkok.
Don't miss The sandstone Buddha head at Wat Mahathat, cradled within the roots of a fig tree that grew slowly around it over centuries.
Explore Destination — AyutthayaNorthern Thailand
The 13th-century birthplace of the Thai kingdom, its peaceful ruined temples spread across a UNESCO-listed historical park.
Don't miss Wat Mahathat's central lotus-bud chedi at dawn, its reflection perfectly still in the surrounding pond before the historical park's first tour buses arrive.
Explore Destination — SukhothaiNorthern Thailand
Northern Thailand's quieter frontier city, home to striking contemporary temples and the historic Golden Triangle where Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet.
Don't miss Wat Rong Khun, the White Temple, its mirrored white facade almost too bright to look at directly under the midday sun.
Explore Destination — Chiang RaiAndaman Coast, Southern Thailand
Thailand's largest island, home to a genuine range of beach resorts, an atmospheric old town, and easy boat access to the Andaman Sea's islands.
Don't miss Phuket Old Town's pastel Sino-Portuguese shophouses at golden hour, their painted facades unlike any other Thai city.
Explore Destination — PhuketAndaman Coast, Southern Thailand
Thailand's most dramatic stretch of limestone coastline, home to Railay's boat-only beaches and world-class rock climbing.
Don't miss The view from Railay's Phra Nang Cave Beach, its sheer limestone cliffs rising straight from turquoise water, no road ever reaching it.
Explore Destination — Krabi & RailayGulf of Thailand, Southern Thailand
The Gulf of Thailand's two most popular islands, Koh Samui's resort beaches paired with Koh Phangan's nightlife and quieter yoga retreats.
Don't miss Sunset over the Big Buddha at Wat Phra Yai, its golden statue catching the last light above Koh Samui's northeastern coast.
Explore Destination — Koh Samui & Koh PhanganWestern Thailand
A riverside western Thailand town holding the Bridge on the River Kwai's WWII history, paired with spectacular waterfalls and caves nearby.
Don't miss The Bridge on the River Kwai at dusk, the water beneath it a peaceful sight given the bridge's grim wartime history.
Explore Destination — KanchanaburiSurat Thani, Southern Thailand
A wild national park of ancient rainforest and a limestone-studded lake, rarely on standard Thailand itineraries despite rewarding the detour.
Don't miss Cheow Lan Lake at dawn, mist rising off the water between limestone karsts that rival Guilin's, with not another boat in sight.
Explore Destination — Khao Sok National ParkSoutheast Europe and Western Asia
Roman cities, an eleven-thousand-year-old temple, a volcanic landscape carved into churches, and 8,000 km of coastline.
Marmara
The only city on two continents, holding the buildings of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, a covered bazaar of 4,000 shops, and a waterway running through the middle of it.
Don't miss Hagia Sophia — a cathedral for 916 years, a mosque for 481, a museum for 86, and a mosque again since 2020.
Explore Destination — IstanbulNevşehir, Central Anatolia
A landscape with no real parallel: soft volcanic rock carved by wind and water into towers and cones, then carved again by Byzantine Christians into painted churches and underground refuges.
Don't miss A hundred hot-air balloons rising out of the valleys at dawn — and being in one of them.
Explore Destination — Cappadociaİzmir, Aegean
The best-preserved classical city in the Mediterranean, where you walk the actual paved streets past a 24,000-seat theatre, public latrines and a library, with a small Turkish town alongside it.
Don't miss The Terrace Houses — six Roman apartments with mosaic floors, painted walls and plumbing, under a modern roof.
Explore Destination — Ephesus & SelçukDenizli, Aegean
Calcium-rich springs have been depositing white travertine down a 200-metre hillside for millennia, creating stepped pools that the Romans built a city above and bathed in.
Don't miss Walking barefoot up the travertines at opening, with the terraces to yourself and the water still warm.
Explore Destination — Pamukkale & HierapolisAntalya, Mediterranean
Turkey's Mediterranean capital pairs a beautifully preserved walled old quarter with the best archaeological museum in the country and a mountain range that comes almost to the sea.
Don't miss Aspendos — a Roman theatre from 155 AD so intact that it still holds concerts for 12,000 people.
Explore Destination — Antalya & the Turquoise CoastMuğla, Turquoise Coast
The base for the Turquoise Coast: gulet trips from the harbour, a ghost village in the hills, an 18-kilometre gorge inland, and the start of the 540-kilometre Lycian Way.
Don't miss Paragliding off Babadağ at 1,965 metres and spiralling down for half an hour onto Ölüdeniz beach.
Explore Destination — Fethiye & ÖlüdenizSoutheastern Anatolia
A pilgrimage city of sacred carp pools and covered bazaars, twenty minutes from the site that pushed the start of monumental building back by six thousand years.
Don't miss Göbekli Tepe — carved stone enclosures raised around 9500 BC, before farming, pottery, metal or writing.
Explore Destination — Şanlıurfa & Göbekli TepeMuğla, Aegean coast
Turkey's most stylish stretch of Aegean coast, built on the site of Halicarnassus, with a Bronze Age shipwreck in the castle and thirteen villages on the peninsula behind it.
Don't miss The Castle of St Peter, built by the Knights of St John out of the stones of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Explore Destination — BodrumEastern Black Sea
The one part of Turkey that looks like the Alps: rain-fed forest, highland pastures at 2,000 metres, the last Byzantine capital, and a food culture built on anchovies, cornmeal and butter.
Don't miss Sumela Monastery, built into a rock face 300 metres above the Altındere valley.
Explore Destination — Trabzon & the Black Sea CoastCentral Anatolia
A planned republican capital on the Anatolian plateau, with Atatürk's mausoleum, a Byzantine citadel, Augustus's own account of his reign carved on a temple wall, and Bronze Age capitals within reach.
Don't miss The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations — Çatalhöyük, the Hittites and the Phrygians under one Ottoman roof.
Explore Destination — AnkaraNorthern Europe
Four nations under one crown, a rail network that reaches every one of them, and a landscape that runs from Cotswolds villages to Highland glens in the space of a single, fairly small island.
Greater London
A genuine world city where free museums holding some of humanity's greatest treasures sit blocks from a medieval fortress and a still-working royal palace.
Don't miss The British Museum, free to enter — the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon sculptures and several million years of human history under one roof.
Explore Destination — LondonScotland
Scotland's capital, where a medieval Old Town climbs to a castle on an extinct volcano's crag, a Georgian New Town spreads below it, and August brings the largest arts festival on earth.
Don't miss Edinburgh Castle at dusk, floodlit above the Royal Mile — a fortress that has watched over the city for over a thousand years.
Explore Destination — EdinburghSomerset & Gloucestershire
A UNESCO-listed Georgian city built around genuine Roman baths, with the golden-stone villages of the Cotswolds an easy day trip beyond it.
Don't miss The Roman Baths — a two-thousand-year-old bathing complex, its original lead-lined pool still filled by a natural hot spring.
Explore Destination — Bath & the CotswoldsScotland
Scotland's wild heart: glens, lochs and single-track roads leading to an island of impossibly jagged rock formations and some of Britain's most dramatic scenery.
Don't miss The Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye — a jagged basalt pinnacle rising from a landslip landscape, reached by one of Scotland's most rewarding short hikes.
Explore Destination — Scottish Highlands & Isle of SkyeCumbria, North West England
A compact national park of lakes, fells and stone villages in England's north west, walkable, boatable and scenic on a scale that punches well above its actual size.
Don't miss Derwentwater and the fells above Keswick — the classic Lake District view, and the easiest place to understand in an afternoon why Wordsworth never really left.
Explore Destination — The Lake DistrictNorth Yorkshire, England
A compact, walkable walled city in the north of England layering Roman, Viking, medieval and Victorian history, with one of Europe's great Gothic cathedrals at its centre.
Don't miss York Minster's Gothic towers rising above a skyline of medieval streets still enclosed by their original city walls.
Explore Destination — YorkEngland
Two historic university towns, each built around a cluster of centuries-old colleges, best visited as a pair or chosen individually depending on time.
Don't miss Punting along the Backs in Cambridge, or through Oxford's Christ Church Meadow — the classic view of spires and college walls from the water.
Explore Destination — Oxford & CambridgeGwynedd and Conwy, Wales
A mountainous national park in north Wales, built around Yr Wyddfa's peak, ringed by medieval castles and slate heritage towns, with a dramatic coastline nearby.
Don't miss Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) at sunrise, Wales's highest peak and the reason the whole national park carries its old English name.
Explore Destination — Snowdonia & North WalesSouth West England
A peninsula of dramatic coastline in England's far south-west, mixing fishing harbours, surf beaches, clifftop paths and a distinct Cornish identity.
Don't miss St Ives' turquoise-watered harbour and beaches, framed by whitewashed cottages and one of Britain's best small art scenes.
Explore Destination — CornwallNorthern Ireland
Northern Ireland's capital, honest about its Troubles-era history and increasingly vibrant, paired with the dramatic Causeway Coast an hour and a half north.
Don't miss The Giant's Causeway's 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, stepping from the cliffs into the Atlantic in improbably regular hexagons.
Explore Destination — Belfast & the Giant's CausewayNorth America
A canyon a mile deep, a city built on jazz, a supervolcano full of wildlife and 3,000 miles of country between them.
New York
The densest, most walkable American city, where five distinct boroughs, a 24-hour subway and a century of immigration produce something no other city in the country resembles.
Don't miss The Metropolitan Museum — two million works across 5,000 years, and you could go every day for a month.
Explore Destination — New York CityArizona
The single most overwhelming landscape in North America: a canyon so large the eye cannot process it, with a river a vertical mile below and rock at the bottom half as old as the earth.
Don't miss Sunrise or sunset from the rim, when shadow moves across the buttes and the whole thing stops looking flat.
Explore Destination — Grand Canyon National ParkCalifornia
The most walkable major city on the American West Coast, with cable cars, Victorian terraces and a food culture built on Californian produce — plus redwoods, wine country and Highway 1 within two hours.
Don't miss Walking or cycling the Golden Gate Bridge, with the fog moving through the towers beneath you.
Explore Destination — San Francisco & the California CoastLouisiana
A city that was French, then Spanish, then French again before it was American, and which turned that inheritance into a food and music culture found nowhere else on the continent.
Don't miss Live brass and jazz on Frenchmen Street, seven nights a week, with no cover charge in half the rooms.
Explore Destination — New OrleansWyoming, Montana and Idaho
Nearly 9,000 square kilometres of high volcanic plateau in Wyoming, holding over 10,000 thermal features, grizzly bears, wolves, and herds of bison that stop the traffic.
Don't miss Wolves and bison in the Lamar Valley at dawn — the closest thing to an African game drive in North America.
Explore Destination — Yellowstone National ParkDistrict of Columbia
A planned capital of low neoclassical buildings and wide avenues, holding the largest museum complex in the world and charging nothing to enter almost any of it.
Don't miss The National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture — free, and among the best of their kind anywhere.
Explore Destination — Washington, D.C.Utah
A concentration of canyon country unmatched anywhere: Zion's sheer red walls, Bryce's hoodoos, Arches' sandstone spans and Canyonlands' mesas, within a few hours of each other.
Don't miss The Narrows — wading up the Virgin River between sandstone walls 300 metres high and, in places, ten metres apart.
Explore Destination — Zion & Southern UtahIllinois
America's great architectural city, on a lake the size of a small country, with a museum of Impressionism to rival Paris and the blues clubs that shaped modern music.
Don't miss The architecture boat tour on the Chicago River — the best hour of sightseeing in any American city.
Explore Destination — ChicagoHawai'i
The second-largest Hawaiian island, with a summit above the clouds, a rainforest coast road, some of the Pacific's best snorkelling and a winter whale population in the thousands.
Don't miss Sunrise above the clouds from Haleakalā's summit crater, at 3,055 m, in near-freezing air.
Explore Destination — Maui, Hawai'iSouth Carolina
A walkable colonial port with the best-preserved historic centre in the United States, an outstanding food scene, and a history of slavery that the city has increasingly stopped avoiding.
Don't miss The pastel houses of Rainbow Row and the double piazzas of Church Street, walked at 08:00 with nobody about.
Explore Destination — Charleston, South CarolinaAsia
A long, slender country of limestone bays, imperial cities, lantern-lit river towns and street food that is among the best in the world, all within a fortnight's reach.
Red River Delta, northern Vietnam
Vietnam's capital: a lakeside city with a maze-like Old Quarter, the Temple of Literature, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, colonial architecture, water puppets and some of the best street food in Asia.
Don't miss A bowl of pho at a pavement stall at dawn, before the motorbikes take over the Old Quarter.
Explore Destination — HanoiQuang Ninh, north-east Vietnam
A UNESCO-listed seascape of limestone islands and hidden lagoons in the Gulf of Tonkin, explored by overnight cruise, kayak and cave, with quieter Lan Ha and Bai Tu Long bays nearby.
Don't miss Waking on deck to mist lifting from the karst islands.
Explore Destination — Ha Long BayCentral coast, near Da Nang
A UNESCO-listed trading town of Chinese assembly halls, Japanese bridge and merchants' houses, famed for lanterns, tailors, food and its easy access to beaches and the ruins of My Son.
Don't miss The old town at dusk, when the lanterns are lit and the river fills with candle-lit boats.
Explore Destination — Hoi AnSouthern Red River Delta, northern Vietnam
A landscape of karst hills, rivers, caves and paddies two hours south of Hanoi, with the boat trips of Trang An and Tam Coc, the Hang Mua viewpoint, Hoa Lu ancient capital and Bai Dinh pagoda.
Don't miss A rowing boat gliding through a cave beneath the cliffs at Trang An, with water buffalo grazing beside the river.
Explore Destination — Ninh BinhPerfume River, central Vietnam
The former imperial capital on the Perfume River, with the Imperial City, the tombs of the Nguyen emperors, Thien Mu Pagoda and a distinctive royal cuisine.
Don't miss The Meridian Gate of the Imperial City, and the calm of a royal tomb reflected in its lotus pond.
Explore Destination — HueSouthern Vietnam
The commercial heart of Vietnam, with the Reunification Palace, War Remnants Museum, Notre-Dame Basilica, Ben Thanh Market, Chinatown and the Cu Chi Tunnels, plus a thriving food and nightlife scene.
Don't miss A bowl of noodles on a plastic stool at midnight, with the motorbikes of Saigon streaming by.
Explore Destination — Ho Chi Minh CityHoang Lien Son mountains, north-west Vietnam
A former French hill station at 1,500 metres, gateway to the terraced valleys of the Hoang Lien Son range, Hmong and Red Dao villages, homestays and Fansipan, Indochina's highest peak.
Don't miss Trekking through the Muong Hoa Valley when the terraces turn gold in September.
Explore Destination — SapaCentral Vietnam
A UNESCO-listed national park with hundreds of caves, including Phong Nha, Paradise and the giant Son Doong, plus jungle, rivers, ziplines and quiet countryside.
Don't miss The huge chamber of Paradise Cave, with its glittering formations lit for the visitors.
Explore Destination — Phong Nha–Ke BangMekong Delta, southern Vietnam
Vietnam's rice bowl: a delta of waterways south of Ho Chi Minh City with floating markets at Can Tho, fruit orchards, homestays, coconut candy workshops and a slow river pace.
Don't miss A dawn boat to a floating market, with fruit boats piled high and vendors hanging their wares from tall poles.
Explore Destination — The Mekong DeltaGulf of Thailand, southern Vietnam
A tropical island in the Gulf of Thailand with long beaches, snorkelling, a national park, pepper and fish-sauce farms, night markets and a cable car to the offshore islands.
Don't miss Swimming off Sao Beach in calm turquoise water, then dinner at the Duong Dong night market.
Explore Destination — Phu QuocAdvertisement
