120 city guides · 3-day highlights itineraries
3-day city guides covering the essential highlights every visitor should experience.
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Ferrari World and desert safari…
Aso Rock, Zuma Rock, the National Museum and the best suya in Nigeria…
La Quebrada cliff divers at night, Fort San Diego, Pie de la Cuesta sunset and ceviche…
Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, Jamestown lighthouse, Cape Coast slave castles and Ghanaian food…
Lucy's skeleton, Merkato, the Ethnological Museum and the Ethiopian coffee ceremony…
Australia's most liveable secret: the largest fresh produce market in the Southern Hemisphere (since…
Morocco's Atlantic beach capital: the bay rebuilt after the 1960 earthquake that killed 15,000 in 15…
Home of the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, and the greatest Mughal architecture on earth…
Alexander's city of libraries and lighhouses: the modern Bibliotheca, the catacombs blending Egyptia…
The White City of the Mediterranean: the UNESCO Casbah (the Ottoman urban fabric where the Battle of…
The safest Arab capital: the Roman Citadel on the highest hill (with the oldest human statues, 6500 …
Rembrandt's Night Watch, Anne Frank's annex, jenever from a tulip glass and a canal at golden hour…
Europe's highest capital (1,023m) and its most unusual sovereign state: co-ruled by the French Presi…
Turkey's underrated capital: the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (the world's finest Hittite colle…
The Turkish Riviera capital with 5,000 years of history: Hadrian's triumphal arch (130 CE, the most …
The most biodiverse capital in the world: the Rova royal palace on the 1,466m hill (ruling a kingdom…
The UNESCO Baroque colonial capital (1543–1776, best-preserved in the Americas), three volcanoes (Fu…
The city that ran 16th-century global trade: four Rubens altarpieces in the Cathedral, 80% of the wo…
Samoa's only city — To Sua Ocean Trench, Stevenson's tomb, and the Pacific's finest reef snorkelling…
The city of white marble (Guinness World Record for highest density of marble-clad buildings): manda…
Africa's forgotten city of elegance: the UNESCO Italian Modernist city (1935–1941, more intact than …
The extraordinary planned capital of the steppe: the Khan Shatyr (the world's largest tent, −40°C ou…
South America's most overlooked capital — colonial streets, asado, and tereré by the river…
The Parthenon at 8am, the Acropolis Museum's missing Elgin Marbles gap and souvlaki with French frie…
Birthplace of MLK and Coca-Cola — the American South's most dynamic city…
The world's largest Polynesian city built on 53 volcanoes: Māori taonga in the War Memorial Museum, …
"Keep Austin Weird": the Franklin Barbecue brisket queue, 1.5 million bats at sunset, the Barton Spr…
The medieval capital of Christendom: the largest Gothic building in the world (the Palais des Papes,…
The city that was the largest in the world from 762–1258 CE (the Abbasid Islamic Golden Age), the Ho…
Lake Tana (the source of the Blue Nile, 37 islands with medieval Ethiopian Orthodox monasteries and …
Azerbaijan's fire city on the Caspian — Zaha Hadid, medieval oil barons, and the world's mud volcano…
The capital of world-class live music (Salif Keita, Ali Farka Touré, Toumani Diabaté and his 21-stri…
The oil-wealthy sultanate where everything is free: the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque (Italian Carrara …
The Art Deco "Paris of Java" (the most complete Dutch colonial architectural streetscape in Indonesi…
India's Silicon Valley with a permanent spring climate: filter coffee at MTR since 1924, the world's…
Grand Palace at dawn, street food by the UN-endorsed bowl and the world's highest open-air bar…
The world's greatest unfinished church, Gaudí's mosaic dragon park, pintxos in Gothic lanes and pael…
The UNESCO Carnival (the world's second-largest after Rio: 1.5 million participants, 4 days, the mar…
England's only entirely UNESCO-listed city: the Roman Baths (70 CE, 1.17 million litres/day of 45°C …
Ali & Nino statue, Adjaran khachapuri, Botanical Garden and Black Sea sunsets…
The hometown of Khalil Gibran (whose "The Prophet" (1923) has sold 100 million+ copies — the third b…
The Forbidden City, the Great Wall, Peking Duck since 1864 and the world's longest painted corridor…
The Arab world's party capital with Civil War bullet holes still in the walls: Lebanese mezze (30 di…
From the most dangerous city in Western Europe during the Troubles (1969–1998: 3,500 dead, 99 concre…
The "White City" destroyed and rebuilt by the Celts, Romans, Ottomans, Habsburgs, Luftwaffe (1941) a…
The most underrated major city in Brazil: the Oscar Niemeyer Pampulha Complex (UNESCO 2016 — Niemeye…
The oldest city in Libya (Greek colony Euesperides, 5th century BCE), renamed Berenice after the Pto…
Gateway to the Fjords: the UNESCO Hanseatic Bryggen wharf, the Norway in a Nutshell fjord circuit (N…
The Wall, Pergamon Museum, Reichstag dome and the world's best nightlife…
The UNESCO-arcaded Swiss capital where Einstein wrote E=mc²: 6km of covered medieval walkways, a gla…
The "Bilbao Effect": how Frank Gehry's titanium museum transformed a flooded steel city into a world…
The city that industrialized the world (James Watt's steam engine, commercialized at Matthew Boulton…
The most photographed lake in Europe (the Pletna boat to the island church with its wishing bell, th…
South Africa's judicial capital (the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal), the birthplace of J.R.R. …
The 2,600m capital that reinvented itself: the world's largest pre-Columbian gold collection, 1.5 mi…
"La Grassa, La Dotta, La Rossa": the real Bolognese ragù (tagliatelle, not spaghetti), tortellini mo…
The Cradle of Liberty: the Freedom Trail through 16 Revolutionary sites, Harvard (founded 1636), the…
The UNESCO Cathédrale Saint-Étienne (the only five-aisled Gothic cathedral in France after Notre-Dam…
The only planned capital designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site (the entire city: 1987). Oscar Niem…
The only capital in the world that borders two other countries (Austria (10km) and Hungary (30km)). …
The world's two closest capitals (Brazzaville and Kinshasa face each other 4km apart across the Cong…
The UNESCO Rathaus and Roland (the most important Hanseatic civic monument in Germany: the Roland St…
Banksy's hometown (the most internationally recognized anonymous street artist in the world: the "Mi…
Czech Moravia's capital — Mies van der Rohe, mummies, medieval prisons, and Moravian wine…
The birthplace of Art Nouveau, the world's most complex chocolate, 3,000 beers at Delirium and the G…
The city of violent contrasts: Belle Époque "Little Paris" boulevards beside Ceaușescu's 1,100-room …
The city divided by the Danube: Buda (the thermal springs, the royal castle, the Fisherman's Bastion…
The world's finest steak at midnight, tango in a converted warehouse, Evita's tomb and Boca Juniors …
The Kalon Minaret (1127 CE — spared by Genghis Khan in 1220), the Samanid Mausoleum (892 CE — the ol…
The first Ottoman capital (1326–1365): the Green Mosque (1419 — the finest early Ottoman architectur…
A Buddhist temple on the sea cliff, the largest fish market in Korea and a hillside of 4,000 pastel-…
Pyramids at sunrise, Tutankhamun's golden mask, Khan el-Khalili bazaar and felucca on the Nile…
The Calgary Stampede (world's largest outdoor rodeo, 1.2 million visitors in July), Banff National P…
Colombia's salsa capital — salsotecas until dawn, Cristo Rey, and the world's best caleña footwork…
King's College Chapel (the finest Perpendicular Gothic building in existence: 101 years to build (14…
Australia's purpose-built capital (1913 plan by Walter Burley Griffin): the Australian War Memorial …
Mexican Caribbean base camp — Chichén Itzá, cenote swimming, Tulum ruins, and Isla Mujeres…
Canterbury Cathedral (UNESCO: the murder of Thomas Becket on December 29 1170 — the most powerful me…
Where two oceans meet beneath a flat-topped mountain: Table Mountain cableway, Nelson Mandela's 4.5 …
El Ávila cable car, kinetic art at MACCSI, the UNESCO university campus and Venezuelan food culture…
The Cité (UNESCO: 3km of double walls, 53 towers — the most spectacular medieval fortified city in w…
Cardiff Castle (the most extraordinary Victorian Gothic fantasy in Wales: William Burges's Arab Room…
The walled Ciudad Amurallada (UNESCO: 11km of walls built 1586–1796 — the most perfectly preserved S…
Morocco's economic powerhouse (not the Rick's Café you imagined): the Hassan II Mosque (210m minaret…
Mount Etna (Europe's most active volcano, 3,357m — the most dramatic volcanic landscape in Europe), …
The oldest city in the Philippines (founded 1565 — the first Spanish colonial city in Southeast Asia…
The Queen City: the most important financial center in the American South (Bank of America HQ), the …
The most photogenic city in Africa: the entire medina painted in a thousand shades of blue (from pow…
Giant pandas, Sichuan hotpot with numbing-and-spicy broth, the world's largest stone Buddha and a te…
The cultural capital of Dravidian India: Marina Beach (13km — the second-longest urban beach in the …
The Lanna Kingdom capital (founded 1296 — the most important medieval city in northern Thailand): 30…
Tokyo's eastern gateway — Narita Temple, Tokyo Disneyland, and Japan's soy sauce coast…
The city that invented the skyscraper, deep dish pizza and house music: the Architecture Boat Tour, …
Bangladesh's commercial capital and most important port city: the Sitakunda ship-breaking yards (whe…
The world's most dramatic megacity: built on cliffs at the Yangtze-Jialing confluence, the most heav…
The most resilient city in the Southern Hemisphere: the rebuild from the 2011 earthquake (185 killed…
The cultural capital of Transylvania: St. Michael's Gothic Church (1349–1487 CE — the most important…
The ancient capital of Portugal (1131–1255 CE), the oldest university in the Portuguese-speaking wor…
The city of three obsessions: the Cathedral (begun 1248, paused 632 years, completed 1880 — the worl…
The world's happiest city: 62% cycle to work on 390km of dedicated tracks, the Noma legacy transform…
The most historically layered city in Spain: the Mezquita-Catedral (UNESCO — the most extraordinary …
The most beautiful Greek island: UNESCO Venetian Old Town (2007 — the most perfectly preserved Venet…
One of the most strategically important cities in the ancient world: the Temple of Apollo (550 BCE —…
The Rebel City — Ireland's most food-obsessed city: the English Market (est. 1610 — Ireland's most c…
Oltenia's cultural capital: the Jean Mihail Palace Art Museum (Brancusi collection — the most import…
Brazil's urban planning marvel — Niemeyer's Eye, a wire opera house, and the world's first BRT…
The heart of the Inca Empire: the Qorikancha (the most sacred Inca building — once gold-covered), Sa…
Central Vietnam's most exciting city: My Khe Beach (29km white sand — one of the most beautiful urba…
South Korea's most underrated major city: the Yangnyeongsi Oriental Medicine Market (350+ years — 70…
Korea's Science City: the Daedeok Innopolis (1,500+ research institutes — the most concentrated scie…
The westernmost African capital — the most Atlantic-positioned city on the continent: the African Re…
Northern China's most European-flavored city: Zhongshan Square (the most impressive colonial square …
Where the American South meets the American West: the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza (the JFK as…
The world's oldest continuously inhabited capital: the Umayyad Mosque (715 CE — the most architectur…
East Africa's fastest-growing city: the Kariakoo Market (the most chaotic market in Tanzania — named…
Eight successive capitals in one city, butter chicken invented at its source, and a cycle rickshaw t…
Bali's capital and the real Bali: the Puputan Square (1906 royal mass suicide — the most heroic sing…
The Mile High City: exactly 1,609m above sea level (brass marker on the 13th step of the State Capit…
The most dramatic urban comeback in America: the Motown Museum (Studio A at Hitsville U.S.A. — where…
The most densely populated city in the world (44,000 people/km² — the most persons-per-km² single me…