Kashgar’s Sunday Market: What It Still Is (And What It Isn’t) Let’s be honest about what you’ll find. Kashgar’s Sunday Market, properly called the Livestock Market (牲口交易市场), is not the same sprawling spectacle it was 20 years ago. Much of the old city was demolished in the early 2010s and rebuilt. The tourist-facing bazaar on Seman Road has been heavily sanitised....

Skara Brae, Orkney Skara Brae is older than Stonehenge. Older than the Egyptian pyramids. This stone-built Neolithic village on Orkney’s west coast was occupied from around 3100 BCE to 2500 BCE, and it remains one of the best-preserved prehistoric settlements in Europe. A severe storm in 1850 revealed it under the dunes. Another storm in 1925 prompted the first serious excavation and led to...

Big Sur, California Big Sur is not a town. It is a 90-mile stretch of California coastline where the Santa Lucia Mountains drop steeply into the Pacific, with Highway 1 cutting along the cliffside between Carmel to the north and San Simeon to the south. The scenery is genuinely extraordinary: rocky headlands, sea stacks, redwood canyons, and ocean views that extend uninterrupted to the horizon....

Jökulsárlón: Iceland’s Glacial Lagoon Jökulsárlón is where Vatnajökull, Europe’s largest glacier, calves icebergs into a deep tidal lagoon before they drift out to sea. The lagoon is barely 80 years old; before the glacier began retreating in the 1930s, this was solid ice. The icebergs are up to a thousand years old. Most are white or blue-white, but when an iceberg rolls and exposes...

Zimbabwe: Three Destinations Worth Organising Around Zimbabwe often gets treated as a footnote to a Zambia itinerary, usually tagged onto a visit to Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. That’s an understandable but limiting approach. The country has a handful of genuinely exceptional destinations that reward a dedicated trip. Victoria Falls Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya) is 1.7 km wide and...

The Serengeti, Tanzania The Serengeti is where the phrase “African safari” acquires its full weight. Around 1.5 million wildebeest, 250,000 zebra, and 500,000 Thomson’s gazelle move through the ecosystem in a continuous annual circuit, following the rains and the fresh grass they produce. This is the largest terrestrial animal migration on earth, and watching it from a vehicle,...

Whistler Blackcomb: North America’s Biggest Ski Area Whistler Blackcomb covers 3,307 hectares of skiable terrain across two mountains with a combined vertical drop of 1,609 metres. That’s the largest ski resort in North America by most metrics. The Peak 2 Peak Gondola connects the two summits at 4.4 km length and 436 metres above the valley floor. The numbers are impressive; the skiing...

Komodo Island, Indonesia Komodo Island is part of the Komodo National Park in East Nusa Tenggara province, about midway between Bali and Flores. The national park covers roughly 1,800 square kilometres of land and sea and was established in 1980 specifically to protect the Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis), the world’s largest lizard. There are approximately 5,700 dragons across the...

Mekong Delta, Vietnam The Mekong Delta covers the southern quarter of Vietnam, where the Mekong River splits into a network of nine main channels and hundreds of smaller tributaries before reaching the South China Sea. The region produces about half of Vietnam’s rice and the majority of its fruit exports; it is one of the most densely cultivated agricultural landscapes in Southeast Asia....

Houses of Parliament, London The Palace of Westminster on the north bank of the Thames is the meeting place of the UK Parliament. The current building is largely Victorian, designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin after the original medieval palace burned down in 1834. The exterior, in Perpendicular Gothic style with ornamental stonework and the Elizabeth Tower (containing Big Ben), is one of...

Xochimilco, Mexico City Xochimilco is the canal district at the southern edge of Mexico City, about 25 km from the historic centre. The chinampas (floating gardens) here are one of the few surviving remnants of the lake-based agricultural system the Aztecs built across the Valley of Mexico. UNESCO listed the area as a World Heritage site in 1987. On weekends it’s a genuinely local...

San Gimignano San Gimignano is an easy town to misjudge. Arrive mid-morning in July and you will find it overrun with day-trippers from Florence and Siena, the main streets clogged from the bus park to the Piazza del Duomo. Arrive at 08:00 before the first buses roll in, or stay overnight and walk the streets after dinner, and you will understand why this small Tuscan hill town has been drawing...

The Great Pyramids of Giza: What to Expect The scale doesn’t register until you’re standing at the base. Photos compress them into something that looks manageable. In person, the Pyramid of Khufu is 138 metres tall and covers 5.3 hectares at its base. The limestone blocks average 2.5 tonnes each. You spend the first few minutes just trying to take in the dimensions. Buying Tickets The...

Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore) The Florence Cathedral sits in Piazza del Duomo and does not require any particular effort to find: Brunelleschi’s dome is visible from most of the city’s elevated streets, and the noise and concentration of people in the surrounding piazza will guide you there. The building itself is clad in green, white, and pink Tuscan marble in a geometric...

The Forth Bridge, Scotland The Forth Bridge opened in 1890 and immediately became one of the most talked-about engineering projects in the world. It’s still impressive. The cantilever design spans 2.5 kilometres across the Firth of Forth, and the 55,000 tonnes of steel used to build it dwarfed anything attempted before in iron or steel construction. UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list...

Old Delhi, India Old Delhi is the Mughal-era city established by Shah Jahan in the 1640s, now a dense urban district of about 300,000 people within the broader Delhi metropolitan area. It is one of the most intense urban environments in South Asia: narrow lanes connecting markets, mosques, residential streets, and food stalls in a layout that has resisted modernisation not by design but by the...

Taj Mahal, Agra The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum commissioned by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died in 1631 during the birth of their fourteenth child. Construction began in 1632 and was completed in 1653, employing an estimated 20,000 artisans and using materials sourced across Asia – white Makrana marble from Rajasthan, jasper from Punjab, jade from China, lapis...

Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria Neuschwanstein is the castle that Disney copied for its logo, and seeing it in person produces a slightly unreal feeling: the towers and turrets rising from the forested hillside above the village of Hohenschwangau look almost too composed to be genuine. It was commissioned in 1868 by King Ludwig II of Bavaria as a personal retreat and homage to the operas of Richard...

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark Louisiana is outside Copenhagen, 40 minutes north by train from the central station, in the small town of Humlebæk. It has nothing to do with the American state; the name comes from the villa that originally stood on the site, which was named by its 19th-century owner after his three successive wives, all called Louise. The museum was founded by Knud W....

Kizhi Pogost: Wooden Architecture on a Lake Island Kizhi is a small island on Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia, about 360 km northeast of St. Petersburg. The island houses the Kizhi Pogost, a UNESCO-listed ensemble of 18th-century wooden churches and a bell tower, surrounded by the wider Kizhi open-air museum of relocated historic wooden structures from across the Karelia region. The...

The Las Vegas Strip The Strip is a 4.2-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard South running from the Mandalay Bay at the south end to the Stratosphere at the north. Everything of consequence in tourist Las Vegas sits on or within a short walk of this corridor. The casinos are the architecture; most of the major ones are large enough to require 15-20 minutes to cross on foot from one end to another.

Great Barrier Reef, Australia The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system on Earth, running 2,300 kilometres along the Queensland coast from Cape York in the north to just south of the Tropic of Capricorn. It contains roughly 900 islands and 2,900 individual reefs and is visible from space. It is also under significant stress: repeated mass bleaching events in 2016, 2017, 2020, and...

Iguazu Falls: Argentina or Brazil First? Do both. That’s the practical answer, and most people who try to see Iguazu from one side only leave wondering what they missed. The two national parks are operated independently, require separate entrance fees, and offer fundamentally different experiences. Argentine Side The Argentine side puts you inside the falls rather than across from them. The...

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic, about 1,050 km east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It is not part of the Caribbean geographically, though it often gets placed in that category commercially. The island is 34 km long and rarely more than 3 km wide, with a total land area of about 54 square kilometres. The pink sand beaches on the south shore, the result of...

Hue, Vietnam Hue sits on the Perfume River in central Vietnam, roughly equidistant between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. From 1802 to 1945, it was the imperial capital of the Nguyen dynasty, and the UNESCO World Heritage Citadel complex on the north bank of the river still defines the city’s identity. The American War (Vietnam War) brought severe damage: aerial bombardment and the bloody 1968...

Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda Bwindi contains roughly half of the world’s remaining mountain gorilla population. About 460 of the estimated 880-1000 mountain gorillas alive today live within this single park in southwestern Uganda. That number, which has been increasing slowly thanks to conservation efforts, is why people make the considerable journey to get here. Gorilla...

Samarkand and Bukhara, Uzbekistan Central Asia doesn’t get the visitors it deserves, and Uzbekistan’s two great Silk Road cities are still significantly quieter than their equivalent monuments in Europe or the Middle East. That won’t last. Go now, while you can walk around Registan Square without fighting through selfie sticks. Samarkand The Sites Registan Square is genuinely one...

Rockefeller Center, New York City Rockefeller Center is a 22-building complex in Midtown Manhattan built during the Great Depression, and it holds up well as a place to spend half a day. John D. Rockefeller Jr. commissioned the development in 1929 and construction ran from 1930 to 1939, employing thousands of workers during the worst years of the economic crisis. The Art Deco style is consistent...

Boudhanath Stupa, Kathmandu Boudhanath is one of the largest stupas in the world, rising 36 metres above the mandala-shaped base that forms the main circumambulation platform. It sits in its own square about 11 km east of central Kathmandu and has been a major centre of Tibetan Buddhism since Tibetan refugees settled in the area after 1959. There are now more than 50 monasteries within walking...

Disneyland Paris: Practical Advice for a Less Painful Visit Disneyland Paris at Marne-la-Vallée is about 35 minutes from central Paris on the RER A train. The park opened in 1992 and has had a complicated financial history, but has invested heavily in refurbishments since 2018. What you’ll find now is noticeably better than the frequently criticised version from 10 years ago. The Two Parks...

Santiago de Compostela, Spain Santiago de Compostela is the end point of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage routes, which have been drawing walkers from across Europe since the Middle Ages. About 500,000 people complete one of the routes each year. Many of them arrive at the Cathedral with blisters, an outsized sense of accomplishment, and a slightly dazed expression. Whether you’ve walked...

Lisse and the Keukenhof, Netherlands Lisse is a small town in the South Holland province, about 35 kilometres southwest of Amsterdam, and it exists primarily in tourist consciousness as the location of Keukenhof. The wider region around it, the Bollenstreek (Bulb Region), is where the Dutch bulb industry concentrates: roughly 30,000 hectares of flower fields planted with tulips, hyacinths,...

Oahu, Hawaii Oahu is the most visited of the Hawaiian islands and the one most people mean when they say “Hawaii.” About 70% of the state’s population lives here, concentrated in Honolulu. The result is an island with genuinely world-class beaches, significant historical sites, excellent food, and also traffic that would not be embarrassing in Los Angeles. Waikiki at the height...

Raekoja Plats (Town Hall Square), Tallinn Raekoja Plats is the medieval market square at the centre of Tallinn’s Lower Town, surrounded on three sides by buildings that have stood there since the 14th and 15th centuries. It is the most intact medieval market square in Northern Europe – not a reconstruction but a working square that has operated continuously for 700 years, with the same...

Gorges du Verdon, Provence The Verdon Gorge is the largest canyon in Europe, carved by the Verdon River through the limestone plateau of Haute-Provence over several million years. At its deepest point the gorge drops about 700 metres. The water at the bottom is a startling turquoise, produced by dissolved minerals and the clarity of the water. From above, looking down from the rim road, it looks...

San Francisco, California San Francisco is a city of about 870,000 people on a peninsula roughly 7 miles by 7 miles, and it manages to pack more distinct neighbourhoods into that area than cities three times its size. The weather is the first thing most visitors misunderstand: it does not get warm in the way California implies. July and August frequently run below 60°F (16°C) with persistent...

Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney World, Orlando Hollywood Studios is one of four theme parks at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, occupying 135 acres on the southwest side of the property. It opened in 1989 as Disney-MGM Studios and was substantially rebuilt in the late 2010s around two major additions: Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (2019) and the Toy Story Land expansion. The park now divides...

Lake Wakatipu: The Lake Behind Queenstown’s Reputation Lake Wakatipu is 80 kilometres long, 291 metres deep at its lowest point, and shaped like a lightning bolt carved into the Otago landscape. The Remarkables range runs along its southeastern edge and gets snow from June through October. The lake itself never really warms up, hovering around 10-12°C year-round, which discourages casual...

Foteviken Viking Reserve, Sweden Foteviken is a living history museum on the Falsterbo Peninsula in southern Sweden, about 30 km south of Malmo. The site occupies the location of the Battle of Foteviken (1134), one of the most significant naval engagements in Scandinavian medieval history, in which Nils of Denmark defeated Canute Lavard’s supporters with a fleet of longships. The reserve was...

Potala Palace, Lhasa: What You Need to Know Before You Go The Potala Palace rises 13 storeys above Lhasa at 3,700 metres elevation and contains 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines, and 200,000 statues. It was the political and religious centre of the Tibetan government until 1959, when the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India. Today it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a museum, though the lower chapels...

Valle de la Luna, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile The Atacama Desert is the driest non-polar desert on earth, and Valle de la Luna sits at its heart. The valley gets its name honestly: the salt-sculpted ridges, wind-eroded formations, and bone-white crystalline flats look like lunar surface photography. At sunset, the rock turns terracotta, orange, and pink before going dark. It’s one of the...

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco The Golden Gate Bridge spans 2,737 metres across the Golden Gate Strait, connecting San Francisco to Marin County. Construction ran from 1933 to 1937; the project used about 83,000 tonnes of steel and the cable wire alone stretches roughly 129,000 km if unspooled. The colour – International Orange – was chosen partly for visibility in the Bay...

Plain of Jars, Xieng Khouang, Laos The Plain of Jars is a landscape in Xieng Khouang province in north-central Laos covered with thousands of large stone vessels, the largest reaching three metres tall and weighing several tonnes. The jars are concentrated in clusters across a plateau at around 1,000 metres elevation, and their purpose remains genuinely contested among archaeologists: funerary...

St Mark’s Basilica, Venice St Mark’s Basilica is not a typical church. Built to house the relics of St Mark, stolen from Alexandria in 828 AD (wrapped in pork and cabbage to get them past Muslim customs officials, according to legend), it served as the private chapel of the Doge of Venice for nearly a thousand years before becoming the city’s cathedral. The exterior is a compound...

Serengeti National Park, Tanzania The Serengeti covers 14,750 square kilometres of grassland, woodland, and riverine forest in northern Tanzania, and it functions as the core of a larger ecosystem that includes the Ngorongoro Conservation Area to the southeast and Kenya’s Masai Mara to the north. The park is best known for the annual wildebeest migration, in which roughly 1.5 million...

Lunar New Year in Singapore Singapore celebrates Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year, occurring in late January or early February) with more sustained intensity than most other cities in the region. The preparations start weeks early, the celebrations run for 15 days, and the infrastructure of the city genuinely shifts around the festival. Chinatown becomes a different place from about two weeks...

Wieliczka Salt Mine: 327 Metres of Polish History The Wieliczka mine, 14 km southeast of Kraków, has been producing salt continuously since the 13th century. It goes 327 metres deep across nine levels. Over those centuries, miners carved chapels, bas-reliefs, chandeliers, and eventually an entire underground cathedral out of the salt rock, partly as religious devotion and partly because miners...

Ellis Island Immigration Museum, New York Between 1892 and 1954, roughly 12 million immigrants passed through the processing facilities on Ellis Island in New York Harbour. At peak throughput in the first decade of the 20th century, the registry hall processed over a million arrivals per year. The island is now a National Monument and the restored main building houses one of the more affecting...

Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse The Grossglockner High Alpine Road runs 48 km through the Hohe Tauern National Park in Austria, connecting Bruck in Salzburger Land with Heiligenblut in Carinthia. It crosses the Hochtor Pass at 2,504 metres and is the highest paved mountain road in Austria. Construction ran from 1930 to 1935 under continuous public works conditions intended to address Depression-era...

Big Ben and Westminster The clock tower at the north end of the Houses of Parliament is technically called the Elizabeth Tower since 2012; Big Ben is the name of the great bell inside it, which weighs 13.7 tonnes and has been striking the hour since 1859. Everyone calls the whole thing Big Ben anyway, and that is fine. The tower underwent a major restoration between 2017 and 2022, during which the...