The Terracotta Army and the City Wall earn the hype, but Xi’an’s quieter sights are where a longer trip actually pays off. Han Yang Ling Roughly 25km north of the city, this is the Terracotta Army’s genuinely underrated counterpart, the tomb complex of Han Emperor Jingdi (died 141 BCE). The figures here are smaller than the Qin warriors, around 60cm, once fitted with articulated...

La Paz’s calendar runs on a mix of Catholic and Andean-syncretic tradition, indigenous Aymara belief woven through Spanish colonial holidays rather than kept separate from them. Here’s what’s worth planning a trip around. Alasitas (from 24 January) A UNESCO-listed miniatures fair centered on Ekeko, the Aymara god of abundance. Vendors sell tiny versions of everything you’d...

Montreal’s own nature is compact, a couple of good stops rather than a whole wilderness, which is the case for using it as a base: the real natural variety is out on the day trips. In the city Mount Royal, Olmsted’s park around the mountain the city is named for, is the obvious stop, with the free Kondiaronk Belvedere lookout for the skyline view. Space for Life, in the east end at...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Which Montreal neighborhood you pick matters more than which specific hotel, the city’s core areas each have a genuinely different feel. Here’s how to choose, and the handful of named hotels actually worth...

Every hike near Quito starts high and goes higher, so the altitude caveat applies to all of them: Quito itself sits around 2,850 meters, and every trail below climbs from there. Give yourself at least a full day at rest in the city before attempting any of these, and treat headache, dizziness, or nausea on the trail as a signal to turn back rather than push through. TelefériQo to Rucu Pichincha.

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Cusco was the actual capital of the Inca Empire, not a staging post for it, and it’s been a UNESCO World Heritage city since 1983. The Spanish built directly on top of the Inca stonework rather than replacing...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montreal photographs well because so much of it is free to walk through slowly: cobblestone streets, a basilica interior unlike any other in North America, and a skyline view that doesn’t require a paid ticket...

Montreal itself doesn’t have much hiking beyond one hill, honestly, which is exactly why a day-trip base pays off if you actually want trail time. Here’s the city option and the real hiking country around it. In the city: Mount Royal Mount Royal Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (the same architect behind Central Park), is Montreal’s one real hiking spot, and it’s...

La Paz makes an excellent base for day trips, mostly because the surrounding Altiplano and Andes hold so much within two or three hours. One honest caveat up front: the Salt Flats do not belong on this list, more on that below. 1. Tiwanaku About 72km, roughly two hours, west of La Paz, this UNESCO World Heritage Site holds the pre-Inca ruins of a civilization that peaked around 500 to 900 AD.

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Colombo’s best photo isn’t a paid viewpoint, it’s a free 1976 pavilion that most first-timers assume is centuries old. Here’s where to actually point a camera, and when. Six spots at a glance...

The Maldives’ nature is almost entirely underwater. Above the surface, it’s low coral islands and beach vegetation; below it, one of the richest reef systems on Earth, and that’s where the real “nature spots” are. Baa Atoll, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Designated in 2011, Baa Atoll protects a genuinely diverse reef system, and it’s the base for Hanifaru Bay, the...

Graceland and Beale Street cover the obvious ground. The real find, for a trip built around Memphis as a base, is that the best off-the-radar stops split between quiet corners of the city and an entire Delta town that most short trips skip. Broad Avenue Arts District Galleries, murals, and independent shops along a stretch most first-time visitors never reach. A good half-day away from the...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. You don’t need to leave the island to get real green space in Montreal. Between Mount Royal, the river islands, and Space for Life’s gardens, the city holds most of what you’d otherwise plan a day...

Most Montreal day-trip planners go straight from Old Montreal to Quebec City and skip everything in between. Here’s what gets missed, in the city and on the road. In Old Montreal, past the obvious Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, the “Sailors’ Church,” is the oldest chapel in the city and has model ships hanging from its ceiling, votive offerings from sailors who survived...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Phnom Penh is Cambodia’s capital, sitting at the Chaktomuk confluence where the Mekong, Tonle Sap and Bassac rivers meet. Most travelers give it two to three focused days as the capital-city leg of a wider...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Phuket is Thailand’s largest island, and the best things-to-do list here mixes beach time with real culture, one honest day trip, and a scam worth skipping. These 10 are worth building a trip around.

Quito’s altitude works in a photographer’s favor: thinner air usually means clearer light, and the city’s setting between Andean volcanoes gives even simple street shots a dramatic backdrop. 1. The TelefériQo summit. The cable car climbs from around 2,950 to 4,050 meters on Pichincha’s slopes, and the view from the top station over the entire Quito valley, with snow-capped...

Before you go: China in 2026. Xi’an is a very safe city to walk around, and normal tourism runs smoothly here; the things worth preparing for are practical, not dangerous. Set up a VPN before you arrive, Google, WhatsApp, Instagram and most Western apps are blocked inside China. Set up Alipay or WeChat Pay and link a foreign card, the country is almost entirely cashless. Carry your passport,...

La Paz sits at roughly 3,640 meters, but the nature around it doesn’t stay at one elevation. Within a couple of hours you can move from pre-Columbian ruins to a subtropical cloud forest to the highest navigable lake on earth. Here’s what’s worth the trip. Tiwanaku About two hours west of La Paz, the ruins of this pre-Inca civilization, which peaked roughly 500 to 900 AD, sit amid...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montreal itself isn’t a hiking destination, it’s an island city, but the mountain at its center and a handful of true day trips give you real trail time without renting a car for a week.

If you’re timing a trip to base out of Montreal, the festival calendar matters twice over: it changes what’s happening in the city, and it can push hotel rates high enough to affect the whole plan. Here’s the 2026 lineup and how it lines up with the day trips around it. Winter: Igloofest Igloofest runs January 15 to February 7, an outdoor electronic-music festival that turns the...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Before you go: Johannesburg has genuinely high violent-crime rates, and it’s also a city millions visit without incident every year by following a short, consistent set of rules. Use Uber or Bolt, not walking,...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Bogotá’s food scene gets overshadowed by beach-town Colombia, which is a mistake. This is a high-Andean capital with its own dish, its own drink rituals, and a genuinely serious fine-dining scene, and none of it...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. One festival is worth planning an entire trip around. The rest are worth timing a visit for if the dates line up, not chasing on their own. Carnaval: the world’s longest Montevideo’s Carnaval runs roughly...

Eating well in Montreal takes about a day to sort out, which works fine when the city is a base and you’re heading out again tomorrow. Here’s what to eat in the city itself, and what’s worth eating on the day trips around it. The 4 names to know in the city Schwartz’s Deli, on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, has been smoking meat the same way since 1928. A sandwich runs about $9.

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Old Montreal, Mount Royal, and Notre-Dame cover the postcard list well, but Montreal’s actual character sits a layer beneath that, in market stalls, side streets, and parks the day-trip crowd tends to skip....

Mitad del Mundo pulls most first-time visitors north, and the Old Town’s headline churches pull the rest. Both are worth doing, but Quito has quieter corners that most itineraries skip entirely. Guápulo. A steep, bohemian hillside village tucked below La Floresta, with a colonial church and narrow streets that feel like a different city from the modern north. It’s an easy walk down...

Every hike near La Paz starts above 3,600 meters and most climb higher still, so this list comes with one caveat attached to every entry: acclimatize in the city for a day or two before attempting any of them. Coca tea helps, hydration helps more, and pushing hard on day one is how altitude sickness ruins a trip. 1. Valle de las Animas About 20km east of the city, this eroded canyon of stone...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. The earlier version of this page listed several events, including a “Johannesburg Art Fair (Joburgeria)” and a Gold Reef City “Shaka Zulu Festival,” that don’t hold up. Big events mean...

There is no hiking in the Maldives, and any list that claims otherwise is inventing terrain. The highest natural point in the entire country is roughly 2.4 meters above sea level, flat coral sand, no hills, no trails, no elevation to climb. What actually exists, and is worth doing on foot, is a different kind of ground-level exploring: sandbanks, beach walks, reef walks at low tide, and short...

A handful of 2026 events are worth building a Memphis-and-Mid-South trip around, and one long-running fixture is genuinely in limbo, worth knowing before you plan around it. RiverBeat Music Festival: May 1-3, 2026 The real early-May anchor at Tom Lee Park. Beale Street Music Festival’s 2026 return isn’t confirmed, it was on hiatus in 2024 and 2025 and doesn’t appear on the...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montevideo is honestly a 2 to 3 day city on its own. Day trips are what turn a long weekend into a full week, and the pecking order below is deliberate: do Colonia first if you only have time for one.

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montreal calls itself a festival city for a reason: something is happening nearly every month, and a handful of these events reshape hotel prices and street closures enough that they’re worth building a trip...

If Montreal is your base rather than your whole trip, the question isn’t “what’s there to do in the city” so much as “how fast can the city core be covered before the real activities start.” Here’s both halves. In the city: the fast version Old Montreal and Notre-Dame Basilica. Cobblestone streets, free to wander, and the basilica’s deep blue and...

Xi’an’s sights cluster tightly enough inside and around the city walls that where you sleep genuinely changes how much walking your trip needs. Here’s the area breakdown, not a list of specific hotels that will be priced differently by the time you book. Bell Tower and Drum Tower area The single best base: the geographic and literal center of the walled city, with the Muslim...

La Paz’s geography does most of the work for you: a city built into a steep bowl at roughly 3,640 meters, ringed by Andean peaks and topped by the snowcapped Illimani. Here are five spots that make the most of it. 1. Mi Teleferico, especially the Red Line The cable car network is the single best photography tool in the city. The Red Line climbs from downtown up to El Alto and delivers the...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Travel advisory: Dubai and the wider UAE were caught up in the 2026 regional conflict with Iran. During a roughly six-week phase in early 2026, Iranian drones and missiles struck sites in the UAE, including near...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Before you go: real hiking exists around Johannesburg, but it comes with the same crime-reality caveat as the rest of the city. Hike in a group, in daylight, on marked trails, and prefer the guided options below over...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montevideo’s nature is coastal and low-key rather than dramatic, a flat city built along one long stretch of river shoreline. That’s not a knock; it just means the “nature spots” here are about...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montreal sits at the hub of the Quebec-City rail corridor, which is the whole reason it works as a base rather than just a destination. Three of the eight trips below run on VIA Rail straight out of Gare Centrale...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montreal’s food scene runs on a handful of genuine institutions rather than a long list of trendy openings, and most of them have been doing one thing well for decades. Here’s what’s actually worth...

Before you go: Ecuador in 2026. Quito is a welcoming Level 2 city, well away from the coastal areas most travel advisories flag. Ecuador is under a national state of exception in 2026 (it currently covers Quito’s province but with no curfew in place), so the sensible approach is ordinary big-capital street smarts plus one specific habit: only take licensed orange-plate taxis or ride-hailing...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. The earlier version of this page mixed real reserves in with a fabricated “Gold Reef City Nature Reserve.” Johannesburg is one of the world’s largest human-made urban forests, by some counts around 6...

Everyone who visits La Paz sees Mi Teleferico and the Witches’ Market, for good reason. But the city rewards a slower look too, once you’re past the first day or two of altitude adjustment. Here are nine places that don’t make the standard list but should. 1. Museo de la Coca A small, balanced museum dedicated to the coca leaf’s actual history in Andean life: its legal,...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Let’s be honest upfront: Montevideo is a flat coastal city, and there’s no real hiking here. If you’re picturing mountain trails, you’re thinking of the wrong country. What Montevideo actually...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montreal rewards a mix of free wandering and a handful of paid sights worth the ticket price. Here’s what’s actually worth your time, split by cost and by what kind of day you’re having.

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Johannesburg photographs well precisely because it doesn’t try to be pretty, it’s a working, layered city with real history stacked into its skyline and streets. Don’t let chasing a shot override the...

The Maldives is a reef destination first, so most of its best photos are either underwater or shot from a boat, with one dense, walkable half-day in Malé as the exception. Your own overwater villa deck at sunrise or sunset, the classic shot, and free if it’s already part of your stay. The house reef itself, snorkel-depth photography of coral and reef fish right off the beach. Hanifaru...

Memphis’s signature is dry-rub ribs, a spice rub with the sauce on the side rather than baked in, distinct from the sauced styles you’ll find in Kansas City or the Carolinas, alongside slaw-topped pulled-pork sandwiches. Eat well here before heading out on a day trip; options thin out fast once you’re south of the city on Highway 61. Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous The famous...

Heads up: some links here are affiliate links. Book or buy through them and we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only point you to things we would actually use. Montevideo doesn’t hand you postcard shots the way Buenos Aires or Rio do; you have to know where to point the camera. These are the spots that actually deliver. Plaza Independencia and Palacio Salvo The square...