The places worth crossing a world for
An independent guide to 34 destinations across every continent — with the seasons, the permits and the costs that decide whether a trip works.
The ones you came for
Machu Picchu
An Inca estate on a ridge between two peaks, abandoned within a century of being built and never found by the Spanish. Now ticketed by circuit, by hour, and capped.
Petra
A Nabataean trading capital carved into rose sandstone, entered through a kilometre-long crack in a cliff. Far larger than the one facade everyone photographs.
Angkor
The capital of the Khmer Empire, a thousand square kilometres of temples and hydraulic engineering in the jungle, of which Angkor Wat is one building.
The Serengeti
Thirty thousand square kilometres of grassland carrying the largest land mammal migration on earth, plus the highest lion density anywhere.
Kyoto
Imperial capital for a thousand years, 1,600 Buddhist temples, and a tourist load that the city itself now describes as a problem. Still worth every day you give it.
Iguazú Falls
275 separate waterfalls across nearly three kilometres of jungle escarpment. Two countries, two national parks, and you need both.
Browse by what it is
Day-by-day itineraries
A Fortnight in Turkey
Istanbul, Cappadocia, the Aegean coast and the Lycian ruins, in two weeks that work by domestic flight and bus without a single wasted day.
A Month in Japan
Four weeks is enough to get past the Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka corridor into the parts of Japan that most visitors never see, and the rail network makes it straightforward.
A Week in Jordan
Roman cities, the Dead Sea, Petra, a desert to sleep in and the Red Sea, in a country the size of Portugal with one road down the middle.
Regions
The essentials
Visas, money, vaccinations, insurance and the rest of the unglamorous decisions that quietly determine whether a long trip goes well.
From the guide
A Fortnight in Turkey
Istanbul, Cappadocia, the Aegean coast and the Lycian ruins, in two weeks that work by domestic flight and bus without a single wasted day.
A Month in Japan
Four weeks is enough to get past the Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka corridor into the parts of Japan that most visitors never see, and the rail network makes it straightforward.
A Week in Jordan
Roman cities, the Dead Sea, Petra, a desert to sleep in and the Red Sea, in a country the size of Portugal with one road down the middle.