Travel guides
Practical essays for each ranked destination: when to go, how to move, what to eat, and what to skip.
City guide
Guangzhou
If you do nothing else, do dim sum properly. Guangzhou is a food city first. The sights are the bonus.
Park guide
Denali National Park
Denali National Park is a U.S. National Park in Alaska. North America's highest peak, usually hiding in the clouds.
City guide
Houston
Treat Houston as a food city with museums attached. The distances are part of the place. Do not fight them with a walking itinerary.
City guide
Dallas
Dallas rewards a car and a reservation. Walk one district a day. Do not try to stitch them together on foot.
Park guide
Great Sand Dunes National Park
Great Sand Dunes National Park is a U.S. National Park in Colorado. The tallest dunes in North America, backed by the Sangre de Cristos.
Park guide
Kenai Fjords National Park
Kenai Fjords National Park is a U.S. National Park in Alaska. Exit Glacier on land, tidewater ice from a boat out of Seward.
Park guide
Virgin Islands National Park
Virgin Islands National Park is a U.S. National Park in U.S. Virgin Islands. Two-thirds of St. John, under water as much as on it.
Park guide
Petrified Forest National Park
Petrified Forest National Park is a U.S. National Park in Arizona. Triassic trees turned to stone, and the Painted Desert.
Park guide
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Theodore Roosevelt National Park is a U.S. National Park in North Dakota. Badlands, bison, and the landscape that shaped a president.
Park guide
Congaree National Park
Congaree National Park is a U.S. National Park in South Carolina. Old-growth floodplain forest on a boardwalk.
Park guide
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Lassen Volcanic National Park is a U.S. National Park in California. All four types of volcano, plus boiling earth.
Park guide
Channel Islands National Park
Channel Islands National Park is a U.S. National Park in California. Five islands, endemic foxes, and a park you reach by boat.
Park guide
Dry Tortugas National Park
Dry Tortugas National Park is a U.S. National Park in Florida. A brick fort on a reef, 70 miles west of Key West.
Park guide
Great Basin National Park
Great Basin National Park is a U.S. National Park in Nevada. Wheeler Peak, bristlecones, and a cave under a dark sky.
Park guide
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Guadalupe Mountains National Park is a U.S. National Park in Texas. Texas's highest peak and a fossil reef in the desert.
Park guide
Voyageurs National Park
Voyageurs National Park is a U.S. National Park in Minnesota. A water park of lakes, islands, and houseboats on the Canadian border.
Park guide
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park is a U.S. National Park in Alaska. The largest U.S. national park — bigger than several states.
City guide
Paris
Treat Paris as a neighborhood city, not a checklist. Pick two arrondissements, walk them properly, and let the rest be a bonus.
Park guide
Carlsbad Caverns National Park
Carlsbad Caverns National Park is a U.S. National Park in New Mexico. A limestone cathedral underground, and a bat flight at dusk.
Park guide
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a U.S. National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee. The most-visited U.S. national park, for the fog and the forests.
City guide
New York City
Pick a base you can walk from. Midtown hotels are convenient and soulless; downtown, Brooklyn, and the Upper West Side feel like a trip.
Beach guide
Maui
South Maui is the calm, family water. West Maui is the sunset strip. The rest of the island is wind, lava, and roads that take longer than the map.
Island guide
Santorini
The island is small. Two or three nights is enough. The mistake is treating Oia as the whole trip.
Beach guide
Whitsunday Islands
Airlie Beach or Hamilton Island is the base. Whitehaven is a boat, not a hotel lawn. Go early so you are not sharing the lookout with five other vessels at noon.
City guide
Barcelona
Book Gaudí in advance and leave room for a neighborhood that is not on a magnet. Barcelona is easy to like and easy to skim. The second visit is for Gràcia, vermouth, and the coast north of Barceloneta.
Ski resort guide
Val d'Isère
Stay in Val d'Isère and treat Tignes as the other half of the pass, not as a different holiday. The altitude is why people book it.
Ski resort guide
Vail
Learn how you get back from the bowls before you drop in. Vail is big in a way that punishes a casual traverse.
Ski resort guide
St. Anton
St. Anton is a ski town that expects you to ski hard and stay out. You can decline the second part. You should respect the first.
City guide
Sydney
The harbor is the organizing idea. Sleep near a ferry and you will understand the city faster than from a downtown hotel alone.
Park guide
Arches National Park
Arches National Park is a U.S. National Park in Utah. More than two thousand sandstone arches in red-rock desert.
City & nature
Cape Town
Cape Town is spectacular and not simple. Read a little history, use common-sense safety, and give the peninsula a full day. The mountain will decide whether you see the view.
Ski resort guide
Park City
The town and the ski area are the same trip. The Canyons side is far. Look at the map before you promise to meet for lunch.
City guide
Prague
Mornings are the whole trick. Prague after 11 a.m. in July is a different, louder place than the one in the photographs.
City guide
Berlin
Berlin is larger and later than it looks on a short map. Pick a district and let the evening start when it starts.
Ski resort guide
Lech
Sleep in Lech, ski the Arlberg, and decide on purpose whether the day ends in St. Anton. The circuit is the local classic for a reason.
Beach guide
Sanya
Come for the winter sun. Book the bay you actually want to wake up on, because the traffic between them is not scenic.
Ski resort guide
Hakuba
Stay near Happo if that is the mountain you want at 9 a.m. Use the valley pass for a second day, not for every lunch.
Beach guide
Corsica
The south is the beach base. The rest of the island is a beautiful drive you should only start if you have the day.
Beach guide
Dead Sea
This is a half-day of water, not a week of swimming. Pair it with the road, and respect the salt.
City guide
Austin
Go for the music and the patios. Leave time to do very little between them. Austin punishes a packed spreadsheet.
City guide
Munich
Oktoberfest is a specific trip. If that is not why you came, pick almost any other month and you will like the city more.
City guide
Taipei
Follow your appetite and the weather. Taipei is generous, humid, and best when you leave room for a second dinner.
Park guide
Hot Springs National Park
Hot Springs National Park is a U.S. National Park in Arkansas. A national park that is also a spa town.
City guide
Seville
In warm months, copy the city: morning out, afternoon quiet, night alive. Fighting the heat with a noon itinerary is how people dislike Seville.
Park guide
Biscayne National Park
Biscayne National Park is a U.S. National Park in Florida. A mostly underwater park at the top of the Florida Keys.
Park guide
Wind Cave National Park
Wind Cave National Park is a U.S. National Park in South Dakota. Boxwork cave below, bison prairie above.
Park guide
Isle Royale National Park
Isle Royale National Park is a U.S. National Park in Michigan. A roadless island in Lake Superior for wolves, moose, and boats.
Park guide
Kobuk Valley National Park
Kobuk Valley National Park is a U.S. National Park in Alaska. Arctic sand dunes and a caribou migration corridor.
Beach guide
Maldives
The Maldives is a transfer, then a small island. Once you arrive, the itinerary is swim, eat, stare at the water, repeat.
Park guide
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a U.S. National Park in California. Granite, waterfalls, and a valley that defined the national park idea.