Canada
Cape Breton Highlands
The Cabot Trail corkscrews along sea cliffs where whales breach below and moose graze the ridgeline.
The Cabot Trail winds along sea cliffs so sheer the road sometimes seems to hover over the Atlantic. Below, pilot whales breach in pods close enough to hear the blow. Above, the highland plateau stretches away into a boreal forest where moose outnumber people.
Cape Breton Highlands National Park protects the northern tip of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, and the Cabot Trail — a 298-kilometre loop consistently ranked among the world's top driving routes — is the way most visitors experience it. The trail corkscrews between coastal cliffs and highland plateaus, crossing through Acadian, Scottish Gaelic, and Mi'kmaw communities along the way. The Skyline Trail at dusk is the park's signature experience: a boardwalk to a cliff-edge viewing platform where moose graze in the foreground and the sun sets over the Gulf of St Lawrence. Pilot whales and humpbacks are visible from clifftop lookouts without binoculars. The Celtic music tradition is alive in the villages along the trail — ceilidhs, fiddle sessions, and square dances happen weekly in community halls.
Couple
Driving the Cabot Trail together, stopping at clifftop lookouts, attending evening ceilidhs, and watching the sunset from Skyline Trail — Cape Breton is one of Canada's most romantic road trips.
Solo
The Cabot Trail rewards solo drivers who stop wherever curiosity strikes — a fiddle session in Chéticamp, a whale sighting from Lakies Head, a moose encounter at Skyline at dusk.
Friends
A group road trip around the Cabot Trail — with hiking, whale watching, ceilidh dancing, and seafood at every stop — is a Nova Scotia rite of passage.
- The Cabot Trail is a 298-kilometre loop that corkscrews between sea cliffs and highland plateaus, ranked among the world's top driving routes.
- Moose outnumber people in the park — sightings are near-guaranteed along the Skyline Trail at dusk.
- Pilot whales and humpbacks breach below the cliff-top lookouts, close enough to hear the blow.
- Acadian, Scottish Gaelic, and Mi'kmaw cultures layer along the trail — three distinct communities in one loop.
Lobster suppers in community halls along the Trail — all-you-can-eat for $30, served by volunteers.
Acadian meat pies and rappie pie at the Red Shoe Pub in Mabou.
Celtic-style oatcakes and tea at a cèilidh house where the fiddle music hasn't stopped since Scotland.
Pedra de Lume
Cape Verde
Float in a salt lake inside an extinct volcano, crater walls rising on every side.
Vale do Paúl
Cape Verde
Sugarcane terraces spill down a volcanic crater into the greenest valley in the archipelago.
Monastery of St. Anthony
Egypt
Earth's oldest inhabited monastery, wedged into a Red Sea mountain canyon since the fourth century.
Hoang Su Phi
Vietnam
Rice terraces so vertiginous they look like topographical maps carved directly into the sky.
Cape Dorset (Kinngait)
Canada
The print-making capital of the Arctic — Inuit artists carve stone and stories into polar silence.
Ferryland
Canada
Picnic on a headland above a 17th-century colony while icebergs drift past and puffins wheel.
Mount Robson
Canada
The Canadian Rockies' highest peak rarely reveals its summit — clouds guard it like a secret.
Thetford Mines
Canada
Open-pit asbestos mines swallowed half the town — the craters remain, eerie and vast.