Americas
Get a Personal Pick →United States
111 destinations
Water Acadia National Park
"Winter's first American sunrise strikes Cadillac's pink granite before the country below wakes."
Water Assateague Island
"Wild ponies wade through salt marshes on a barrier island thirty-seven miles long."
Wilderness Atchafalaya Basin
"America's largest river swamp: mile after mile of cypress, alligator and Cajun silence."
Wilderness Badlands
"Striped buttes rising from the prairie like the spine of a buried dinosaur."
Mountain Big Bend
"Santa Elena Canyon walls rising fifteen hundred feet on either side of the Rio Grande."
Water Big Sur
"An 80-foot waterfall spills onto a beach no path reaches, watched only from above."
City Bisbee
"A copper mine town turned art colony jammed into a canyon with more stairs than streets."
Mountain Black Canyon of the Gunnison
"A canyon so narrow the bottom gets only thirty-three minutes of sunlight each day."
Water Boundary Waters
"Eleven hundred lakes joined by portage trails where paddles rule and wolves still howl."
Mountain Bryce Canyon
"An amphitheatre of orange hoodoos so dense it looks like a forest made of stone."
Mountain Canyonlands
"The Colorado and Green Rivers fracture the Earth into a labyrinth of mesas with no bottom."
Mountain Capitol Reef
"Pioneer orchards still bearing fruit inside a hundred-mile wrinkle in the Earth's crust."
Mountain Carlsbad Caverns
"At dusk, hundreds of thousands of bats spiral upward from a hole in the desert floor."
Water Channel Islands
"Five islands, no shops, no hotels, and cat-sized foxes found nowhere else on Earth."
City Charleston
"Sweetgrass baskets sold on street corners where the air smells of pluff mud and jasmine."
Mountain Chiricahua
"Towers of balanced rhyolite standing like silent sentinels in the Apaches' mountain stronghold."
City Clarksdale
"Robert Johnson's crossroads, the Delta town where the blues still bleeds from every juke joint."
Mountain Columbia River Gorge
"A flood-torn canyon whose green basalt walls stream with waterfalls, one of them 620 feet."
Wilderness Congaree
"Ancient trees rising from a floodplain where fireflies synchronise their flash in a primeval light show."
Water Crater Lake
"The deepest lake in America filling a collapsed volcano in a blue that defies photography."
Mountain Crested Butte
"So many wildflowers in July that the entire valley floor turns electric purple."
City Deadwood
"Poker chips clink in the gulch where Wild Bill died holding aces and eights."
Wilderness Death Valley
"Sailing stones that move across a dry lake bed when no one is watching."
Mountain Denali
"North America's highest peak appearing through clouds like a wall between earth and sky."
Mountain Enchanted Rock
"Pink granite groaning in the dark, a sacred dome the Comanche believed was alive."
Wilderness Everglades
"A river of grass sixty miles wide and six inches deep, prowled by alligators and panthers."
City Gettysburg
"Fifty-one thousand killed, wounded or missing in three days, on fields where silence still weighs."
Water Glacier Bay
"Tidewater glaciers calve thunder into the sea, and summer humpbacks breach across the bay."
Mountain Glacier National Park
"Turquoise meltwater glowing beneath glaciers that shrink a little more every summer."
Mountain Grand Canyon
"A mile-deep silence broken only by ravens circling in thermals below your feet."
Mountain Grand Staircase-Escalante
"Slot canyons so narrow you turn sideways to pass through walls of swirled sandstone."
Mountain Great Basin National Park
"Bristlecone pines nearly five thousand years old growing above a cave full of limestone shields."
Wilderness Great Sand Dunes
"The tallest dunes in North America rising against snow-streaked fourteen-thousand-foot peaks."
Water Haines
"Thousands of bald eagles gathering on one river in the shadow of coastal glaciers."
Water Hana
"Fifty-two miles of switchbacks, bamboo and waterfalls, black sand waiting just before Hāna."
Mountain Havasu Falls
"Turquoise waterfalls thundering into a canyon reached only by mule, helicopter or a long hike."
Mountain Hawai'i Volcanoes
"Ground younger than you are, built by two of Earth's most active volcanoes."
Wilderness Hoh Rainforest
"Twelve feet of rain a year drape the maples in moss that swallows sound whole."
City Jerome
"A cliff-clinging ghost town where the jail slid downhill and old floors tilt."
Wilderness Joshua Tree
"Twisted trees and boulder piles under a night sky with more stars than dark space."
City Juneau
"No road reaches this state capital, just fjords, glaciers and a harbour full of humpbacks."
Water Katmai National Park
"Brown bears shoulder-deep in the rapids, snatching leaping salmon straight out of the air."
Water Kenai Fjords
"Exit Glacier retreating in real time; the trail markers show where it stood each decade."
Water Key West
"Roosters crossing the street while Mallory Square gathers to applaud the sunset."
Water Kodiak Island
"The world's largest brown bears fish salmon streams on America's second-largest island."
City Lancaster County
"Horse-drawn buggies, hand-worked fields and no power lines: the current century thins at the county line."
Mountain Lava Beds
"More than eight hundred caves, from one lit tube to permitted headlamp crawls beneath basalt."
Water Mackinac Island
"No cars since 1898, only horses, bicycles and the smell of fresh fudge."
Mountain Mammoth Cave
"Echoing darkness stretching four hundred miles beneath Kentucky, the longest cave system on Earth."
City Marfa
"Minimalist art installations glowing in the Chihuahuan Desert beside a highway that goes nowhere."
Mountain Mauna Kea
"A summit so sacred it was once forbidden to all but chiefs, now crowned with telescopes."
Mountain Mesa Verde
"Cliff palaces built into alcoves seven centuries ago, then abandoned within a generation."
Mountain Moab
"Red rock arches framing the desert sky in a town built for dirt and adrenaline."
Wilderness Monument Valley
"Sandstone mittens casting shadows across a rust-coloured desert frozen mid-creation."
Mountain Mount Rainier
"A volcanic cone draped in more glaciers than any peak in the contiguous United States."
Water Na Pali Coast
"Cathedral sea cliffs rising four thousand feet from the Pacific, reachable only by boat or trail."
City New Orleans
"Jazz spilling from doorways at 2 a.m. while beignet sugar dusts your collar."
Mountain New River Gorge
"A bridge spanning cloud level above a gorge carved by one of North America's oldest rivers."
Water Niagara Falls
"In summer, six million cubic feet of water a minute plunge into mist felt streets away."
Mountain North Cascades
"More glaciers than any park in the lower forty-eight, yet almost no one comes."
Mountain Ouray
"Hot springs steaming beneath ice-climbing walls in a box canyon called the Switzerland of America."
Water Outer Banks
"Wild horses roam a sandbar where two thousand ships lie wrecked beneath the surf."
Wilderness Painted Hills
"Striped hills of ochre, gold and black, painted by 35 million years of changing climate."
Water Pictured Rocks
"Mineral-stained cliffs of rust, copper and jade rising from Lake Superior's clear depths."
Water Point Reyes
"Fog wraps a peninsula riding a different tectonic plate, where tule elk graze above the surf."
Water Quabbin Reservoir
"Four drowned towns sleep beneath the reservoir; their dead left one hearse at a time."
Wilderness Saguaro
"Cathedral stands of giant cacti with arms raised, some nearly two centuries old."
Water San Juan Islands
"An archipelago where two nations once nearly went to war over a shot pig."
City Santa Fe
"Adobe walls glow amber at sunset while piñon smoke drifts through the plaza."
City Savannah
"Spanish moss dripping into squares where horse hooves echo on cobblestones after dark."
Mountain Sedona
"Red rock cathedrals rising from the desert where pilgrims come to feel the ground hum."
Wilderness Sequoia & Kings Canyon
"Trees wider than your house and a canyon deeper than Arizona's Grand Canyon, side by side."
Mountain Silverton
"A narrow-gauge steam train delivers you to a mining town at 9,318 feet."
Water Sitka
"Totem poles and Russian onion domes facing each other across a harbour where humpbacks surface."
Water Sleeping Bear Dunes
"Sand bluffs four hundred and fifty feet tall plunging into Lake Michigan's turquoise shallows."
Mountain Stanley
"Population sixty-two, ringed by Sawtooth peaks, with natural hot springs steaming in the river."
Mountain Superstition Mountains
"Craggy volcanic peaks where prospectors still search for a gold mine that may never have existed."
City Taos
"A thousand-year-old adobe pueblo still inhabited beneath a mountain the Tiwa call sacred."
Mountain Telluride
"A box canyon so steep the waterfall lands in town and the only road dead-ends."
City Terlingua
"A ghost town at Earth's edge where eccentrics throw an annual chilli cook-off in the dust."
Water Thousand Islands
"A castle abandoned for seventy-three years on one of eighteen hundred islands in the St. Lawrence."
Wilderness Utqiaġvik
"Midnight sun refusing to set for eighty days straight in a town where whales surface offshore."
Wilderness Valley of Fire
"Two-thousand-year-old petroglyphs baking into sandstone so red it radiates heat after dark."
Wilderness Vermilion Cliffs
"Sandstone ribbons frozen mid-ripple on a formation only sixty-four people a day may see."
Mountain Waimea Canyon
"Rust-red volcanic walls dropping thirty-six hundred feet through the emerald heart of Kauaʻi."
Mountain Watkins Glen
"Nineteen waterfalls crash through a chasm as stone steps thread over, under and through the spray."
Wilderness Yellowstone
"Earth exhaling through turquoise pools while bison block the only road ahead."
Mountain Yosemite Valley
"Climbers shrink to moving specks on a granite face three thousand feet above the meadow."
Mountain Zion National Park
"Slot canyon walls so narrow the river fills them waist-deep and the sky becomes a sliver."
Wishing Premium
Legendary Destinations
Little-known places, unlike anywhere else, that leave you awestruck and full of stories.
22 destinations
Legendary Destination
Some winters, the sea caves exchange sandstone shadows for blue ice.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Stone shapes and ancient tree stumps stand without paths between them.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
The gold rush ended. Curtains still hang in the empty windows.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
White ground meets pale sky, and the horizon becomes hard to find.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Below ancient cliff homes, families still work the canyon's fields.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Far from paved roads, old walls still keep their appointments with the sky.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Before leaving Earth, astronauts practised among these lava flows.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Here, a rainbow can borrow its light from the moon.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Horses graze where grand mansions have become ruins.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
High on the mountain, wind shapes a landscape that belongs farther north.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Six walls rise from the sea, far beyond the end of the road.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
The grass can grow taller than the horse walking through it.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Beyond the roads and trails, the Arctic keeps its own paths.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
A crowd of stone mushrooms stands in the desert.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
No roads connect the wolves and moose sharing this island.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
The river disappears, then returns beside the fish waiting downstream.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
An island without traffic lights keeps its buildings below the skyline.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Pale towers rise from water far saltier than the sea.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
The water arrived by accident. The resorts that followed are fading away.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
Shell roads lead beneath live oaks to a saltwater Geechee community.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
It looks like snow. It shifts like sand. It is gypsum.
Reveal with Wishing Premium
Legendary Destination
A wilderness larger than a country, crowded with peaks instead of roads.
Reveal with Wishing Premium