United States
Taos
A thousand-year-old adobe pueblo still inhabited beneath a mountain the Tiwa call sacred.
The thousand-year-old adobe walls of Taos Pueblo glow the colour of wet clay in afternoon rain, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising behind them in a blue so deep it looks painted. Piñon smoke threads through the air, mixing with the scent of roasting chilli. The light here has drawn painters since the 1890s, and standing in it, you understand why — it sharpens everything, forgives nothing.
Taos Pueblo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in North America, with structures dating to between 1000 and 1450 CE. The Tiwa-speaking people who live there still do so without electricity or running water by choice, preserving traditions that predate European contact by centuries. The town of Taos, a few miles south, became a magnet for artists and writers in the early 20th century — D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Ansel Adams all spent formative periods here. The Taos Society of Artists, founded in 1915, helped establish the town's creative identity. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, seven miles northwest, spans an 800-foot-deep rift carved by the Rio Grande — a sight so unexpected in the flat sage mesa that it earned the nickname the bridge to nowhere. Taos Ski Valley, thirteen miles north, receives over 300 inches of snow annually on some of the steepest lift-served terrain in the United States.
Solo
Taos draws introspective travellers. Visit the pueblo in respectful silence, browse the galleries alone, and sit at a plaza café with a book and blue corn enchiladas. The creative energy here feeds the kind of thinking that only happens in solitude.
Couple
The combination of ancient culture, artistic legacy, and mountain light creates a setting that feels layered and alive. Share a meal of sopapillas and green chilli, walk the gorge bridge at sunset, and fall asleep in an adobe inn with walls two feet thick.
- Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited for over 1,000 years — residents still live without electricity or running water inside the adobe complex, by choice.
- The pueblo's Blue Lake, in the mountains above the village, was returned to the Tiwa people by Congress in 1970 after a 65-year legal fight and remains closed to all non-tribal visitors.
- Georgia O'Keeffe lived and painted at Ghost Ranch, 45 miles north, for most of her adult life — the landscape she painted is visible and largely unchanged.
- Taos Ski Valley's runs begin less than 20 minutes from the pueblo plaza — it is possible to visit a thousand-year-old living community and ski black diamond runs on the same day.
Blue corn enchiladas smothered in red and green chilli at a plaza-side restaurant.
Sopapillas with honey from a wood-fired adobe oven, puffed and golden.
Posole with hominy and pork at a family-run café near the pueblo.
Rye
England
Cobblestoned lanes so steep and crooked even the houses lean in to listen.
Shell Grotto, Margate
England
Millions of shells arranged in unexplained mosaics beneath a mundane street — origin unknown.
Abydos
Egypt
Temple paint vivid after thirty-three centuries, concealing an underground granite chamber that still puzzles archaeologists.
Casabindo
Argentina
Argentina's only bull ceremony strips ribbons from horns at 3,400 metres each August.
Lander
United States
A river vanishes underground and resurfaces a quarter-mile later in a pool of giant trout.
Craters of the Moon
United States
A lava field so alien that NASA trained Apollo astronauts on these flows for moon missions.
New Orleans
United States
Jazz spilling from doorways at 2 a.m. while beignet sugar dusts your collar.
Savannah
United States
Spanish moss dripping into squares where horse hooves echo on cobblestones after dark.