The World’s Top 10
Tourist Destinations

01

FRANCE · WESTERN EUROPE

Paris

The most visited city on Earth has survived its own myth — which is no small achievement. Paris has been so thoroughly romanticised, so relentlessly painted and filmed and written about, that arriving for the first time carries the strange pressure of meeting a legend in person. And then it delivers. The Eiffel Tower at dusk is genuinely breathtaking. The Louvre is genuinely overwhelming. Notre-Dame, now restored after the 2019 fire, is genuinely moving. But Paris earns its place at the top of this list not through its monuments but through its street-level life: the boulangeries producing perfect croissants at 7am, the neighbourhood bistros that haven’t changed their menus in 40 years, the bouquinistes along the Seine who make browsing feel like a philosophical act. Paris is the city that invented the idea of the city as a pleasurable place to simply be.

Don’t miss: Musée d’Orsay, Le Marais, a market lunch at Marché d’Aligre, Sainte-Chapelle at midday when the light hits the stained glass.

02

JAPAN · EAST ASIA

Tokyo

Tokyo may be the best city in the world to visit right now — a claim that would have seemed audacious a decade ago and today feels merely accurate. The world’s largest metropolitan area is also, paradoxically, its most orderly: trains run to the second, streets are immaculate, and the food at every price point is extraordinary. With more Michelin stars than Paris, New York, and London combined; neighbourhoods that each contain entire worlds within them; and a cultural depth that rewards every return visit, Tokyo has quietly become the benchmark against which all other great cities are measured. The weak yen has made it exceptional value. The only risk is that everywhere else feels slightly disappointing afterwards.

Don’t miss: Senso-ji at dawn, Daikanyama’s Tsutaya Books, a standing ramen counter in Shinjuku, teamLab Planets, the Yamanote Line loop at night.

03

ITALY · SOUTHERN EUROPE

Rome

Rome is the city that refuses to let you forget how long humans have been trying to build something magnificent. Nowhere else on Earth can you eat a cacio e pepe in a restaurant that has been serving the same pasta since before your country existed, then walk five minutes and stand inside a 2,000-year-old intact building open to the sky. The Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Forum, the Vatican — these are not ruins in the archaeological sense; they are living presences in a city that has simply built itself around them across twenty-eight centuries. Rome’s genius is that it makes the ancient feel quotidian and the ordinary feel eternal. There is no city on Earth with a deeper concentration of human achievement per square kilometre.

Don’t miss: The Pantheon at opening time, Trastevere for dinner, the Borghese Gallery (book ahead), a morning espresso standing at any bar counter.

04

UAE · MIDDLE EAST

Dubai

Dubai is the most audacious urban experiment of the 21st century — a city that did not meaningfully exist 50 years ago and now welcomes more international visitors annually than almost anywhere on Earth. It is easy to be sceptical of Dubai, and the scepticism is not entirely wrong: much of it is spectacular in a way that is more about scale than substance. But Dubai rewards engagement on its own terms. The Burj Khalifa at sunrise, when the city below is still cool and quiet, is genuinely awe-inspiring. The old gold and spice souks of Deira are a genuine window into a pre-oil trading culture. The food scene, driven by 200 nationalities living side by side, is extraordinary. And the desert — 20 minutes from any hotel — is as beautiful and humbling as anything on Earth.

Don’t miss: Dubai Frame at golden hour, the old Deira souks by abra, a desert camp overnight, Al Quoz’s gallery district.

05

USA · NORTH AMERICA

New York City

New York is the city that invented the modern idea of itself and has been living up to — and occasionally failing — that invention ever since. It is loud, expensive, sometimes exhausting, and entirely unlike anywhere else on Earth. The skyline from the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn is one of the world’s great views. Central Park in October is one of the world’s great urban experiences. The food — from a $2 slice in the East Village to a $500 omakase in Midtown — is as good as any city’s. And beneath all of it is the most extraordinary concentration of human ambition and creative energy on the planet: the sense that in New York, whatever you are trying to do, there is a version of it happening at the very highest level, somewhere within walking distance. That energy is the city’s greatest attraction and its most renewable resource.

Don’t miss: The High Line at dusk, the Met’s rooftop in summer, a Sunday morning in Prospect Park, the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side.

06

THAILAND · SOUTHEAST ASIA

Bangkok

Bangkok is the city that never quite resolves itself into something comfortable or familiar — and that is precisely its genius. It is chaotic, beautiful, overwhelming, and home to some of the world’s greatest street food, most spectacular temples, and most vibrant nightlife, often within a single city block. The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew are among Asia’s most magnificent royal complexes. The Chao Phraya river, navigated by long-tail boats weaving between ancient temples and glass towers, is a living cross-section of everything Bangkok is. The food — from pad thai at a plastic-stool street cart to sophisticated modern Thai cuisine at a rooftop restaurant — is consistently extraordinary. Bangkok rewards travellers who surrender to it rather than try to manage it.

Don’t miss: Wat Arun at sunset from across the river, Or Tor Kor market at dawn, the rooftop bar at Lebua State Tower, a long-tail boat through the klongs.

07

SPAIN · WESTERN EUROPE

Barcelona

Barcelona is the city that proves urban life and sensory pleasure are not merely compatible but inseparable. Gaudí’s architecture alone would make it unmissable — the Sagrada Família, still under construction after 140 years, is the most extraordinary building project in the world; Park Güell is a fever dream rendered in mosaic tile; Casa Batlló is what happens when a genius is given an entire city block and no constraints. But Barcelona is far more than Gaudí. The Gothic Quarter is a medieval labyrinth of genuine beauty. La Boqueria market is a cathedral of produce. The food — pintxos, jamón, fresh seafood, pa amb tomàquet — is exceptional. And the beach, the mountains, and the light that falls on it all from the Mediterranean sky make Barcelona feel like a gift the city gives you simply for showing up.

Don’t miss: Sagrada Família at opening (book weeks ahead), El Born neighbourhood, a vermouth at noon in the Eixample, dinner anywhere after 9pm.

08

AUSTRALIA · OCEANIA

Sydney

Sydney is the city that makes you wonder, genuinely and repeatedly, why you live anywhere else. The harbour — arguably the world’s most beautiful natural harbour — frames everything: the Opera House curving white against blue sky, ferries crossing to Manly, the Bridge arching over it all with the quiet authority of something that has always been there. But Sydney’s real genius is the integration of city and nature that other cities spend decades trying and failing to achieve. World-class beaches like Bondi and Coogee are 20 minutes from the CBD. The Blue Mountains are 90 minutes away. The food scene — driven by the most multicultural population of any city its size — is outstanding. Sydney is effortlessly, generously liveable in a way that makes its status as a tourist destination feel almost incidental.

Don’t miss: The Bondi to Coogee coastal walk, a ferry to Manly at sunset, the Opera House bar on a warm evening, the weekend market at Glebe.

09

PERU · SOUTH AMERICA

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is one of those rare places that exceeds its own reputation — a place so photographed, so described, so thoroughly anticipated that arriving in person and finding it more extraordinary than you imagined feels like a small miracle. The Inca citadel sits at 2,430 metres above sea level, draped in cloud, surrounded by Andean peaks, and built with a precision that still defies easy explanation. The stones fit together without mortar so tightly that a knife blade cannot pass between them. The terraces follow the mountain’s contours as if grown rather than built. The whole complex was constructed in the 15th century, abandoned before the Spanish arrived, and hidden from the outside world for 400 years. Standing in it, you understand immediately why. The journey — by train through the Sacred Valley, then the steep climb to the Sun Gate — is itself one of the world’s great travel experiences.

Don’t miss: Arriving via the Sun Gate on foot for the first view, the Intihuatana stone at midday, the agricultural terraces at dawn before the crowds arrive.

10

MALDIVES · INDIAN OCEAN

The Maldives

The Maldives occupies a category of its own — not a city, not a ruin, not a monument to human achievement, but a reminder that the planet itself is the greatest architect. 1,200 coral islands scattered across 90,000 square kilometres of the Indian Ocean, most of them uninhabited, the water above the reefs so clear and so coloured that photographs of it look artificially enhanced until you are standing in it yourself. The over-water bungalow was essentially invented here, and the experience — waking to the sound of the ocean directly beneath you, stepping off your private deck into water the temperature of a warm bath — is as close to paradise as the travel industry has come to manufacturing. The Maldives is also acutely vulnerable to climate change: much of it sits less than a metre above sea level. To visit is to see something extraordinary that the world may not be able to preserve.

Don’t miss: Night snorkelling with bioluminescent plankton, a sunrise on the eastern beach, the house reef at any time of day.