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Visiting the InterContinental Bora Bora Thalasso Resort on assignment, I feel like the only single person from here to Guam. Every year, Bora is voted among the world’s top honeymoon destinations, and right away you realize everything is designed to propagate the human species. The grounds are thick with palm trees and fat ferns leading up to some of the most beautiful water on the planet resembling a translucent creamy liquid light. Every day at 2 p.m., a school of stingrays shows up in knee deep water to be fed by guests. This is highly popular for the dozens of young honeymooners because their Facebook photos come out amazing in the clear water. The star attractions are the 80 overwater villas stretching into the lagoon along four curved wooden piers. Prepare to be blown away. The villas are over 1,000 sf with cathedral beam ceilings, handsome wood furnishings and a huge living room opening out to a large wooden deck. A ladder extends to a second deck perched a couple feet above the water, where you’ll spend a lot of time while other guests kayak by and wave hello. In the center of the villa, my bed faces a floor-to-ceiling window framing the volcano. These particular units were voted “World’s Best View from the Bedroom” on TripAdvisor a few years ago. The hotel can also set you up with a catered romantic dinner for two on the lower deck. Candles, pillows, frangipani flowers, French champagne and lobster soup—who can resist the romance?

Wonderful catamarans that you can rent right off the beach.

We all have a mental image of upscale European alpine villages from countless spy movies and Vogue fashion shoots. There’s the little café with etched glass and women sipping Alsace with perfect hair and puffy parkas. The men are capable sorts, usually lean and well-traveled. Jet-setters, rich ski bums, and other dubious types mill around low-slung Citroëns with skis on the back, while the air feels charged with intrigue and adventure simmering under the laissez-faire insouciance. Sorta like the Arrabelle at Vail Square. “There’s no other place like this in North America that captures the iconic ambience of classic Old World European cities like Salzburg, Innsbruck, and Prague,” says John Dawsey, director of sales. “During the design phase, we really wanted to capture a feeling aligned with a cultured European central plaza.” The Arrabelle consists of 86 suites overlooking the town square, which converts into a skating rink in winter at the gondola base of Vail Mountain. The charm is in the details: working wood shutters, copper drainspouts, and subtle fairy-tale stenciling around the Bavarian Biedemeier-style architecture. The lobby’s windows are Czech, no less. Off the lobby, the Tavern is always buzzing with locals and visitors in the shadows sipping hot chocolate and Grand Marnier. The menu is meat-friendly. Try the Bone-in Veal Schnitzel with saffron risotto because that’s what spies and dangerous women eat.

Film fans may remember the scene in Out of Africa when Denys Finch Hatton’s little yellow gypsy plane swooped above the pink flamingo–filled waters of Lake Nakuru to the sound of the John Barry soundtrack. The lake is indeed known for the thousands of flamingos that nest along its shores, attracted to the lake’s vast quantities of tasty algae. (Recent rising water levels have resulted in many of the birds moving their nests elsewhere, but naturalists believe they’ll return when the waters recede.) In 1961, the lake and its surrounding land were named Lake Nakuru National Park, now protecting the black and southern white rhinos, warthogs, lions, baboons, and other wildlife that live here. The lake is a roughly three-hour drive from Nairobi.

The system of canals and chinampas (cultivated artificial islands fashioned from the area’s swampy soils) that has survived in the far-south neighborhood known as Xochilmilco once stretched all the way to the Centro. To this day, the community is known for its plant nurseries and vegetable gardens. These ancient landscapes now contribute to what has become one of the most singular pleasure gardens in the world, where visitors hire “gondoliers” to propel boats known as trajineras as they sail these channels in the company of floating mariachis and food vendors, partying teens, and extended families out for a picnic lunch. Since a tour is usually a four-hour-plus investment (it flies by), ask your oarsman to take you to Xochimilco’s more-rural precincts, where you’ll enjoy marvelous quiet, far from the madding crowd, in the company of cranes, curs, and picturesque cornfields.

Although this bicycle company was founded in the 1930s in Tianjin by a Japanese businessman, today it’s iconically Chinese, particularly in Beijing. This is Beijing’s flagship Flying Pigeon, where you can buy 22-, 24-, and 28-inch frames. Bikes retro, modern, electric, and foldable are on display here, and everything but the electric bikes can be checked in a bicycle box and brought home. While the contemporary models are perfectly fine, it’s the handsome vintage-style bikes in Dutch-cruiser or English-roadster style that make the best souvenirs, inspiring envy and looks of awe when you ride them in the streets at home.

Bright and early, just before the sun comes up over Mount Bromo, Mount Semeru and Mount Batok, with ample rolling fog and an epic eruption for good measure. We climbed Mount Penanjakan in our Toyota 4x4 pre-dawn in the headlights of some 1,200 other vehicles. Once at the viewpoint my travel partner and I decided against the same shooting vantage as everyone else - all 3,000 tourists, gah - and climbed down the hill for a better look (and a few square feet to dig in our tripods). As soon as the sun started to shine and illuminate the volcanoes in the distance, all the nuisance and discomfort of the day, all the pain and suffering associated with actually making the trip to Bromo, it vanished. We spent the next hour shooting one of the most incredible sunrises I have ever witnessed. Getting here is a bit of a package-tour nightmare, but so very much worth it in the end.

The smallish Plaza Manuel Tolsá—at the end of Calle de Tacuba—is an all-but-perfect urban conglomeration that will thrill architecture fans. To the south lies the 18th-century Palacio de Minería (a former engineering college) whose solid, sober mastery of imposing volume is leavened by the wavy effects of the city’s sinking soils; to the north is the former Palacio de Comunicaciones, now Mexico’s National Art Museum. The collection here is a winner—but some of the structure’s soaring neoclassical spaces will leave you agog. At the corner with the Eje Central thoroughfare stands the city’s beloved old post office, noted for its eclectic, Venetian-style facade and coruscating interiors in marble, bronze, and iron (don’t miss the grand staircase). A recently restored equestrian statue of a somewhat dopey-looking King Charles IV of Spain is a marvelous finishing touch.

Austinites had seen pizzas come in square or rectangular shapes before brothers Brandon and Zane Hunt arrived from Michigan, but they may not have associated the style with Detroit. Cooked in replicas of metal pans used on automotive assembly lines, these thick pies have a cheesy layer that extends to the edge of each slice. The Detroiter features two types of pepperoni, one smoked and one natural casing, mixed with a layer of cheese, atop tomato sauce, with some of the curled cups of pork riding to the surface of the slice. The brothers started with one pizza trailer and have since expanded to two brick-and-mortar locations and added a second trailer.

At the center of Medellín, Plaza Botero gets its name from Colombian artist Fernando Botero, who donated 23 of his much-loved, disproportionate-bodied bronze sculptures to the city. There’s a huge chubby head, a reclining woman, and an oddly small man with a bowler hat riding a horse, plus good old Adam and Eve. The Museo de Antioquia abuts the plaza and houses other pieces by Botero as well as works by other artists. By day the square is vibrant and lively, but do take appropriate precautions after dark.

Bordered on the south by its eponymous deep-red cliffs, the national monument is home to broad plateaus, endangered California condors, and some of the oldest petroglyphs in the United States. But the area’s greatest hit is the Wave, a dramatic, undulant orange rock formation. There are trailheads, maps, and minimally marked checkpoints along the trail leading to the famous spot, but unless you opt to hire an authorized guide, you’ll have to pick your way carefully across relatively untouched desert—that is, if you manage to snag one of the 20 daily hiking permits. Apply online four months in advance or enter the daily lottery at the visitor center in Kenab, Utah. Didn’t make it? Grab a map, make sure you have a spare tire, and explore the monument’s lesser-known slot canyons and gulches, or head to the Grand Canyon or Zion National Park; both are within a two-to-three-hour drive. You can always try again the next day. Permits are $6 and $7.

The Atlantis Hotel is the focal point of Dubai‘s giant cluster of man-made isthmuses that jut out into the Persian Gulf. Even if you can’t afford to stay at this spectacular hotel, you can still go see what the decadent expat lifestyle feels like for the day by swimming with dolphins in Dolphin Bay or splashing about in the rivers, slides, and pools of Dubai‘s largest water park: Aquaventure. If that doesn’t float your boat (sorry), there’s Atlantis’s dive center, in which you can go diving in a nearly 3 million–gallon tank. You’ll literally be swimming with the sharks (and stingrays) this time. In Atlantis, don’t be surprised to find yourself feeding the rays next to a celebrity—this is one of the places they stay in Dubai.

The lighthouse of Vinga is located at the far western end of the archipelago, with nothing more than the North Sea in front. Join the guided tour that will tell you the history of the island and let you climb the lighthouse. Bring a picnic and stay the day, just to enjoy the scenery. Or rent one of the cottages if you feel like staying longer. The sunsets are breathtaking!

With the smallest room a sprawling 400 square feet, and suites and public spaces filled with original 18th- and 19th-century art and antiques, the George V, flagship of the Four Seasons chain, lives up to its billing as a palace, an official tourism category introduced in 2010 requiring establishments to “embody French standards of excellence and contribute to enhancing the image of France throughout the world.” Set in a 1928 art deco building, the Four Seasons Hotel George V boasts a regular clientele of bona fide royals, including Saudi princes who rent entire floors for six weeks at a stretch. The staff includes a team of flower designers led by an art director who worked on Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. There’s also a dedicated concierge for children ordering up pint-sized bathrobes and private pastry-making lessons in the Michelin-starred kitchen.

Rock ’n’ Bowl is where to go to find sharps, flats, spares, and strikes all hanging out together. It’s a bit unclear whether this is a nightclub hiding out in a full-size bowling alley, or a bowling alley out enjoying a secret nightlife. Either way, it’s a very New Orleans destination, located near the upriver edge of the city. (It’s about a $15 cab ride from downtown.) After Katrina and a parting of the ways with his earlier landlord, the owner moved a few blocks down to this former paint store, installed new lanes, added a bigger stage, and hauled much of his original funky decor to the new spot. Check the website for forthcoming shows—there’s always plenty of space for dancing, which is especially fun during Thursday zydeco nights.