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Since the 1970s, Melvyn’s has hosted a string of famous guests—most notably Frank Sinatra, who held court from corner booth #53 whenever he was in town. The Rat Pack spirit endures here. Old standards play nightly (except Mondays) at the piano bar, while tuxedo-clad waiters serve up Manhattans and martinis. A 2017 face lift spruced up the chandelier-strewn dining room and returned the bar to its former pale pink–tufted glory. Melvyn’s was and still is one of few places in Palm Springs with a dress code—it once famously turned away Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw for showing up in motorcycle ensembles—although diners are now allowed to dress more casually if they’re eating under the striped awning of the patio. Call ahead to reserve a table (yes, Sinatra’s booth is still available) and then give in to nostalgia. For lunch, try the Monte Cristo sandwich; after dark, follow jumbo prawn cocktails and oysters Rockefeller with tableside-prepared steak Diane and cherries jubilee. Insider’s tip: Ask maître d’ Brian Ellis, hired when Melvyn’s first opened, about the night the FBI stopped by.

In many ways, the Fairmont Orchid is the quintessential Hawaiian luxury resort. Its big, elegant lobby is blooming with purple orchids and birds of paradise, its enormous, 24-hour swimming pool wends its way around black rock islands, and its 32 lush acres include tropical gardens and a white-sand beach that frames an aquamarine cove. The 540 guest rooms and suites, located in two six-story towers, all have lanais; half have ocean (or partial water) views, the others overlook the spotless grounds. It’s the dream Vacationland, and as such, the mood is jolly round-the-clock. Cheerful staff oversee the long list of activities—canoe excursions, petroglyph hikes, stand-up paddle-boarding, and about a zillion other options are available both on property and off (some activities are complimentary, others cost extra)—and the crowd tends to be a fun-in-the-sun bunch. On any given day, there might be a Canadian family in a heated volleyball game on the beach, or a group of Silicon Valley execs soaking in the hot tub.

Carve out a day to spend at the award-winning Spa Without Walls, where the Hawaian-influenced treatments are performed in 17 treatments rooms, some with ocean views and private outdoor spaces. Them, fuel up on Japanese meats and sushi, fresh seafood, robatayaki (grilled) items, beachside classics, and more at the numerous dining outlets. Along with repeat guests, the hotel’s most frequent visitors are the giant sea turtles that regularly hang out at the Orchid’s beachfront. They’ve become such an integral part of the property that even guests at other hotels drop by for a peek.

When it comes to sleeping options in Barbuda, private guesthouses are a popular option. One excellent choice is Barbuda Cottages. On a calm and gorgeous sweep of isolated beach at Coral Group, on the south coast, are four traditional wooden Caribbean cottages built right on the sand, next to one of the best beach bars in Barbuda, Uncle Roddy’s. The water in front of these chic, upscale self-catering cottages is also awesome for swimming as it is very safe and calm and there are rock pools to explore. A good family option, the newly constructed, eco-friendly beach houses are owned and run by Barbudans and offer one or three bedroom options. The cottages are located a 15-minute taxi ride from the village where the ferry pier and airport are – if you’re going to cook for yourself (recommended for most meals) stock up in town before heading to the southwest coast.

An address won’t help you much on Burano. If you’re looking for a specific spot on this tiny archipelago off the Venetian coast, let color be your guide. According to legend, island homes were painted in vivid hues to help fishermen find their way in the fog as far back as the 6th century. While neon shades of blue, green, orange, and lavender may seem random, they’ve been determined by a regulated system for centuries. Even today, property owners must request permission and a selection of permissible colors from the Italian government before slapping a new coat of paint on their aging buildings. Visitors who make the 45-minute vaporetto ride from Venice to Burano are rewarded with a kaleidoscope of tropical hues and a serene island ambience that seems worlds away from the madding crowds in Piazza San Marco. While edible vestiges of its roots as a small fishing village remain in waterfront restaurants serving up heaping plates of frittura mista, seafood risotto, and spaghetti vongole, Burano is better known today for its hand-hewn lace and colorful homes. In the 15th century, its artistic prominence surged when island women began making the famed lace. Demand peaked after Leonardo da Vinci visited to shop for the Burano lace that covers the main altar of the Duomo in Milan. If you’re lucky enough to visit Burano during the pre-Lent Venice Carnevale, you may find new dimensions of color on its four canal-laced islands and picturesque footbridges. A multicolored palette of some 3,000 islanders provides a rainbow of backdrops for costumed revelers. Primping and posing, the fantasy personae inspire storms of clicks from photographers eager to capture the visual feast.

If you’re coming to Telluride to be part of the action, the New Sheridan might be for you. The town’s social hub for more than a century, the historic hotel features two dozen rooms and suites, done up in elegant but updated Victorian style. Interior rooms are the smallest but quietest, while third-floor accommodations offer the best views of Ballard Mountain. The Ballard Suite includes a separate living room and can be connected to two other guest rooms for a family or large group.

New Sheridan guests enjoy free access to a 24-hour gym just a few blocks away, as well as ski lockers and boot heaters in the downstairs ski room, and discounted food and drinks at the on-site restaurants and bars. Virtually the same since 1895, Historic Bar is a local favorite, with regular drink specials, live music, and foosball and pool tables. On a fine summer day, however, The Roof is the place to be. There’s also Chop House Restaurant for prime aged beef and fine wine, and Parlor for breakfast and light meals. The New Sheridan even serves as a gallery and atelier for its artist-in-residence, Roger Mason, a painter who can often be found outside the hotel, working on another colorful Main Street landscape.

Barbuda is a birders paradise, home to some 170 avian species, including one of the largest frigate bird colonies on the plant. Located in the vast Codrington Lagoon, which also hosts dozens of other species, off the island’s northwest coast, is the Frigate Bird Sanctuary, which is home to more than 5,000 of these black-feathered birds that like to roost amid the scrubby mangroves found here. Visit the sanctuary during mating season (September to April) if possible. The birds have a fascinating ritual. While the female birds circle above, the male frigates line up in the bushes with their heads arched and chests puffed, and try to attract he attention of a potential mate. When a female frigate sees a male that she fancies she lands at his feet and begins the mating ritual. The lagoon can only be accessed by licensed sea taxi from the jetty in Codrington – boat drivers act as tour guides. Arrangements can be made through your hotel. The taxi tour costs about $70 for up to four people, and admission to the park is just $2 per person.

The ire of Mount Kilauea reforges the world before visitors’ eyes. Nicknamed “the World’s Only Drive-In Volcano,” it’s produced serious lava every day since 1983 with no signs of stopping. Pele—the fire goddess who lives here, according to Hawaiian lore—is on a roll. Occasionally the lava flows spill into the sea, releasing stunning plumes of steam. Don’t miss the petroglyphs, lava tube, lush rain forest, and more than 150 miles of trail, including the four-mile Kilauea Iki loop. The drive here from Kona or Kohala can take two and a half hours, a bit of a long day, so consider reserving accommodations in the town of Volcano. You’ll have plenty of time to explore this otherworldly landscape, and even see the lava glowing in the dark!

Ras Abrouq Beach is located 50 miles west of Doha on the edge of the Ras Abrouq Reserve, which also known as Bir Zekreet. This remote, rocky beach is popular with windsurfers and campers who come for the picturesque half-moon bay and the striking limestone outcroppings that are shaped like gigantic mushrooms. Ras Abrouq is a few miles away from Film City—an abandoned film set—and close to a nature reserve where you can spot Oryx, gazelle, and deer. There are no facilities, no paved roads, no nearby gas stations, and no stores to buy water. If you’re making the trek out to Ras Abrouq, bring a four-wheel drive vehicle and be sure to pack plenty of water. The things that make this beach hard to access, however, are what make it worth visiting. The place is worth a trip just for the limestone formations, the silence, and the clear water.

Cobá holds what remains of a large pre-Colombian Maya civilization located on the Riviera Maya. Lesser known than Tulum, the name Cobá means turbid (cloudy) waters—probably having to do with the five cenotes (underground rivers) in the region, which played an important role in agriculture during the development of this region. At one time the city is believed to have had 50,000 inhabitants. Much of the area is still unexcavated, although recent excavations unearthed a stele, which is unique to the Maya world, as it is covered in hieroglyphics. A restored ball court confirms that the popular ball game was practiced here. Bloodletting rituals traditionally followed Maya ball games at Cobá and slaves were forced to participate. This differs from what was practiced at the later site of Chichen Itza, where the captain of the winning team was beheaded after the game.

One of Caye Caulker’s best beach bars is also its friendliest. Set right on the Split—a narrow channel dividing the island’s north and south portions—Caye Caulker’s most social corner invites tourists and locals to gather for a swim off an extended dock, or to enjoy a cocktail and music. Lazy Lizard’s recently upgraded look includes a variety of umbrella-covered wooden picnic tables, seating under palapas, and a new beach extension with steps leading into the shallow sea areas for easy entry. On the menu, you’ll find typical bar bites: burgers, fish tacos, and full meals like a lobster plate. The bar holds occasional full-moon parties, live music, family-fun days, and beach volleyball tournaments.

Tornado Tower is neither the newest nor the tallest in Doha, but it’s undoubtedly one of the most iconic buildings in the country. It soars over the West Bay district in a statuesque hour-glass shape, gently slims down toward its mid-section, then opens up again toward its summit. The shape of the building is supposed to evoke the movement of a tornado. The shape is enhanced by a complex lighting system capable of producing over 35,000 patterns, creating a stunning visual effect at night. Tourists can take advantage of the stunning view from the French Restaurant La Varenne, located on the 28th floor.

Rockefeller Center was one of the great construction projects of the Great Depression, a complex of 14 buildings between Fifth and Sixth avenues and 48th and 51st streets built over the 1930s. It’s also one of America’s grandest examples of Art Deco design, from the Indiana-limestone-clad buildings themselves to its interior murals and allegorical figures in panels above the entries to the various buildings. (Daniel Okrent recounts the fascinating history of the complex in detail in his acclaimed Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center.) For many travelers to New York, the center is a favorite destination even if they aren’t students of architecture or urban planning. It’s the home of Radio City Music Hall, where the Rockettes perform; its 70th-floor observation deck offers sweeping views of the city; and every morning tourists gather outside the windows of the NBC studios during the broadcast of The Today Show.

The center also hosts temporary large-scale art installations, like Jeff Koons’s enormous dancer and flower puppy in recent years, and the lighting of its Christmas tree marks the unofficial start of the holiday season. Another bucket-list experience here is taking a turn on the small sunken ice rink under the golden statue of Prometheus. Just across Fifth Avenue from Rockefeller Center is another New York landmark, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, looking better than ever after a multiyear renovation that included a thorough cleaning of the Gothic building’s facade.

The pointy Tetons offer plenty of eye candy, but when you pair them with kaleidoscopic wildflowers, the scenery rating soars off the charts. That’s what you’ll find in Death Canyon—which sounds menacing but actually serves up some of the park’s finest wildflower displays. Take Moose-Wilson Road to the Death Canyon Trailhead and hike west. One mile later, you get your first “ahhh!” moment as you overlook the sapphire waters of Phelps Lake. Continuing upward, the canyon’s granite walls become steeper and closer, and you may see climbers carrying heavy packs full of the hardware required to scale these thousand-foot cliffs. Purple monkshood, crimson paintbrush, and pearly-white columbine fill the meadows just beyond the ranger cabin (4 miles from the trailhead). If you can push on all the way to Fox Creek Pass (9 miles one way), you’ll wade through waist-high wildflowers in an alpine basin offering views of the Tetons’ knifelike summits.

In the early 1900s, Lutheran missionaries arrived in the Western Arrernte community of Ntaria (Hermannsburg) about an hour west of Alice Springs. They offered food, shelter and education to the native people long oppressed by the white settlers who came in the wake of the Overland Telegraph Line, completed in 1872. The area was also hit by severe drought. While many cultural and religious shifts took place, perhaps the largest impact of the Hermannsburg missionaries on the indigenous people was the introduction of arts and crafts, namely watercolor and ceramics. Pottery arrived in the early 1970s and was first taught by Victor Jaensch, from Barossa Valley, who helped source local clay and set up a small kiln. The famous desert painter Albert Namatjira blossomed around the same time and had a lasting effect on the budding potters’ style and depiction of country. The first Hermannsburg potters were men, but now it’s largely a woman’s craft that was taught by accomplished ceramicist Naomi Sharp for 17 years. Today the terracotta pots are still made using the traditional hand-coiled technique before being shaped, burnished, decorated, and finally fired to produce distinctive Aboriginal art pieces that have a strong connection to the land and this singular slice of Australian history.

Weekend mornings are typically sleepy in Amsterdam. The town barely wakes up by noon, and many stores and restaurants are closed Sunday morning. Which leaves few options beyond local bakeries and venues serving touristy “English Breakfasts” to satisfy the urge for hearty morning fare. Enter G’s West, possibly the coziest spot in Amsterdam West for weekend brunch. Open Friday–Sunday, the former “bruin café” sits on a quiet street in Amsterdam’s Jordaan. Self-described as “an eclectic hot mess of love, lust, hunger & thirst,” the interior features whitewashed wood, funky furnishings, tablecloths printed with old comic strips, and a bar stocked with antique apothecary bottles and Bloody Mary fixin’s. Order from a sassy menu shaped like an old LP, featuring Foreplay, The Main Act, Happy Endings and Tipsy. Start with oysters on the half-shell or G’s Brunch Dip on Crack, washed down with a Bloody Bacon, Passion in the Morning or Morning Wood cocktail. The Main Act stars classic Eggs Benedict, Challah French Toast and other breakfast dishes, as well as a Chicken Waffle Burger featuring fried chicken sandwiched between sugar waffles. The same fare is offered on a Brunch Cruise that sails every Saturday and Sunday, with pick-up and drop-off at the Homomonument on Keizersgracht. As one of the only spots that serves weekend brunch in Amsterdam, G’s lives up to its URL: http://reallyniceplace.com/. Both the Jordaan venue are available for private parties and corporate events.