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If the city has you overwhelmed, whether by its chaos or its abundance of choices, and you want to take refuge in the familiarity of a hotel bar, you can’t do much better than St. Regis’s King Cole Bar. Sit inside at the bar or on one of its loungers and enjoy live music with your drink, or—better yet—head out to the terrace, where you can watch traffic zip by on the city’s main avenue, Paseo de la Reforma. You’ll also be looking out upon the Diana the Huntress fountain, a snapshot-worthy landmark in this city that has no shortage of them. In fact, you can also see the Angel of Independence statue and Chapultepec Castle from here. As for drinks, the must-try is the Sangrita Maria, a blend of mezcal, sangrita, and pasilla chile puree. Every St. Regis bar creates a signature cocktail, and this one is definitely representative of Mexico City. If you’re a smoker, ask to see the bar’s cigar selection.

While certainly a haul from Quebec City (give yourself three hours, including the free ferry ride), a journey to the Saguenay Fjord could not be more worthwhile! The town of Tadoussac serves as the perfect base to explore the wildlife-filled ecosytem at the confluence of the fjord and the St Lawrence river, complete with beautiful old hotels and a abundant dining options. And the three day camping/hiking/kayaking expedition is a stress-free way to truly dig deep into this beautiful edge of the earth.

This restaurant-bakery combo was the first of its kind in the city and it definitely raised the bar for the dining scene. The menu, including breakfast, lunch and dinner, is inspired by neo-Nordic cuisine with a Czech twist, and the farm-fresh ingredients are brought in daily. The lunch menu made up of dishes such as spelt, red pepper, and cottage cheese, while on dinner menu you’ll find potatoes in ash, smoked fish, dried egg yolk, and kefir, or dry-aged beef tenderloin with onions and marrow. If you’d like to stay a while, opt for the chef’s selection of five dishes selected just for you, or the eight-course tasting menu. Set on two floors in one of the converted factories in Prague’s once industrial Karlin district, Eska’s has an industrial vibe with high ceilings, massive windows, and exposed pipes.

Why we love it: A stylish but mellow alternative to the glitz of Los Cabos

The Highlights:
- Chic rooms, some with soaking tubs, outdoor lounges, or ocean views
- On-site restaurant Benno and its creative Mexican-Mediterranean fare
- Proximity to Todos Santos and the chance to connect with the local community

The Review:
Liz Lambert has made a name for herself converting quirky motels into cool-kid haunts in Texas and beyond. With Hotel San Cristóbal, she brings her magic to a transcendent Pueblo Mágico in the Baja Peninsula. Now she’s bringing her magic to a transcendent Pueblo Mágico in the Baja Peninsula. Just outside of Todos Santos proper, on the small fishing beach of Punta Lobos, the whitewashed, cubist property houses 32 serenely chic rooms, complete with crisp Sferra linens and serape-inspired duvets, vibrant ceramic-tiled bathrooms, and windows that overlook sunny Pacific waves (keep your eyes peeled for migrating gray and humpback whales).

Resist the urge to confine yourself to your Coco-Mat mattress, however. Adventure awaits in the form of surfing off nearby Playa Cerritos, learning to make pottery in an off-site class, or accompanying chef Edgar Palau on a trip to source fresh fish from local anglers. There’s also a beautiful central pool and lounge, a library, a seaside mirador, and a small retail shop on property. When hunger strikes, head to Benno, where biodynamic meals that fuse Mexican and Mediterranean flavors pair perfectly with small-batch mezcals and sustainably harvested regional wines.

Superlatives abound at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown. The 73-story structure is the tallest building west of Chicago and, at 889 rooms, the largest InterContinental in the Americas. Opened in 2017, the hotel was also downtown’s first LEED Gold Certified building for Building Design and Construction. All that record setting is matched by a big personality and plenty of luxury, too. Inspired by architectural historian Reyner Banham’s book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, the hotel features light fixtures based on schematic maps of L.A.’s freeways, hand-painted murals, and billboard-style headboards with city scenes.

Club Level suites are stocked with Le Labo Santal 33 amenities, customized with guests’ names. And on the 71st floor, bathrooms are cheekily decorated in Marie Antoinette and cowboy themes. The Versailles-inspired restaurant La Boucherie is an American steakhouse with a French twist. In the restaurant’s VIP Starlight Booths, diners enjoy wine-paired chef’s tasting menus along with jaw-dropping views. Another restaurant, Sora, is the place for intimate Japanese omakase. Be sure to order the 1100 Feet—an original blend of liqueurs reflective of L.A.’s confluence of cultures—at Spire 73, the Western Hemisphere’s highest open-air bar. Pro tip: Book the Presidential Suite, and you’ll be rewarded with another kind of epic view—an infinity bathtub that fills from the ceiling.

Art-loving hikers and Instagram-posting skiers are fond of the Engadine Valley’s unique sgraffiti, decorative murals found on the exterior plaster or stucco walls of chalets and other buildings. They range from 500-year-old pastoral scenes to 20th-century brutalist depictions of railroad workers and hoe-clutching farmers. Typically, these works are made by scratching through the building’s surface to reveal a sub-layer of a contrasting color. Some of the best sgraffiti are found in the most remote villages, and generally, the closer you get to the Italian border, the more you’ll see. Engadine native Josin Neuhäusler is a sgraffito artist who also gives tours of the works.

Sitting right next door to the Basilica of Notre-Dame in the heart of historic Montréal, St-Sulpice Seminary is the second-oldest building on the island. (The oldest is the 1671 LeBer-LeMoyne House, roughly six miles from the center of the city, which now houses the Musée Lachine.) The seminary dates from 1687, and remarkably it is still used for its original purpose: to house and train Sulpician priests. Sadly, this means the building is rarely open to the public. (Rarely is not an understatement here—apart from some tours in 2017, the last time the general public was allowed through its gates was in 1967 during the Expo.) Though you can’t tour the building, you can admire its gray stone architecture from the street. Especially noteworthy is the clock on the façade, built in Paris and installed in 1701, making it one of the oldest such clocks in North America.

One of Montréal’s most iconic landmarks was designed by an American, R. Buckminster Fuller. The Biosphere, an enormous geodesic dome, sits in Parc Jean-Drapeau on St. Helen’s Island in the St. Lawrence River. Now considered one of the most important examples of futuristic architecture of its period, it was originally built as the U.S. Pavilion for Expo 67, the world’s fair that took place in Montréal in 1967. It quickly proved to be one of the most popular attractions of the event. An acrylic skin originally covered the building, but that was destroyed in a fire in 1976 and never restored. The skeleton building remained intact, however, and it is arguably even more dramatic and elegant than before the fire. Today the Biosphere houses a kid-friendly Environment Museum, with interactive displays that introduce environmental concepts and address the issue of climate change.

Up until 2004, Switzerland’s iconic furry friends—St. Bernard dogs—were bred at this monastery and hospice. While the canines have been relocated, the Great St. Bernard Hospice, which sits on a barren, treeless plane at 8,100 feet, is still an active monastery run by Augustinian monks. The steep four-mile ascent from the valley is a killer on foot, but still doable—on groomed trails in summer and on snowshoes in winter. Inside, monks greet you and show you to communal tables in the stone dining hall where vegetable soups are served with hunks of Bagnes cheese, thick slices of brown bread, and honey-sweetened tea (or a carafe of red Dôle wine produced in the Valais region just below, which seems to be the more popular option). Don’t miss the odd museum, displaying local taxidermy, ancient coins, and maps once used for Alpine crossings; the 800-year-old crypt is allegedly stuffed with the bodies of ancient travelers who didn’t survive the journey. A register of “Les passants célèbres” includes Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Alexandré Dumas but omits Charles Dickens, who lived nearby for a summer.

North Star Pinball (or North Star Machines à Piastres, if you were wondering how to say pinball machine in French) is pretty much what you would expect from its name, a bar with a collection of about two dozen vintage pinball machines, most dating from the 1960s to the 1990s. There’s a long list of beers in bottles and on tap, cocktails (including seasonal specials), housemade ginger beer, and a short menu of bar snacks—pickled eggs, pepperoni, mixed nuts. Right on “the Main,” as locals refer to boulevard St-Laurent, the bar draws a loyal group of regulars who appreciate this no-attitude place.

While many of Napa’s other bakeries are known for their sweets, this one, with locations in Yountville, Napa, and St. Helena, is known for something entirely different: bread. In particular, the Model Bakery’s English muffins have achieved nationwide fame and appeared on Oprah’s “Favorite Things” list. The breads are so popular that you have to arrive by 9 a.m. on weekend mornings if you want them fresh. Model bakes other types of bread as well, including levain, harvest wheat, and sourdough, as well as French baguettes and walnut bread. Even the bakery’s focaccia is off-the-charts good. In addition to all these carbs, the bakery also offers hot sandwiches, salads, and pastries.

There’s a carefree summer camp spirit at Ruschmeyer’s, a boutique retreat in Montauk where a central garden full of hammocks and picnic tables creates a relaxing backdrop. First built in 1952 in a shaded stretch of lakeside woodlands in Montauk, the hotel now features recently renovated rooms inspired by camp cabins with cedar-plank walls, a hammock, and some with an outdoor charcoal grill. Ruschmeyer’s has an appetite for culture, seen in a rotating series of music performances, guest DJs, and artists-in-residence. This is a place to play, and the hotel happily arranges paddle boarding, fishing, and yoga. Start your stay on the central lawn, called the Magic Garden, with a game of ping-pong before drinking and dancing the night away at the hotel’s bar, the Electric Eel.

Ett Hem isn’t a hotel. After all, its name means “a home” in Swedish. And the kitchen is open to guests at all hours, to snack on its stash of homemade cakes and healthy treats, and to pour a glass or two of its world-class wines and fresh-squeezed juices. The hotel’s winding collection of airy, stylized rooms—decorated with an elegantly comfortable combination of modern and curated vintage that belongs on the pages of Architectural Digest—act like a designer friend’s living room and library, their comfortable chairs beckoning guests to relax with a glass of wine and a good book. An airy conservatory (similarly outfitted) spills out onto a secret garden, a hidden oasis in the lively city, and a gourmet, farm-to-communal-table dinner results in new friends and fascinating conversations. Each of the 12 rooms in the 1910 Arts and Crafts house feels like a private appartement, decorated in celebrity designer Ilse Crawford and owner Jeanette Mix’s signature style. So, no, Ett Hem isn’t a hotel, because it’s so much more.

Open for dinner under the stars from Thursday through Sunday nights, flavors, live music, and dance harmoniously come together for an incredible evening out at Blue Dragon Restaurant and Musiquarium. The menu focuses on the freshness factor and celebrates items made with ingredients from their own organic farm and more than forty Hawaii ranchers, farmers, and fisherman who provide the freshest foods to the table. The ambiance at Blue Dragon can be electric with live music every night that spans genres and encourages guests to get up and dance in the open air restaurant underneath the stars.

Like on French counterparts Martinique and St. Martin, Guadeloupean rhum agricole is distilled from 100 percent pure sugar cane juice rather than from molasses (and is known as “rhum” versus “rum”). A number of well-respected small rhum factories in Guadeloupe—including Boulogne, Damoiseau, and Bellevue—offer distillery tours year-round, and these are particularly interesting during the sugar cane harvest season between February and June. Domaine de Bellevue, in Marie-Galante, is a solid pick for a full educational experience. You’ll see the ancient sugar mill, learn about the eco-friendly distillery process, and taste various rhums (including one flavored with Ethiopian beans) as well as a traditional ti’ punch, Guadeloupe’s official cocktail. There’s on-site shopping as well in case you’d like to stock up for home.