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This perennially popular bakery and sandwich spot can feel somewhat out of place. With its cozy atmosphere in a plant-filled space, and its menu of warm panini, delicious sandwiches on artisanal breads, generous salads, and perfectly executed pastries, it is the sort of restaurant you’d expect to find in one of Montréal’s cooler neighborhoods. Instead, it’s in the heart of Old Montréal. That is a definite plus for travelers visiting the city’s historic sights. It also means, however, that there is a lunch-hour rush when nearby office workers vie for tables. If you can plan on an early or late lunch—you’re on vacation, after all—you can avoid the worst of the crowd. Olive et Gourmando is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., so if you are looking for a place for dinner, the same owners are behind the new Foxy (in the Griffintown neighborhood), which is quickly proving as popular as their first restaurant.

I love the wines of Mendoza, Argentina, but I wanted to marry the wines of Catena Zapata when I had the chance to drink them whilst overlooking the green vineyards backdropped by the soaring, snowcapped Andes peaks. The wines of Catena are mostly big reds made from malbec or cabernet, and they make some chardonnay and sauvignon blanc as well. The winery is fashioned after a stepped Maya pyramid and is furnished with state of the art equipment. Wine tours last about an hour and a half and finish at the tasting room, where you can purchase bottles of wine. Catena Zapata and the rest of the Mendoza region wineries are only open by appointment, so be sure to have a day’s worth of wine tours booked in advance for your itinerary. Be sure not to skip over the city of Mendoza, as there are many wine tasting rooms featuring wines from the region and selling limited releases and other rarities not readily available at the wineries.

If these walls could talk they’d recite plans for military campaigns and tales of love, lust and betrayal that make this former residence and imperial seat of the Ottoman Empire so intriguing. Walk the dazzling tile-and-mosaic-lined corridors, see the jewels the sultans wore, the baths where they washed, the rooms where they entertained, the quarters that housed their concubines, and the kitchens that created feasts for 5,000 residents.

Each evening as the sun sets, Stone Town’s Forodhani Gardens park transforms into an open-air food market. Skip the fish kebabs and head straight to the vendors selling urojo, a thick mango-and-tamarind soup served alongside chickpea fritters, boiled potatoes, cassava flakes, chutney, and as much hot sauce as you dare. Follow it up with hand-pressed sugarcane juice with ginger and lime.

A true desert outpost, the Peruvian town of Mancora enjoys the most sunshine hours of anywhere in the country. Unlike the rest of Peru the water is warm enough to surf without a wetsuit, a welcome complement to an area already featuring some of the best waves in South America. Hemingway knew what he was doing when he set up shop in nearby Cabo Blanco, an authentic fishing village where the ceviche is some of the freshest on the planet and the days pass with a simple peacefulness unique to many coastal escapes. While outdoor activities abound around Mancora, from kitesurfing to fishing to morning yoga sessions, on this particular morning the to-do list consists of nothing more than a good book, a cold drink, and watching whales splash on the endless horizon.

Now this is truly a place you never want to leave. The infinity edge pool at the Marriott in Wailea, Maui. The pool reached right out to the Pacific Ocean, and you almost felt as if you were in the ocean itself. Grab an umbrella drink, swim over to the edge, and stay there for a couple hours to take it all in. The wonderful staff will also bring you the freshest fruit you have ever had too. And, as you watch the sun go down on the horizon from this exact spot, you can join the Luau by the beach below...or simply stay here all night.

If you enjoy a touch of elegance, plus imaginative architecture, and if F1 racing gets your heart going, then a few nights at the Yas Viceroy hotel in Abu Dhabi will be on your destination list. The only hotel built within an F1 track, here guests experience racing firsthand, as the hotel actually sits astride part of the track. Adventurous drivers can choose to take a ride —or even drive the track in their choice of several high-end cars. Design does not stop at the curvy facade of this fascinating hotel. Rooms capture the outside appeal in neutral tones and complementary shapes and textures.

For a welcome reprieve from city life, steer to the northwest part of Santa Fe to find this network of 25 miles of easy, multipurpose trails. Simply stroll, take a long run, or hop on horseback to wind through a high-desert landscape dotted with wildflowers and sagebrush, under a vast blue sky. For the adventure seekers, there’s plenty of mountain bike terrain (for all levels), and for advanced BMX riders, a designated Trash Pit welcomes more technical freestyle riding and stunts.

Royal Street is to antiques and fine art what Bourbon Street is to booze. This elegant urban thoroughfare is not only home to some of the best examples of the city’s early-19th-century Creole town houses, but is also loaded with high-end antiques retailers. These feature mostly ornate 18th- and 19th-century European sculptures and paintings, early furniture, chandeliers, and dinnerware used by the upper crust. Most of the inventory has a decidedly Continental air to it. Among the better-known shops are Waldhorn and Adler (343 Royal St.); Ida Manheim Antiques (409 Royal St.), run by the same family since 1919; and haute-upscale M.S. Rau (630 Royal St.), with its warren of hidden back rooms open only to serious customers.

Located 3,200 feet above Half Dome Village, Glacier Point offers some of the best views in the park to the high country beyond. The View Terrace looks out to Half Dome, Vernal Fall, and Nevada Fall as well as Liberty Cap to the east, while the Upper Terrace features views to the west, including Yosemite Falls and Yosemite Village. Glacier Point is only open to vehicles from late May to October or November and parking is very limited, so the best way to get there is either via park shuttle bus from Badger Pass or the private guided bus tour that departs from Yosemite Valley. For some of the best, relatively uncrowded hikes in the park, consider taking the bus one way to Glacier Point and then hiking nearly straight down to the valley floor via the Four Mile Trail or 8.5-mile Panorama Trail, both of which offer stunning views.

Sakurai Tea is a unique tea counter that offers a selection of Japanese tea and Japanese tea–infused spirits. Customers select a seasonal sweet, presented like jewelry in a wooden box, to pair with the tea. Smoky notes fill the air as hojicha tea is roasted after it is ordered. Gyokuro, a high-end green tea, is unlike any other, a savory elixir steeped at a low temperature. After drinking the gyokuro, the leaves are seasoned with a citrusy soy ponzu, for eating. Owner Shinya Sakurai, a former bartender, has the unique training to combine tea and spirits for Japanese tea cocktails.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust. For my inaugural highlight on AFAR, I am starting with my wife’s favorite quote, and a local sight in Chicago. Sometimes people feel they must jet off to some far off exotic place in order to ‘travel.’ However, if you gaze anew at your immediate surroundings with fresh eyes, you will discover an entire host of wonderful surprises. Here we have Cloud Gate, located down in Millennium Park, back before they buffed out the seams. The contrast between the organic form of ‘the bean’ and the structured grid lines, along with the warped fun house mirror quality of the city, makes this a truly unique destination.

Named after a Paiute word meaning “big fish,” Panguitch Lake originally served as a fishery for the area’s native people. The U.S. government built a dam to nearly double the lake’s surface area to 1,248 acres, increasing the shoreline to around 10 miles. It’s now a prime spot to set up camp and visit the three nearby national parks as well as Cedar Breaks National Monument. Thanks to its high-country location in Dixie National Forest, the area also stays relatively cooler than the surrounding lower elevations. The closest accommodations include three campgrounds; activities in the vicinity range from angling and hiking to ATV rides.

Of all the reasons to hike in B.C.’s Coast Range, visiting a train wreck would not rank high elsewhere. This is Whistler, though, where a train derailment becomes a canvas for artists and a must-see novelty that remains well off the beaten track (sorry!), even for many locals. A new bridge spanning the Cheakamus River makes the hike legal and considerably less treacherous. The trail’s steel-meets-seedlings design is reminiscent of New York City’s High Line, and among the many spurs are a boardwalk into the coastal rain forest and a longer trek that leads to the Sea to Sky Trail. Once a hush-hush locale for graffiti artists and mountain bikers, the Train Wreck hike and suspension bridge route are now well-marked at the Sea to Sky trailhead, just outside of Function Junction.

A 1901 landmark in Hanoi’s French Quarter, the colonial-style Sofitel Legend Metropole has long been a celebrity magnet, welcoming presidents, ambassadors, and literary and cinematic royalty into its marble lobby. Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene both wrote books here (The Gentleman in the Parlour and The Quiet American, respectively); Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard celebrated their honeymoon at the property; and Jane Fonda and Joan Baez took to the bomb shelter beneath the hotel during air raids (book the complementary Path of History Tour, held every day at 5 and 6 p.m., for a chance to see where they hid out).

The 364 guest rooms are divided between two wings: The historic Metropole section has decor shaped by French architecture and Vietnamese culture (think wood floors, louver windows, bird-cage lampshades, and porcelain light fixtures); the newer wing, opened in 1996 just across the traffic circle from the Opera House, has a strong Neoclassical edge with rooms in dramatic red, black, and white. With its green awning, filigree ironwork, and outdoor wood-deck seating, La Terrasse has the feel of a Parisian café, while Le Beaulieu restaurant serves classic French fare and a decadent Sunday brunch. Spices Garden showcases Vietnamese flavors, and three drinking dens—sleek Angelina, gentlemanly Le Club Bar, and poolside Bamboo Bar—appeal to every kind of spirits lover. Between the central courtyard garden and the pool sit the SoFit gym and Le Spa, with eight rooms for soothing East-meets-West treatments.