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The red-gravel paths that wind among 6,000 plant species, past a babbling stream, and into deeply shaded areas may make you forget you’re in the center of a loud, bustling city. That said, many visitors don’t know that the Botanical Garden includes a small butterfly garden. It’s closed during the week, but you can still peek over a low wall to watch some 50 butterfly species flit about their business. And for one glorious hour, from noon to 1 p.m. on Saturdays, the gate is thrown open and the public is free to walk sunny paths among shoulder-high flowering hedges as colorful, flirtatious butterflies alight on amused visitors’ heads, shoulders, and arms.

For more than twenty years, vendors peddling antiques and collectibles have set up shop along Guadalajara’s Avenida Mexico every Sunday morning as part of the Tianguis Trocadero De Antiguedades. If you have a good eye, you’re sure to spot some gems among the junk, from furniture and china to books, jewelry, and other memorabilia. Haggling over prices is commonplace.

Once a separate town, the leafy colonial neighborhood known as Coyoacán has long been absorbed into the city at large, but retains a separate, old-fashioned air that’s impossible to resist. Restaurants and ice cream parlors (plus some venerable, divey cantinas) cluster around the quarter’s two central plazas that fill daily with strolling families, bootblacks, balloon sellers, and organ grinders. Feeling noshy? Locals swear by the esquites (stewed and seasoned corn kernels) on offer at a street stall next to the Sanborns store, right on Plaza del Centenario. A walk down Calle Francisco Sosa takes you past some of the city’s most valuable (often colonial-era) residences and ends at adorable Plaza Santa Catarina, with its petite parish church and a handful of friendly watering holes when it’s time for a drink or a snack.

A short walk from the city center, Koombana Bay is famously frequented by cavorting bottlenose dolphins; in its calm waters, you may even find yourself swimming right next to one of these remarkable creatures. The wide, white-sand beach is easily strollable, with views of boats from the nearby Koombana Bay Sailing Club. Beach volleyball is a big sport here, and the restaurants and cafés of the nearby Marlston Waterfront are popular with both locals and visitors.

Its massive size, centrality to daily life in the capital, and easy accessibility (a Metro station opens up right onto the plaza) makes the Zócalo an ideal place for large-scale temporary exhibits. The government hosts occasional exhibits and makes entry free for residents and visitors alike. Past exhibits have included Gregory Colbert’s “Ashes and Snow,” a show of large-format photos of animals and people, and Willy Souza’s “Mexico en tus sentidos” (“Mexico in your senses”), lush, vivid photos of people and places around Mexico. To see if a show is planned during the time you’ll be visiting, check the website of the Secretary of Tourism.

No matter where you are staying in the UAE, you can’t leave without visiting the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. The mosque, the third-largest in the world, is the final resting place of Sheikh Zayed, the nation’s founder. Even on the hottest summer day, the white marble floors—inlaid with mosaic flowers and vines—remain cool underfoot, and the scale of the space will impress even the most casual observer: The main hall can hold about 7,000 people. Take a tour and learn about the iconography of the intricate tiles and mosaics. Marvel at the huge rug that covers the floor in the main worship space; it’s the largest handmade rug in the world. If you happen to be visiting during Ramadan, you could consider joining one of the community iftar dinners, which sometimes serve as many as a thousand people in an evening.

The tiny Flaming Buoy Filet Co. is located down a residential street (walk or come by cab—you won’t find parking), so it feels removed from the crowds along Duval Street. From the simple menu, popular items include the appetizer trio plate (small servings of lobster macaroni and cheese, grilled shrimp with spicy lime chutney, and a caprese salad) and any of the fish specials. A lot of regulars choose the lobster macaroni and cheese as an entrée, too. Dine outside on a porch strung with twinkling lights, or opt for inside the mellow and air-conditioned dining room or at the bar. Reservations are strongly recommended, even in the off-season.

Despite being so close to the harbor and the ocean, Reykjavík’s city lake has a charm and atmosphere all its own. Bordered by a main road on one side and a string of pretty, colorful residences on the other, the natural, stone-edged Tjörnin is home to a community of ducks, swans, and geese that hang out here even in winter. A popular strolling spot to clear the cobwebs after a night out, it’s also often busy with local families and visitors, who come armed with bread for the waterfowl (but beware of the seagulls—they can be aggressive). The nearby Reykjavík City Hall is also worth a look for its huge 3-D relief map of Iceland, featuring clearly marked glaciers, volcanoes, and fjords.

Servers, somms, and chef-owner Nancy Silverton all swirl around Osteria Mozza’s centerpiece Mozzarella Bar, where small dishes of freshly imported mozzarella, ricotta, and burrata are plated with pairings like bacon or braised leeks. With eyes closed, white-tablecloth diners attempt to fully savor each bite of cool, moist cheese before it melts in their mouths. These flavors are a tough act to follow, but the restaurant certainly steps up to the plate with signature meals like the Squid Ink Chittara Freddi with crab, sea urchin, and jalapeño. Just be sure to leave room for a rosemary olive oil cake for dessert: The eatery’s Dahlia Narvaez was awarded the James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef in 2016. Reservations at least one month out are recommended unless you have the flexibility to take a chance with a walk-in seat at the Mozzarella Bar itself—a one-of-a-kind experience.

Famous since its 1998 opening as the place with the dancing fountains (further immortalized in the final scene of the 2001 film Ocean’s Eleven), the 3,933-room Italian-themed Bellagio is a Las Vegas icon. There is a fantasy feel about it, with its five courtyard pools, its indoor botanical garden and conservatory that change with the seasons, its lobby-dominating Dale Chihuly blown-glass flower sculpture, and its eight-acre lake, out of which rise the fountains. Yet following a 2015 upgrade, it also feels as modern as any hotel on the Strip. The Bellagio still does a few things the old-fashioned way: Along with the expected celebrity restaurants, there is a buffet (a long-cherished Las Vegas tradition) brought up to modern standards with an all-you-can-drink alcohol option. Throughout the hotel, service is tops, shopping is high-end, the Cirque du Soleil production O draws ’em in, and—another Las Vegas tradition—a casino with nearly the area of two football fields makes it all go ‘round, which is no doubt why everybody has to be out of the pools by 7 p.m.

A whole lot of history converges at the Fairmont San Francisco—as do all of the city’s cable car lines, which offer easy transportation to the Financial District, Union Square, and Fisherman’s Wharf. The hotel was built in 1906 but damaged in the Great Earthquake and subsequent fires before it even opened, so celebrated architect Julia Morgan was brought in to repair the building. Once it debuted, the hotel quickly became a city favorite, hosting more than its share of historic events, including the series of meetings in 1945 that resulted in the formation of the United Nations. The hotel’s storied bar, The Venetian Room, also featured big names, from Ella Fitzgerald and Nat ‘King’ Cole to Tony Bennett, who first performed I Left My Heart in San Francisco here in 1961 (Bennett still frequents the hotel).

Today, the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar is a draw for tourists and locals seeking a kitschy, iconic San Francisco experience, with live music, Polynesian food, and Mai Tais severed against a backdrop of occasional staged thunderstorms. Other dining options include Laurel Court for all-day coastal California fare and the famous Afternoon Tea, a local tradition since 1907. The opulent design of the hotel extends from its lobby—with marble floors and sumptuous fabrics—to the 606 luxurious rooms, each outfitted with comfortable furnishings and modern technologies. Of the 62 suites, 10 also include balconies with city and bay views.

Plan on spending the better part of a day at the National World War II Museum, even if you profess limited interest in history. This fine, sprawling museum—formerly the D-Day Museum—is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, and was established here because of the role the locally made Higgins landing craft played on D-day. Don’t expect the usual repository of static artifacts, like machine guns and airplanes—although you will find those on display. It’s more about gathering stories, from film and oral histories, and from all sides of the conflict. The museum was the idea of Stephen Ambrose, noted author of books about WWII, who wanted to share with the public the interviews that didn’t make it into his books. It’s grown massively since its humble beginnings, and does a remarkable job of capturing the era through both a microscope and wide-angle lens.

An iconic name in Portland retail—as well as among readers who have never been to the city—Powell’s has multiple locations on both sides of the Willamette. The downtown store remains the one best suited for visitors to explore, with miles of used reads, a tightly curated selection of books from the knowledgeable staff, and every Portland-themed book you could hope to find under one roof. A renovation in 2014 opened up the space and made it feel less like a warehouse of dusty stacks, an improvement that bodes well for the future of the business. Author appearances, even those at the satellite branches, are some of Portland’s best events for interesting discussions.

Guarded by the Hammering Man sculpture outside, this superb museum collection romps from native tribal art to African masks to carvings from Oceania. Highlights include the 16th-century wood-paneled Italian Room and The Studio, a portrait of the Seattle home of Jacob Lawrence, arguably the most acclaimed African American painter of the 20th century. Check the calendar for world-class temporary exhibits, not to mention lectures, performances, film screenings, and evening SAM Remix dance parties. If you need some air, head for the waterfront Olympic Sculpture Park to catch a glimpse of art in the wild. Free to visit, this green space offers stunning views of Puget Sound and the ferries trundling across it.

Adobe streetfront: door...window...sky. Color. Much of Tucson, like most western U.S. cities, is devoted to strip malls and parking lots, but the historic core still has blocks of 19th-century Sonoran-style row houses. In the 1960s, acres and acres of the Barrio Viejo was razed, but fortunately not all of it. Today it’s a combination of gentrification and the pleasantly decrepit: attorney’s offices, student rentals, and family homes share this yard-less streetscape in a bilingual neighborhood. In reading about the history of the neighborhood, I came across this description, written back in the 1930s by Dr. James Harvey Robinson of Columbia University, who was visiting Tucson for the first time: “But this cannot be the United States of America, Tucson, Arizona! This is northern Africa - Tunis! Algiers! - or even Greece, where I have seen as here, houses built flush with the sidewalks with pink, blue, green and yellow walls, flowers climbing out of hidden patios and overall, an unbelievable blue sky. And the sweet-acrid smell in the air? Burning mesquite. Lovely! And the people - charming. But all this is the Old World, not America.” The Barrio Viejo is perfect for a bike ride. You do feel as if you’ve left reality-TV-obsessed Gringolandia...if only for a few blocks...