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Just a five-minute boat ride from St. Vincent, Young Island is both a private resort and the first in the Grenadine islands chain. Here, you’ll find a small, white-sand beach facing the channel that separates the island from the mainland. It’s technically for hotel guests only, but go for lunch at the very good beachside restaurant and bring your bathing suit—the resort won’t mind if you take a quick dip after your meal.

There’s a little bar area south of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda, two blocks east of the Westin. The bar scene in Xi’an isn’t as boisterous, by Western standards, as in other cities. That being said, if you’re in the area and want a beer, this is a good place. There’s the Lan Kwai Fong bar, Emi Club, and the Blue Lotus to try, and lots of outdoors vendors and street food help make for a fun night.

Pier 1’s greatest appeal is its setting: The open-air restaurant and nightclub occupies a pier that extends out into the Caribbean in Montego Bay. By day and into the early evening, the restaurant draws visitors and locals interested in a good meal with a stellar water view. At night, regular parties start late and run into the wee hours of the morning. Skip the noisy chain restaurant-bars down the street and try something more Jamaican, instead.

The indoor dining room and lounge and outdoor patios surrounded by greenery at this chic waterfront restaurant in Brickell are elegant, and pretty much every table has an paralleled view of downtown Miami and the bay. The menu is Italian-influenced and consistently good, and the service is always on point. Lighter dishes made with quinoa and vegetables are on offer, along with favorites such as fried chicken and beef short ribs.

There are no shortages of places to eat and drink in the Belgian coastal town of De Panne. If you’re looking for a snack and a good deal, head to Patisserie Antoine, just a couple blocks from the North Sea. You can get a couple of croissants with a coffee for about $5. Of course, there are many other enticing things on the menu as well as a mouthwatering selection of cakes and tarts.

Located along a stretch of coastline that’s sometimes called the birthplace of jerk cuisine, the Boston Bay Jerk Center is hard to miss. Various meats are cook on open pits using a technique that may explain why jerk never tastes so good at home: Uncured pimento logs are placed over a bed of hot coals, and the meat is laid directly on the green logs. The whole operation is then covered up by a sheet of corrugated zinc and cooked until it’s black on the outside and tender underneath. You can place your order by the quarter, half, or full pound. Don’t forget to add jerk sauce, which you can also buy by the bottle as a souvenir.

Want to get that small-town-ice-cream-shop feeling in a big city? Head to Lick for fresh and unique seasonal ice cream. With each lick of your cone, a new complexity of flavor is revealed. Ice cream here is made with only wholesome ingredients, most locally sourced, and is free of high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors or flavors, and preservatives. A double scoop—Caramel Salt Lick atop Pecans & Cream—is highly recommended.

The most luxurious way to experience Dubai’s desert may smash an entire holiday budget, but a stay in the Bedouin-inspired tented suites at Al Maha might well be worth it. It’s one of the best places to see desert conservation in action: Al Maha is in the heart of the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, home to the UAE’s largest free-roaming herd of Arabian oryx, a species brought back from extinction in the wild through rehabilitation initiatives. Guests should keep their eyes peeled for gazelles, too—300 Arabian and 100 sand gazelles inhabit the dunes, and the more inquisitive ones often come right up to the 42 tented accommodations. Water recycling, biodiesel, and solar panels all contribute to Al Maha’s efforts to tread lightly on the fragile desert ecosystem.

A brother-sister expat duo has opened this chic slice of Brooklyn in Colonia Juárez, the neighborhood currently angling to be Mexico City’s hippest. No complaints on that account at Cicatriz, whose open, industrial-styled storefront is a forum for several daily moods. No-compromise coffee and a variety of alternative baked goods form the morning agenda; lunch means a major emphasis on locally sourced greens in great salads and roasted iterations; the meatball and fried-chicken sandwich are both major crowd-pleasers as well. After five, it’s time to get your drink on; the bartenders deliver superior, crafted quaffs, but free from all the fuss you’ll see at other haute mixology spots. The earnest, healthful menu is enhanced by an overall vibe of do-it-yourself chic.

A Montreal favorite, this wine bar is known for its elegant food and drinks— and comes recommended highly by Ritz-Carlton concierge Simon Bajouk. The wine selection is vast and the staff is extremely helpful in guiding visitors to something that they like. “Trios,” aka flights, are another good way to taste through a well curated selection. (Cocktails and local Quebecois beer are also available.) The food ranges from snacks like gougeres and nuts to porcini arancini and short ribs. A dish of green beens with truffle oil and almonds was fresh, light, and delicious; the charcuterie plate was a generous offering of various local salumi.

Straight from the Pony’s mouth: PONY is Kadeau’s cheeky ”little brother” residing in the small, homely premises of Vesterbrogade 135, where Kadeau Copenhagen used to be. The idea behind PONY is a more simple approach to the good dining experience, revolving around a small selection of à la carte dishes and a daily four course menu known as the “Pony Kick”. The food is based on seasonal and local produce and is in that sense new Nordic, as it is at Kadeau. But it is also bistro in style, and at PONY we proudly cook using produce from both Bornholm and the rest of our delicious Danish backyard.

Chef Chuck Hughes’ first flagship restaurant remains one of the best good-time spots in Old Montreal, featuring a blackboard menu full of seasonal dishes and insane cocktails. The Caesar is a must-try and comes with a salad’s worth of vegetables and a whole snow-crab leg sticking out of a monster mug. After feasting on lobster salad, short ribs with cauliflower mash, or pan-fried sea scallops with carrot butter, hang out in this dimly lit joint and watch the night turn into a party, with the drinks flowing and the music thumping louder and louder as the cooks and waiters from nearby restaurants file in after their shifts.

If someone described the Lone Palm bar as something out of Miami Vice, they wouldn’t be entirely wrong—the neon signs, dim lighting, and white tablecloths in an otherwise casual, somewhat dive-y bar give off a certain Vice-esque vibe. Stop by the Lone Palm for a drink at the very beginning or the very end of your night—it fills up quickly. Attentive bartenders and oft-refilled bar snacks like Goldfish also make it a good spot for a post-work Happy Hour. Lone Palm is open every day from 4 pm to 2 am.

At Forage, a two-plus-hour tasting menu is built around trout roe, wild mountain grass, Siberian elm seed pods, and other ingredients foraged within a 500-mile radius. $87, plus $45 for wine pairings. HOW TO SCORE A TABLE: The wait for reservations is around two months. Call on a weeknight and there’s a good chance you can fill a cancellation. INSIDER TIP: This summer, cofounder Viet Pham will open a more casual restaurant called Ember and Ash that he says will “use lots of fire and a very technical, refined cooking style.” Book now. This appeared in the May 2014 issue.

Australia is world-renowned for scuba diving, but you don’t have to go all the way to the Great Barrier Reef or Ningaloo. Most people don’t know there is plenty of good diving in and around Sydney, too. One of the best sites is Magic Point off the tip of Malabar Headland National Park south of Maroubra. There’s an extensive reef system and large caves that are home to weedy sea dragons, stingrays, and a recovering colony of grey nurse sharks (which by most accounts are harmless to humans). Local outfitters such as Frog Dive Scuba Centres can lead you there.