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This small, family-run wine shop in the Oltrarno district has been a gathering place for Florentines since 1947. Now run by the founder’s grandson and his family, it remains a place where neighborhood denizens come to buy wine to take home or to have a chat over a glass. Inside the shop, floor-to-ceiling shelves display bottles from a variety of Italian regions and vintages, with options in every price range. Glasses of red or white wine, dispensed from taps, can be enjoyed at the narrow bar. Or linger a little longer: Ask for a seat at one of the sidewalk tables, then order a glass of Chianti and a snack of chicken liver pâté (made from Nonna’s recipe) served on grilled Tuscan bread.

The Portland Art Museum has been a fixture of the Rose City for longer than you’d expect—it’s the oldest art museum on the West Coast, opened in 1892. The current location, on the South Park Blocks, debuted in 1932 with a design by Pietro Belluschi. Today, the permanent collection includes 42,000 works along with a rotating selection of exhibits. Among the highlights in past years: pieces by Rodin and Andy Warhol, and what is thought to be the largest cat painting in the world. The 2.5-block campus also includes the Northwest Film Center.

Stand on the the quais beneath the Pont Neuf bridge—the city’s oldest crossing of the Seine—and look up. Staring down at you are mascarons, stone faces that resemble gargoyles, but without bodies. No two of these grotesque visages are the same. Enjoy their individuality as you ponder the decades it took to build this stone structure: begun in 1578 by Henri III and inaugurated by Henri IV in 1607. From 1588 to 1599, construction was interrupted by the French Wars of Religion, which lasted 36 years. Then head up the stairs to walk across its two spans, which connect the Ile de la Cité to the Right and Left banks. Great views of the Louvre can be had from the longer, seven-arch span that stretches to the Right Bank.

Local chef Donnie Masterton long ago refined the art of matching sensory experience to fine food, and The Restaurant, on Sollano in the Centro, offers thrills on every level. Dinner here is an occasion for shirts with collars for men and shoes otherwise reserved for dancing for the women. (Dancing, by the way, often erupts in the bar in the wee hours, so it’s good to be prepared.) And while every night at Donnie’s proves a visual treat, Thursday nights are the see-and-be-seen scene, when locals stop in for gourmet burgers—available that night alone—with their Chateau Puy Blanquet St. Emilion Grand Cru.

The ocean churns as a 36-ton mammal swims up to the boat. With your arm plunged into the cool water, you await the touch of a California gray whale. Like a house cat craving a scratch on the head, the whale pushes its rubbery skin, rough with barnacles and battle scars from boats and orcas, against your palm. From January through March, hundreds of gray whales settle in Magdalena Bay, on the southwest coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. From their feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska, they’ve made one of the longest animal migrations—more than 5,000 miles—to mate, give birth, and raise their young here. Visitors who join local fishermen and outfitters in the bay are practically guaranteed to see whales, and the luckiest will encounter “friendlies,” including proud mothers who nudge their wrinkly black calves toward the surface. Sea Kayak Adventures offers a new trip that combines gray whale sightings in Magdalena Bay with blue and fin whale watching in the Sea of Cortez. From $1,495. (800) 616-1943, This appeared in the January/February 2013 issue.

Just 10 miles from Corfu Town, you’ll find Glyfada Beach. With its long stretch of white coastline, you may even opt to stay here a night or two. The entire area is covered in cafes, hotels, restaurants, and nightlife options.

Challenge yourself over 12 days and 95 miles, crossing the woodlands, moorlands, and mountains of Western Scotland. The long days on foot are rewarded with a good night’s rest at local inns. From $2,095. This appeared in the March/April 2014 issue.

Negril, or the “Capital of Casual” as it’s known in Jamaica, is everyone’s favorite getaway, from locals to the visitors who return year after year. The buzz of activity on Seven Mile Beach’s powdery white sands is tempered by the breathtaking, serene views of the West End’s cliffs towering over the Caribbean. Lots of bars, hotels, and restaurants line Seven Mile Beach, and local eateries and smaller boutique resorts are perched up on the cliffs. While there’s more hustle and bustle and throngs of tourists on this end of Jamaica, the region still offers many secluded spots and unique experiences.

This centrally located 40-suite hotel is part of an ultramodern stone-clad residential complex on Lodhi Road, the main axis of the government bungalow quarter laid in the 1940s by the team of Edwin Lutyens, urban planner of the British Raj. No longer managed by the Aman chain, which opened the property in 2013, the hotel has become a bargain given the huge size of the rooms and unusually luxurious amenities such as gender-segregated Turkish hammams and a Pilates reformer studio. Each room has a balcony and private plunge pool, good for cooling off after a jog to the nearby Lodhi Gardens or a round of tennis on the hotel’s private grass courts. Sprawling across seven acres, the hotel offers serenity in spades and service equal to that of the far more bustling Delhi palace–style hotels. A library with rare books on India and a cigar lounge enhance the clublike atmosphere. The architecture recalls a modern art museum, and indeed the hotel is filled with contemporary works on loan from the Apparao Gallery in Chennai.

The Huon Valley, southwest of Hobart, has long been known for apple farming. More recently, cider has revived the industry, helping Tasmania live up to its moniker “the Apple Isle” once again. Four cideries—Willie Smith’s, Pagan, Frank’s, and Red Sails—are all based around the Huon Valley. Willie Smith’s Apple Shed is a tasting room–cum-museum that highlights Tasmania’s apple-farming and cider-producing heritage. A distillery specializing in apple brandy was added in 2016. But cider and spirits are not the only reason to take a spin through the valley. It’s also home to the Tahune AirWalk and Franklin’s Wooden Boat Centre as well as Cygneture and the Cat’s Tongue chocolatiers; farm-to-table restaurants such as Lotus Eaters Cafe; the Woodbridge Smokehouse; and the Cygnet Market, held on the first and third Sunday.

Din Tai Fung is not a Singaporean chain—it originated in Taiwan—but outposts of this restaurant have flourished all over the city, thanks to its addictive dumplings. (Seriously: addictive.) Making the perfect soup dumplings (xiao long bao) is a skill that takes years to perfect. You can see the experts hard at work in glassed-in kitchens at every DTF eatery. To enjoy, swirl a little bit of soy sauce, black vinegar, and chili in a shallow dish of thinly sliced ginger, and dip away. Din Tai Fung also serves up the ultimate comfort food: Beef noodle soup. Its restorative, deep-brown broth with thin noodles can be savored with or without beef brisket. The spicy wontons in a vinegar sauce are also top-notch.

Once an oyster-farming backwater, this area was held sacred to the shark goddess Ka‘ahupahau. But it’s forever etched into America’s psyche due to the 1941 Japanese surprise attack on the naval base, which launched the U.S. into WWII’s Pacific theater. Today, more than a million visitors pay their respects annually at the museums and memorials, which include the USS Bowfin, the USS Missouri, and the wreck of the USS Arizona. Buy tickets online to avoid the inevitable long wait. Ford Island also houses the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum here: Historic hangars showcase vintage aircraft like a Japanese Zero and a Curtiss P-40E Warhawk. Plane buffs should add on a $10 combat-simulator flight.

Owned by two long-term Italian expat Siem Reap residents who started Smateria in their home with just three tailors, the brand has become one of the most respected in Cambodia. Smateria practices fair trade principles, including good wages and leave for employees, pays for childcare, lends funds to employees to buy sewing machines, and allows staff to out-source tasks to their families so they can work at home -- things that don’t always happen in Cambodia. The beautiful products themselves are eco-friendly. Made from recycled materials, such as disused fishing nets and factory remnants, they include tote bags, handbags, clutch purses, wallets, toiletries and cosmetic cases, and laptop bags. They’re not only stylish-looking, they’re also strong and durable, so once again, you’re not only buying a souvenir that gives back, you’re buying something that’s long-lasting.

The summit of Monte Solarno, the highest point in Capri is almost 2,000 feet high! You can choose to climb it or opt for the considerably easier chairlift. Along the ride and at the top, you will enjoy an incredible 360-degree view over the island and sea. There is a small café for a cold drink. Make the short hike down to the sweet, tiny 15th-century Hermitage of Cetrella, a chapel where local sailors used to visit and pray for protection before setting out to sea.

With a nickname like the “Cave State,” Missouri certainly isn’t short on impressive caverns. Of the more than 6,000 across the state, however, Meramac Caverns is the largest—and stays open year-round for tours. Said to have been a hideout for the outlaw Jesse James in the 1870s, the seven-level, 4.6-mile-long natural wonder was purchased by Lester Dill in 1933 and opened as a tourist attraction in 1935. Today, visitors can take guided tram tours past the cave’s complex mineral formations, stopping at a “wine room” (named for its grape-like botryoids and accessed by a long stairwell). While exploring, keep your eyes peeled for the resident tricolored bats that call Meramac home.