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To experience a peaceful and private Hawaiian morning, enjoy room service in the quiet of your own with a view of the Pacific Ocean. Listen to the waves roll on shore while enjoying pancakes and tropical fruit at the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows where you will feel like a Hawaiian King or Queen.

A stroll down Kalakaua Avenue is always great for people watching, shopping, and dining. In September 2013, the Royal Hawaiian Center reopened the Helumoa Hale and Royal Grover on Kalakaua. This beautiful grove provides authentic Hawaiian hula, storytelling, and ukulele performances. If you’re interested in learning more about Hawaiian history and culture, I encourage you to participate in one of the complimentary classes that the Center offers, including hula, ukulele, lei making, or quilt making. You will not leave this cultural center without learning something new about Hawaii, and your experience will be a memorable part of your visit to Waikiki!

Guests who lounge too long on the Viceroy Zihuatanejo’s La Ropa beach can find instant relief at the resort’s six-room spa, which features a sunburn-soothing treatment of freshly picked aloe vera, Baja lavender, and organic chamomile. Nearby, the eco-conscious Playa Viva resort offers poolside yoga, healthy cooking classes, and body scrubs made with locally harvested sea salt. This appeared in the June/July 2013 issue.

After a 2017 renovation, Rome’s historic Hotel Eden re-emerged with an extensive face-lift. The 128-year-old hotel’s marble and gold lobby hints at the 98 opulent guest rooms that have been refreshed with gold detailing and original artwork. The new spa uses products from the Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, founded in 1612. The top-floor restaurant, La Terrazza, serves Italian cuisine with views of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Overall, if you’re looking for a luxurious stay in a beautiful, 5-star hotel, this Roman hotel is hard to beat.

Built in 1891, St. Lucia’s most colorful and largest open-air market sits in the heart of its capital. It’s a one-stop-shopping favorite for fruits, vegetables, spices, handmade arts and crafts, and even handwoven beachwear. The produce is definitely the highlight. The stall tables are beautifully set and decorated, while the fragrance of herbs and condiments fills the air, turning it into a multisensory island experience. The market is open daily, 7 a.m.–1 p.m., but the most active morning is Saturday. After shopping, grab a seat at the adjacent annex to sample some local foods—a breakfast bowl of cow-foot soup (the perfect hangover cure) or a Creole fish lunch.

Spoken of in almost reverential terms by people that have traveled there, Sa Pa is often seen as a holy grail of destinations in Vietnam. Part of that is because of the environment—a cool mountain town that has lured visitors with its salubrious air and alpine scenery since the early 20th century, when the French constructed facilities for sick officers to recover—as well as its remoteness, located close to the Chinese border in the country’s extreme north. Most visitors come to Sa Pa for the hiking in the nearby valley peppered with minority-ethnic-group villages, or to climb Mount Fansipan, the country’s tallest peak, which is located just southwest of the town. Conquering the summit once required a two-to-three-day hike, but now can more easily be reached with the help of a cable car (opened in 2016) that gets you most of the way.

The largest luxury hotel in the city, the Charleston Place takes up a full city block with entrances on King and Meeting streets; the latter leads to the grand lobby, with its imperial open-arm staircase, 12-foot crystal chandelier, and Italian marble floors. Its 433 large guest rooms have old-fashioned Southern details like mahogany and damask furnishings. The hotel’s lower level houses fine-dining restaurant Charleston Grill, an attractive hotel bar, a large indoor saltwater pool with a retractable glass roof, and a shopping arcade with designer stores. The hotel recently began a $150 million renovation but will remain open as the property is upgraded from stem to stern.

Inside the Mercado 20 de Noviembre you’ll find many food stalls to choose from. The Comedor Maria Teresa (Local #38) is a good bet. They have excellent mole, which you can enjoy with chicken and rice, or in enchiladas, as pictured above. A full Oaxacan breakfast starts with a chocolate de leche and pan de yema. The chocolate is served in a bowl to make it more convenient for dunking your bread. Later in the day choose a tlayuda or caldo de pollo. You really can’t go wrong!

The Laxminarayan Temple (also called the Birla Mandir) is an elaborate Hindu temple of red and white columns, artificial mountains, and waterfalls. The temple was inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi with the condition that the site would be open to all castes and faiths. “Laxmi Narayan” refers to the Hindu God Vishnu, the Preserver, with his consort Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity. There are also three side-temples dedicated to Buddha, Shiva, and Krishna. The temple is illuminated during two important holidays: Diwali, the Festival of Lights, and Janmashtami, Krishna’s Birthday.

Madrid’s multi-level Mercado San Anton is a sight to be seen. Rows of gorgeous produce, local specialties, Italian deli favorites, briny seafood and locally-farmed meats line the perimeter of each floor, each stall more enticing than the one before it. Even better, its high tables and counters make it well-suited for a quick bite and glass of wine. For a relaxed sit-down meal, head up to the restaurant on the rooftop terrace and finish off the evening with a drink in the lounge.

Take a stroll down one of the cobbled streets of Valladolid and you might come across a cart peddling “volcanos.” The busy vender sells one item: a thick masa bun stuffed with chili marinated pulled pork and topped with red onion. For an extra kick, pour on a spoonful of homemade habenero sauce, but be careful! These small pockets pack heat.

Dalian was under Russian rule from 1898 to 1905, and even though Russia’s occupation of Dalian was relatively short, it still managed to erect several grand buildings on what was then called Engineer Street, and today Russian (or sometimes, Russia Customs) Street. The street is bookended by the Beaux-Arts Dalniy City Hall and the Russian Library, now a museum, in a fanciful Victorian brick building. Between them stand eight colorful restored Russian-era buildings and a handful of late 1990s ones with Russian-inspired designs that were constructed to complement the earlier buildings.

No matter how much people seem to know about the giant Alaska-grown vegetables they hear about on the national news, they’re always surprised that—surprise!—Alaska has farms, and those farms grow loads of different things. Here’s some proof: The tables at the Tanana Valley Farmers Market overflow with goodness grown under the midnight sun. All those hours of sunlight make it possible for farmers to turn over more crops per summer than a cranky French maître d’ turns over tables at a busy bistro. But even if you’re not up for just chomping down on sweet, sweet Alaska-grown carrots for lunch—and seriously, you should consider doing just that—there are plenty of other food vendors at the market. Crafty fun stuff, too. Your souvenir shopping? Done!

Altensteig is a little town in the Northern Black Forest, about 1h away from Stuttgart. It’s very traditional German, quiet and filled with superb architecture. Their Christmas Market is small, about 60 chalets, but so cute.

There is a staggering amount of artwork on display here. It is said that if you stood at each piece for just one minute, it would take you four years to see everything. Created by Pope Julius II in the early 16th century, the museums have expanded over the past 500 years to their current size of more than 12 acres! Highlights include the Borgia Apartments, the Raphael Rooms, the Gallery of Maps, and of course, the sublime Sistine Chapel.