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More than a local institution dating back to the 1850s, the Café Tortoni ranks among the world’s most famous salons. As vintage photos here show, the columned establishment has hosted more literary figures than you can count. Play billiards while you enjoy a latte, or order from the full restaurant menu.

Residents and visitors alike drive out to the western edge of Tucson on most evenings. The area averages 350 sunny days a year, so viewing the sunset is almost always a possibility. Summer evenings are predictably hot, but you’re in for a technicolor show if the monsoon clouds are just right. Gates Pass is the preferred spot. Mid-week evenings, you can sometimes have the vista almost to yourself. From the middle of the city, head west on Speedway. It curves up into the Tucson Mountains after fifteen or twenty minutes, and you won’t miss the Pass. Cacti, mountains, and sky: some clichés just don’t get old...

El Charro sits in a converted set of historic houses & buildings a block off Tucson’s old town district—the same location where it began serving food in 1922. We had lunch here, at a big old wooden table in a warmly decorated dining room. Ask to be seated inside, or else in the garden, if the weather’s amenable. It’s a bit cold and dim in the front of the restaurant. I had an amazing vegetarian burrito, stuffed with roasted veggies, avocado and a green corn tamale. The others went for the excellent chimichangas, reputedly invented here (you can read the story on the menu). The special-brewed beer, an amber, was great, the salsa verde addictive, the decor a great talking point.

“Alon and I are regulars for Friday breakfast. We love their take on the Arab dish shakshuka. In the original, eggs are poached in a sauce of tomatoes and red peppers, but here they use green peppers instead of red, and they add goat cheese.” —Architect Irene Kronenberg

The historic King George Hotel has the kind of glamorous gravitas found only in a royal residence. Open since 1930, the King George has hosted celebrities and dignitaries to Athens in grand style ever since, and became a member of Starwood’s Luxury Collection in 2013. Refined guest rooms and suites have herringbone wood floors and marble bathrooms, and might include a window seat or a private balcony. While the dazzling rooftop pool is private only for guests of the two-bedroom Presidential Suite, mere mortals can enjoy a similarly spectacular setting next door at sister property Grande Bretagne (guests can use both hotels’ facilities). The King George has a small gym with Finnish sauna, and the lobby’s exclusive Valmont boutique has high-end cosmetics as well as a perfumery. Emphasis at the award-winning Tudor Hall restaurant is on seasonal ingredients and slow cooking, with local wines carefully chosen to complement the dishes. With a location right on Syntagma Square, views of the Parliament and Parthenon are a matter of course, and all of Athens is within easy distance.

Often described as the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, this 10-mile-long Kauai valley is a kaleidoscopic array of scarlet earth, verdant valleys, and raw volcanic crags. Bands of color streak the corrugated landscape, each representing a different eruption and layer of lava. Waimea Canyon Drive has a series of lookouts; among the most popular is Waimea Canyon (past the Mile 10 marker on Highway 550), where a number of rivers once cascaded down the gently sloping shield volcano. When part of its flank collapsed, the rivers combined with dramatic results. Continue into the mountains to explore Koke’e State Park beyond. Its small, free museum contains a 3-D map, which sheds light on the canyon’s wild beauty, while the gift shop specializes in local art, crafts, and Niihau shell jewelry.

Among the neighborhood’s art-minded hotels, the Gladstone is the most interactive, with shows, classes, and ongoing events. The 37 rooms, all designed by local artists, have breathed new life into the 128-year-old icon, which filmmaker Christina Zeidler took over in 2003 and revitalized in 2005. The Victorian landmark, named for its avenue (in turn named after four-time Canadian Prime Minister William Gladstone), has been a gathering spot for over a century. And it was home to legendary Toronto characters like cowboy Hank Young, who became a fixture at the hotel as a country singer in 1961 and manned the hand-operated elevator from 2005 to 2009, and Peter Styles, former host of Karaoke Night, with applause sign in hand. The legend of Hank lives on in a framed photo in the stairwell en route to the second floor.

The Gladstone continues to push the boundaries of community and culture with creative events like its educational workshop series, Get School’d, and its annual alternative design event, Come Up to My Room (CUTMR), which runs alongside the city’s Interior Design Show. Begin your stay in this architectural gem with a drink at the Café or Melody Bar (that is, if you’re not first thrust into Fameless Karaoke Night).

Nothing defines Boston quite as much as the town’s devotion to sports (10 championships since the turn of the century doesn’t hurt), and with all due respect to the five-time-Super-Bowl-champion Patriots, it’s Fenway Park, not Gillette Stadium, that’s the temple of sports fandom. Opened in 1912, the quirky green bandbox between Lansdowne Street and Yawkey Way is almost as famous for its obstructed-view seats as it is for its fabled Green Monster wall in left field, but that’s a price Sox fans gladly pay in exchange for maintaining Fenway’s historic layout. It’s both intimate and loud on game day even in years when the Sox aren’t contenders (tickets are often hard to come by, so plan ahead); the old ballpark also is open for one-hour, behind-the-scenes tours that take you inside and atop the Green Monster. You’ll be able to stroll around the field (the warning track, not the grass), and visit the press box, the Pesky Pole, and (on days with no games) the dugouts and bull pens.

Tahitian black pearls are the one must-have. Here, you’ll find the highest quality and original designs that feature the strange deep shimmer of black pearl (and prices that seem one digit too long).

For those of us used to seeing chicken cut into parts, wrapped in plastic, and cooling in supermarket refrigerators, a trip to a local Peruvian market is fascinating and a bit daunting. At the biggest market, San Pedro, just up the street from the Plaza de Armas, you’ll find fruits, vegetables, alpaca charqui (the Quechua source of our word jerky), pig’s heads, herbs, fruit juices, weavings, and much, much more. You’ll see a fair number of foreigners wandering here as well, so for an experience that feels more authentic, try San Blas Market or Rosaspata, both off the tourist track.

No matter what kind of getaway you have in mind, you can find a guestroom to fit at Castle Hill Inn. Rooms in the main house vary in size and décor, but each is kitted out for romance with a fireplace, a king-sized bed, oversized tubs, and windows looking over the water and expanses of lawn. The Turret Suite, a bi-level space, has a bedroom on the first level; on the top floor, a soaking tub on a raised floor takes advantage of the 320° wrap-around windows. Below the main house, the Harbor House’s modern guestrooms feature front-porch views of Newport Bridge and the hotel’s Grace Kelly Beach. At the far end of the 40-acre property, the Beach Cottages and Beach Houses are set along the private beach, offering views that take in both the mansions along Ocean Drive and the wild Atlantic itself. The cottages, slightly smaller and closer to the beach, have peaked ceilings with rafters. The airy Beach Houses, compactly outfitted with galley kitchens, sunny decks, ceiling fans, fireplaces, and curated shelves of books, cast a kind of never-leave spell.

The magnificent avenue of oak trees that greets visitors at Boone Hall Plantation is, on its own, a Charleston must-see. After taking it in, guests can walk through the plantation mansion or take a driving tour of the grounds, which cover 738 acres. If the car feels too restrictive, opt instead for a garden tour, which highlights a collection of antique roses and a striking butterfly pavilion. Depending on the season, you can visit the U-Pick Fields to harvest your own strawberries or stock up on tomatoes and peaches at an adjacent farm stand. At Boone Hall’s Gullah Theater, historic reenactors recount the dark days of slavery and celebrate the African American culture that marked plantation life in centuries past. .

Every detail at this former farm has been carefully executed to highlight the spectacular setting, a nature preserve near Norway’s southwest coast. The hotel’s nine wood cabins hover atop metal rods discreetly drilled into boulders above the Valldøla River—the architects’ solution for securing hard-to-get government permits while leaving the land virtually untouched. Purposefully spare yet stylish, each is furnished with only a bed and a couple of lounge chairs next to a wall of glass that encourage quiet meditation on the beauty of the Valldal valley and snow-capped mountains beyond. The concept continues in the spa, which is perched on a bluff overlooking the river and features a small outdoor hot tub and glass-enclosed steam room. Meals are served at a long communal table in a renovated cow barn; though breakfasts are included (the smoked salmon is to die for), three-course dinners are extra but worth the splurge thanks to locally foraged and sourced ingredients such as reindeer steaks.

The historic and modern center of the city, the Piazza del Duomo (the square surrounding the cathedral’s base) remains a popular meeting place, hangout and hub of Milanese life. Local vendors setup shop (selling fresh coconut in the summer, toys and tourist wares), kids run and play (free from traffic) and shoppers trickle in from the walking street surrounding the huge plaza. The statue of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of Italy, is the best place to meet, sit, recharge and watch the city go by.

Tayrona National Natural Park has become such a popular destination during typical vacation periods that authorities have had to limit admission. But an off-season visit offers singular luxuries like miles of all-but-solitary beaches, jungle trails, and a unique way to observe a variety of monkeys and tropical birds in every brilliant hue. Tayrona can be experienced as a day trip from Santa Marta or as a several-night stay at one of the park’s accommodations. From the main entrance at Cañaveral (El Zaíno), visitors can take a leisurely hike to the ocean while a donkey handles the luggage; horses are also available for those who prefer not to walk. This same park entrance also leads directly to high-roofed, native-wood cabins known as ecohabs, a slightly fancier option for staying in the park.