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Encyclopedic is one way to describe L.A.’s oldest art institution. Sprawling is another. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opened in its current Miracle Mile location in 1965 and has not stopped growing, becoming the largest museum in the western United States. Its 135,000-piece collection spans 6,000 years of art. It also includes some of the museum world’s most photographed outdoor sculptures, such as Michael Heizer’s mind-boggling Levitated Mass and Chris Burden’s Urban Light. The museum hosts some 40 exhibits per year, plus a dynamic schedule of events, such as Tuesday film matinees and picnic-friendly Jazz at LACMA (held weekly on “summer” weekend nights—which in L.A. means April to November). While anyone can join free tours throughout the day, docents also lead customized experiences for a fee, which will take you through the galleries before or after hours to marvel at artists as wide-ranging as Henri Matisse, Ai Weiwei, Diego Rivera, and Catherine Opie. Kids are also catered to with a special gallery, Sunday activities, and a free membership, which includes entry for them plus an adult guest any day of the year. Pro tips: Plan to spend several hours at the museum, fueling up on wood-fired pizza midway through the day at Ray’s & Stark Bar. And if you’d like to experience the outdoor sculptures without the crowds, go early in the morning or on Wednesdays, when the museum is closed and gloriously quiet.

The former Colegio de San Ildefonso is a magnificent colonial structure set around several imposing, multistoried arcades with halls now decorated by some of Mexico’s most spectacular murals. Even better, it serves as one of the city’s most ambitious and engaging art museums, with an edgy, wide-ranging focus that never fails to surprise. Recent years’ exhibitions have featured avant-garde foreign artists like Vik Muniz and Ron Meuck; homegrown blockbusters like Javier Marín; Candida Höfer’s striking architectural photography; and Marilyn Manson’s macabre visual works. Try to get a peek into the Colegio’s old amphitheater, where one of Diego Rivera’s first major commissions looks better than ever.

Adjacent to the restaurant is a cheery boutique filled with gourmet products from all over Tuscany. Thanks to the restaurant’s long-standing relationships with many of the region’s top purveyors, you’ll find high-quality olive oil (tastings can also be arranged), cheeses, cured meat, preserves, breads, and more. Not all of it will make it through customs, but you can savor any perishables on a picnic to the Tuscan countryside.

At Helen’s, it’s all about the pie. Sure, there’s more on the menu, but the wild-Maine-blueberry pie at the restaurant has earned fame far beyond the state’s borders. For starters, it’s an authentic taste of down east Maine. To be truly down east, you should be here, in Washington County, Maine’s wild-blueberry country, with a landscape defined by blueberry barrens studded with glacial erratics. Machias, the county’s biggest town and one of the few with a traffic light, is home to the Wild Blueberry Festival in August—and to Helen’s, which has been dishing out slabs of freshly baked wild-blueberry pie since 1950. One bite, and you’ll understand the love.

The dyeing vats at Chouara—as well as at the city’s other tanneries—are among the Fes medina’s most iconic sights. The ancient craft of tanning and dyeing, in all its visceral authenticity (cow urine and pigeon poop are still key components in the process), plays out much as it always has. Chouara has been around since the 11th century. The dyes used in the tannery pits are natural: Blue comes from indigo; red, from poppy or paprika; yellow, from saffron, pomegranate, or even a mix of turmeric and mimosa flowers. The best vantage point for observation is from one of the roof terraces. Leather shops hawking everything from butter-soft leather babouches (iconic Moroccan backless slippers) and poufs, to copies of designer jackets and handbags. (That Hermès Birkin bag, or a facsimile of it, could finally be yours at a fraction of the price.) Although the guides around here are a tenacious lot, don your best smile, carry a posy of mint to hold beneath your nostrils, and settle in for a long chat with the shopkeepers to learn about fascinating process. Expect prices in the shops to vary wildly—much depends on your haggling prowess. A favorite store is the aptly named La Belle Vue de la Tannerie, off the main drag. The shop has sought out skilled tailors with European know-how to create items of better quality using all Moroccan hides, which results in better leather goods. The tailors can copy a motorcycle jacket for you in three or four hours from goat or lambskin, the softest of the hides.

For many centuries, the Hohenzollerns were one of Germany’s most powerful families, their influence only diminishing with the end of the monarchy after World War I. During their dominance, they lived in this majestic neo-Gothic castle, visible from miles away thanks to its prime location on a conical hill. Inside, a series of opulent rooms remain resplendent with period furnishings and valuable oil paintings. The Treasury—which hosts personal items of Frederick the Great and Queen Louise, the Prussian Royal Crown, and a great deal of expensive porcelain and silverware—and the royal chambers can only be seen via a guided tour, but the grounds are free to explore. Also open to the public is the café-restaurant Burg Hohenzollern, with decent regional food and an outdoor beer garden in summer.

Set on the western side of Circular Quay, the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) is the country’s leading institution for modern art. While access to touring international exhibitions from the likes of Tatsuo Miyajima and Annie Leibovitz incurs an entrance fee, the permanent collection of more than 4,000 contemporary works by Australian and Torres Strait Islanders, from Gary Carsley to Lena Yarinkura—plus a rare collection of artist notebooks, music, letters, and sketches—is always free. Come on Wednesday night when the gallery is open until 9 p.m., or for the adults-only Art Bar on the last Friday of the month. The rooftop café offers occasional live music and DJs plus glittering views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge after dark.

If big museums aren’t your thing, but you’d like to get a flavor of the story of Dublin, drop into the Little Museum on St. Stephen’s Green, which is full of quirky memorabilia from times past in the city, all donated by the public. There are guided tours on the hour, and each tour reveals some of the city’s secrets, with letters from famous literary characters like James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, signed U2 albums, and all sorts of things on display—from badges and newspapers to old signs and even bullets—all of which have a story to tell. Set in a Georgian townhouse, with views out over the green and the excellent Hatch & Sons Irish Kitchen in the basement for post-tour grub, this little space offers a lot to love.

Gaze at the beautiful floor to ceiling mosaic that pictures the marine life and coral reef in Grand Cayman as you climb the double helix staircase to the top of the 75ft observation tower. Located in Camana Bay, this tower offers 360 degree panoramic views of Seven Mile Beach, George Town, and the North Sound. Not up for the big climb? No worries, there’s a full service elevator available to take you to any floor for observation, including the very top.

The only zoo in the Bahamas started as a tropical garden and nature preserve in the 1950s. Over the years, Ardastra evolved, adding a conservation center for Caribbean flamingos and a small zoo containing birds, reptiles, and mammals. The four-acre zoo is filled with the colors and fragrances of its tropical gardens, which feature paths through the tamarind, West Indies mahogany, and Indian tulip trees, amid the abundant blooms of yellow elder, the national flower of the Bahamas, and frangipani. Visitors can see flamingos, iguanas, and lemurs, while enjoying interactive experiences like feeding the rainbow lorikeets and playing with the rabbits in the petting zoo.

Located on the island of Djurgården, this purpose-built maritime museum is an extraordinary sight: It houses the massive warship Vasa, which sank just minutes after launching on its maiden voyage in 1628. Raised from the harbor in 1961, it was painstakingly reassembled to its original glory. Head straight to the auditorium to watch a documentary about the salvage, and then slowly meander through the rest of the fascinating exhibits.

If you visit Boulder, hiking is a central part of the experience. There are many trails that criss-cross Chautauqua Park, but if you hike the ones under NIST you will find them to be much less crowded. Take the Table Mesa exit off the 36 Highway and head west (toward the mountains). Turn left on Lehigh and right on Bear Mountain Drive. You should see a trailhead on your right after you cross Wildwood. To get to Chautauqua Park, take the Baseline Road exit off the 36 and head west until you see the park sign and road begins to curve up the mountain.

Gaa is located directly opposite Gaggan, Bangkok’s most famous eatery, which was named the best restaurant in Asia in 2017. The brains behind the venture is Garima Arora, former sous chef at Gaggan and chef de partie at Noma. A native of Mumbai, Arora doesn’t shy away from her Indian roots. They are balanced, however, by international influences, including prominent Thai flavors. As you would expect from someone with her pedigree, Arora gives full rein to her creativity throughout the tasting menus (10 or 14 courses), with dishes such as grilled pork ribs marinated with split-pea miso and served with chopped shallots, spring onions, and pomegranate seeds showcasing her talent.

Another of attorney-turned-hotelier Loh Lik Peng’s boutique properties (along with the New Majestic), Wanderlust is perhaps the quirkiest hotel in Singapore, taking guests on a fanciful journey that befits its name. The building opened in the 1920s as the Hong Wen Chinese School and later served as a settlement where Indian immigrants reared livestock. Its unchanged sober white facade with black shutters gives little hint of the outré interiors. Each of the four floors was fashioned by a different Singaporean design agency, resulting in various themes. In the lobby, an industrial-glam aesthetic manifests itself in an old-fashioned collapsible metal gate repainted in gold, a Frank Gehry-designed sofa, and seats made from recycled road signs by Australian Trent Jansen. Rooms on the “Creature Comforts” floor include Typewriter, where giant lettered arms reach out and up from a sofa with keyboard letters on the upholstery, while lanterns cast shadows of monsters along the corridors.

A who-knows-how-happily-married Diego Rivera commissioned this three-residence compound from Mexican artist and architect Juan O’Gorman in 1931. Jarringly Bauhausian for its time (especially in comparison to the surrounding San Ángel neighborhood’s mission revival gentility), it included separate buildings for Diego and his wife, Frida Kahlo, connected by a slender bridge (as well as a third dwelling for O’Gorman). Visits lead to interiors, showcasing Rivera’s studio and its fascinating collection of artworks, creative infrastructure, and amazing windows. Take time to wander the garden and pause to appreciate the property’s tableaux; then re-tox from all the aesthetic purity across the road at the San Ángel Inn, a gloriously indulgent hacienda bar and restaurant that takes you straight back to the country club—flawless margaritas and all.