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Kananaskis Country is a stunning wilderness area that lies just outside of Canmore, Alberta. The region borders Banff National Park and the scenery rivals it’s famous neighbour. The key benefit to outdoor fun in Kananaskis Country is the complete lack of crowds! It might be near Banff, but it feels a world away. Hiking trails, bike paths, and beautiful lakes abound and it’s quite common to have them all to yourself even during the busiest summer weekends! Check out the Upper and Lower Kananaskis Lakes at sunset, as it’s a prime location near the Continental Divide that offers stunning evening light.

About an hour north of Bogotá lies the so-called Salt Cathedral, an intriguing and impressive church that has been sculpted from the empty chambers of a working salt mine, one that’s been in operation since pre-Hispanic times. Beginning in the 20th century, miners began to decorate shafts with icons and saints from whom they sought protection. By 1954, a full-fledged cathedral had been carved into the rock and inaugurated; it has been attracting visitors from all over the world ever since. When a previous sanctuary became unstable, the current chapel was carved almost 200 feet deeper down and opened in 1995, complete with eerie lighting and beautiful sculptures. A visit is a moving experience even for nonbelievers.

Zurich’s Old Town has one foot firmly in the past and the other very much at the forefront of Swiss culture. Wandering through the pedestrian-only cobbled streets of the Altstadt (which you can do for hours!), you’ll find Switzerland‘s highest concentration of clubs, as well as theatres, comedy troupes, street performers and young fashion designers selling their wares in small, elegant shops on medieval streets. Landmarks include the Grossmünster’s double towers, built by Charlemagne, and the Peterskirche, which has the distinction of being the church with Europe’s largest clockface. Don’t miss Limmatquai, along the Limmat River, one of Zurich‘s most thronged shopping sites where restaurants and shops are housed in Baroque gilded houses from the 1700s, something like the canalside houses of Amsterdam. It’s a great place to actually walk into the past and have the vibrant present all around you! Check out the Artistry and Craftsmanship itinerary to Switzerland, created by Bob Preston of Swiss Panache, on AFAR Journeys.

This place is in the middle of nowhere in Southern Albania. There is no bus stop. You just have to motion to the driver to pull over at the side of the road when you see a promising looking dirt trail. You take that trail off the main road, all the time assuming that you couldn’t possibly be in the right place. And then, almost inexplicably, there is a sign for the Blue Eye and a guard, sitting in a booth along the road. He’ll collect a few coins from you, and then you keep walking. If you’re lucky, a truck driver or local tourist will pick you up along the stretch of windy, dusty road that weaves along the side of a body of water that gets ever clearer as you move along. At the end of the trek, you’ll find the clearest, bluest water you’ve ever seen, and if you’re lucky you’ll be able to eat on the little floating deck they’ve installed in the river that flows out of the Eye. The restaurant serves heaping plates of lamb ribs, grilled over charcoal and big bottles of cold Albanian beer, all for a few dollars. A short walk up a dirt path from the restaurant lies the main destination: a coldwater spring of unknown depth and unbelievable color that bubbles up into a green little grotto. It’s often too cold and fast for a swim, but it’s refreshing to put your feet into and beautiful to hang around. There is also a small hotel for people who want to spend the night or can’t manage to catch a bus onward before nightfall.

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.

From the dusty street, the Hotel El Convento in León, Nicaragua, beckons with its stately façade and red Spanish-tiled roof. Step inside and you instantly feel at home amidst ornate period furnishings that are surely a far cry from the building’s humble beginnings as the 1639 San Francisco Convent. The elegant Restaurante El Victoriano offers an indoor-outdoor retreat centered on the hotel’s manicured, tropical courtyard—an example of the colonial hacienda style found throughout León. The restaurant is a meeting place for people from all walks of life—aged former Sandinistas who now hold positions of leadership, locals splurging on a fine meal, or foreign students from one of the city’s many Spanish language schools seeking tranquility and an excellent cup of coffee.

A devastating fire on April 15, 2019, has closed the interior of the cathedral to visitors. Plans to rebuild and reopen the structure are being made, but at present, visitors are not allowed near the site.
For a first-time visitor to Notre Dame, investing in the audio guide is essential to understand this overwhelmingly significant Paris icon. There’s a lot to see and absorb—history, architecture, artifacts, theology—and the audio guide gives a much-needed sense of direction and context. Even without spiritual ties, the awe-inspiring grandeur of the cathedral is not to be missed from every angle—tour the naves, stroll around the entirety of the exterior, take in the city from the top of the towers, walk along Quai de Montebello to view it from across the water, or admire it from a river cruise down the Seine. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris is everything everyone says it is and more.

San Diego’s first food hall is housed in the city’s former naval training center, a 361-acre site in Point Loma that now features a lively business district with wide lawns, a waterfront park, and historic Spanish Revival–style buildings. Here, vendors serve everything from coconut-curry chicken sausages to ahi tuna poke bowls, providing the makings of a casual lunch or dinner. Take your food to the patio, or sit inside at the high-top tables near the bar and enjoy the untouched murals that line the upper walls. Painted by naval recruits in the 1950s, they depict various vessels, from a late 18th-century sailing ship to a World War II aircraft carrier.

Some 35 minutes by boat from Providenciales, sitting all alone on a 1,000-acre island with three miles of white-sand beach, Parrot Cay attracts a seriously moneyed clientele who care, more than anything, about its exclusivity and its spa. Parrot Cay is not exactly monastic: the long list of celebrity visitors has included Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck (they got married here), as well as Paul McCartney, Julia Roberts, Jerry Seinfeld, and Liam Neeson. But the spa, COMO Shambhala Retreat, is so successful at projecting a holistic way of life that a sense of peace and harmony embraces the entire resort. The central garden-view and ocean-view rooms, three minutes’ walk from the beach, are acceptably chic, but the beachfront suites and villas are knockouts, and the handful of private homes for rent, some owned by celebrities (Christie Brinkley, Donna Karan), are in the fantasy category. The food, by a chef whose résumé includes a Michelin star, and the service, performed by private butlers for some room categories, are of commensurately high standards.

The resplendent Raffles Hotel reopened in late 2019 to great fanfare after two years of restoration. Originally built in 1887 as a 10-room hotel, it now features 115 suites with oriental carpets and teak floors to complement four-poster beds and colorful Peranakan-tiled bathrooms. An in-room tablet controls everything from the mood lighting to calling your butler for a glass of bubbly. All have a private veranda to enjoy balmy evenings outside.




The building was declared a national monument in 1987, so the façade has changed little, but the hotel’s food and drink concepts have been revamped with a focus on marquee restaurant collaborations with the likes of Jereme Leung (yi) and Hawaiian-born Jordan Keao (Butcher’s Block). Not forgetting Singapore’s rich food culture, the hotel offers a self-guided Raffles Singapore Hawker Food Trail video hosted by hawker champion and Makansutra founder KF Seetoh. Raffles also offers an exclusive private tour of the Intan, a home museum filled with more than 1,500 objects from Peranakan culture.





The famous Singapore Sling continues to be a draw at the evocative 1920s Malayan-style Long Bar and its peanut shell-covered floor. The iconic drink now has sustainable twist: the hotel plants one native tree in the Kalimantan or Sumatran rain forest for every 25 Singapore Slings ordered.

Searching for covered bridges and discovering their histories is one of the travel adventures I enjoy. While in New Hampshire, I armed myself with a good area map. The map had covered bridge icons which indicated covered bridge locations. New Hampshire #68 was the bridge for which I chose to search. We drove down highway 11A until we got to the Gilford Townhall. We were told by a near-by park ranger how to get to the bridge. His instructions were very clear: “Park at the town hall in the lot, and look to your right,and under some trees you will see the bridge”. I got out and there it was... a very pretty covered footbridge. While inside the bridge, I could hear the rushing water of the brook. I could see the trees, bushes, flowers, and water flowing over the rocks as I peered out of the latticework openings. The Gilford covered bridge is a single span footbridge (foot traffic only) that is a lattice wooden structure spanning the Gunstock Brook just north of the village of Gilford. The bridge was built in 1995 on the site of the first covered bridge that had been removed about 50 years ago. The name of the bridge is the Tannery Hill Gilford Bridge and it links the town center with town hall. I continue to search for covered bridges in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New England. See how many you can find in your trips and travel adventures.

Turkey isn’t known for its beer, with most menus dominated by the serviceable yet flavorless Efes. The craft beer movement has been gratefully welcomed (especially by expats), and a few breweries have popped up in Istanbul in recent years. The Populist brewery is part of Bomontiada, a massive complex of art and performance spaces, shops, restaurants, and nightlife on the site of the former Bomonti Beer Factory, which closed in the 1950s and was abandoned for several decades. Populist’s food menu is standard pub fare, with a few surprises like a lamb burger with Carolina mustard sauce and a flatbread pizza with kokoreç (better-than-it-sounds grilled lamb intestines). The rotating selection of 12 beers on tap might include a Belgian Turkish wheat with anise and a hoppy IPA. To reach Bomontiada, take the metro to Osmanbey, and from there it’s a 10- to 15-minute walk through a historically diverse and rapidly changing neighborhood.

Every day millions of people walk down Istanbul’s famous Istiklal Street unaware of the nearby terrace restaurants offering magnificent cuisine and divine views of the Bosphorus Strait—among them, Divan Brasserie Beyoğlu. Opened in 2014, the restaurant excels in plating timeless recipes with modern touches. Take a seat here for lunch or dinner and peruse a menu of regional dishes such as the Albanian-style liver and pan-seared lamb served in eggplant puree along with gourmet pizzas, beef burgers, and seafood dishes. Istanbullus (Istanbul residents) will say you haven’t dined in Istanbul until you’ve dined at a rooftop terrace overlooking the city. Do them proud at Divan Brasserie Beyoğlu. To find it, look for Koć University on Istiklal Caddesi and follow the discrete signage and let the glass elevator take you the rest of the way.

Housed in a 100-meter-tall, concave building in the heart of Xintiandi, the 24-story property has rooms with enduring views over the neighborhood’s Shikumen storefronts. Accommodations combine dark woods, floor-to-ceiling windows, green and gold wool carpets with a paisley-like motif, and dual-basin bathrooms with oversized bathtubs. Shanghai’s Art Deco period and Xintiandi’s courtyard houses inspire interiors, while color schemes of black and green appear throughout, from the dark local granite used as flooring and walls to green glass detailing. Another recurrent theme is the horse, a key Han symbol, laser-cut into large lobby columns and bronze beams to resemble bark on a tree.

It should come as no surprise that, in the heart of historic Florence, a 15-minute walk from the Duomo, presides a Renaissance palazzo—the home of Florentine nobility for centuries. Decorated with ornate frescoes, gilded chandeliers, and antique furnishings, the Four Seasons Hotel Firenze’s soaring halls and suites are fit for a king. The hotel is surrounded by 11 manicured acres of gardens—the Giardino della Gherardesca—their hidden pathways, serene pools, and ancient trees made for romantic promenades and hours curled up with a book. The dining rooms are among the most sought-after in Florence, and the elegant terraces buzz at all hours with a who’s who of Florentine clientele coming to pay their respects to this grande dame.

A bastion of true Renaissance luxury in a bustling city, the Four Seasons treats all guests like they’re the master of the house: no request too much, a gourmet meal offered at any hour, the most restorative and soothing spa treatments available at the snap of a finger.