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If you’re planning to stay in Beijing, you’ll have your pick of both international hotel chains and a growing number of boutique properties, many within walking distance of major sights. Choose a spot in a central location, near the Summer Palace or an important shopping street, or base your decision on perks like room service and free Wi-Fi. Either way, you can expect to find a great home base for getting to the heart of Beijing.

Culture lovers won’t have time to sleep once they hit the Toronto pavement. Not only are institutes like the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) filled with major works of art, street art is everywhere—take a guided tour of Toronto’s colorful back alleys. Toronto is known, too, for its arts, music, dance, and film festivals. For an authentic taste of a city so rich in culture, check the calendar and catch whatever’s playing in town.

In the past decade or so, Budapest’s restaurant scene has broadened beyond goulash and stuffed cabbage, with trendy new venues serving both a wider variety of international cuisines and elegant, innovative takes on traditional Hungarian fare.

When the Terra Cotta Army was uncovered in Xi’an in 1974, the world took notice of the Shaanxi city. The army—filled with 8000 life-size soldiers, as well as weapons, horses, chariots, and other characters—was buried in the tomb of China’s first emperor. Visitors can discover more treasures than frozen troops in Xi’an, though: Along with its famous cuisine, the city is rich with peaceful temples and and holy mosques, hutongs that rival those in Beijing, historic palaces from the Tang Dynasty, and intact walls and fortifications that date back to the seventh century.

Award-winning chef Nobu Matsuhisa spent most of the 1990s and 2000s growing an empire of Japanese restaurants around the world. These days he’s expanding his global portfolio of hotels, too. This ultra-luxurious property, which occupies a separate tower inside Caesars Palace, was the first Nobu Hotel in the world when it debuted in 2013. It set the tone for the hotel group’s signature Japanese-inspired aesthetic that feels simultaneously traditional and modern. Refreshed in 2022, the 182 guest rooms draw design inspiration from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold epoxy. Corridors feature carpets with patterns inspired by suminagashi —the Japanese art of paper marbling. For those who favor smaller-scale boutique hotels, this hotel-within-a-hotel concept here makes the place feel intimate—not unlike a Japanese ryokan.


The over-the-top design experience begins at check-in, which happens in a diminutive stand-alone lobby decorated with hand-hewn wood blocks. Elevators automatically read your floor with a scan of a room key, a nice touch that surprisingly hasn’t caught on elsewhere around this hospitality-minded town. Of course, adjacent to the lobby, there’s also a Nobu restaurant—the largest in the world. The restaurant offers teppanyaki-style dining where chefs prepare every course right in front of you, along with classic Nobu dishes such as miso black cod and yellowtail jalapeno sashimi.


Related: 7 Hotels to Book for “Non-Vegas” People

Istanbul is a city where the past collides with the present. The Raffles Istanbul, connected to the high-end retail hub of the Zorlu Center, beautifully exemplifies the contrasts. To get a taste of the Ottoman empire, book a room at the Four Seasons Bosporus, set in the restored Atik Pasha Palace. Modernists should stay at the Marti Hotel, located in the heart of the city’s business district. For the cool kids, there’s the House Hotel, which oozes urban Bauhaus style. And no matter where you stay, the hotel concierges will be more than happy to direct you to the city’s biggest sites, from the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace to the Hagia Sophia.

Buddhist temples and grand palaces meet neon skylines in Seoul. The city’s hotels are just as varied, ranging from design properties with no-fuss amenities to over-the-top luxury resorts with Michelin-starred cuisine. Here are some of the highlights.

Delhi’s diverse hotel scene includes luxury palaces, family-run B&Bs, and even homestays that offer a window into local culture. Since the sprawling city is prone to lengthy traffic jams, it’s vital to select a hotel near your scheduled activities.

Palacio de los Jugos (the Juice Palace) is one of the most famous and long-standing restaurants in Miami. The palace is named for its long list of fruit drinks, such as mamey and coconut. But the chain also serves typical Cuban food like arroz congri, a dish including rice and black beans. One of the most popular orders is the chicharrónes, made of the best quality fried pork rinds you will ever find—basically tasting like super thick slices of crispy bacon. It also serves sandwiches, seafood, baked goods, and has fresh fruits. The juice bar opened over 40 years ago, but now serves Miami locals at six locations citywide.

A Starwood Luxury Collection hotel in the heart of historic Cuzco, Palacio del Inka occupies a former palace, built by the Incans as part of the Coricancha (the centerpiece of their empire). Since ancient times, it’s had many lives—it was seized by the Spaniards in the 16th century, served as a museum in the 1800s, and finally became a hotel in the 1970s. Today, the property features artwork and artifacts from both the Incan and colonial eras, which guests can tour each day at 5 p.m.

Situated around a large central courtyard, the 203 rooms are decorated in a colonial motif, with carved-wood furnishings, jewel tones, and gold accents. Also on-site is a small but very nice spa with a hydrotherapy pool, dry sauna, Turkish bath, whirlpool tub, and showers with lighting effects, as well as a small gym with cardio machines and weights. While Palacio del Inka is just a few minutes to Plaza de Armas and its many eateries, guests would be remiss to not dine at least once at the hotel’s Inti Raymi Restaurant, which serves Andean and international dishes made with locally sourced ingredients. Before dinner, grab a drink at the Rumi Bar, which offers excellent cocktails and a free pisco tasting each night at 6 p.m.

Autumn in Montreal is bliss for most Montrealers; the weather is slightly crisper, the leaves are changing colors, and the city is, quite simply, in its lovely state. Apple-picking, Mont-Royal hiking, park hopping and coffee shop exploring are perfect autumn activities as far as Montreal is concerned.

The Belgian Royal Palace sits proudly in front of Parc Royal in Brussels. You can’t stop by for tea with the royals here unfortunately. They live at the Royal Residence in Laeken. However, you can have a look inside the Royal Palace during the summer months and wander through the rooms where official royal business is conducted. Throughout August, the palace is open to the public and can be visited free of charge. You can see the hall of mirrors (a downscaled version of Versailles) with a very quirky ceiling. The ceiling is actually an artwork, by Jan Fabre, called “Heaven of Delight” and is made up of the shiny wings of 1.4 million Thai jewel beetles and took three months to create.

Autumn is busy in Brussels, with school and work beginning after the lazy summer holidays. New expats and students descend on the city, and the streets have a renewed bustle. Festivals and events mark the ramp-up to Christmas (think beer, wine, and food), and a walk in Parc Royale or Tervuren is a great way to see the changing leaves.

A journey through one of the world’s last, best travel secrets.