AlbaniaAlbania: what to see and when to go
Albania spent decades sealed off from the rest of Europe, and it still carries a reputation shaped by that isolation: poor, chaotic, vaguely risky. The reality most visitors fin…
Destination guides
Where to go, when to go, and what these places are actually like — for the destinations we keep finding cheap flights to.
Europe
Albania
BelgiumBelgium: what to see and when to go
Belgium tends to get treated as a stopover rather than a destination, a place you pass through between Paris and Amsterdam. That undersells it. This is a small, dense country wh…
BulgariaBulgaria: what to see and when to go
Bulgaria sits in the southeast corner of Europe, sharing borders with Greece, Turkey, Serbia, North Macedonia and Romania, with the Black Sea to the east. It is one of the conti…
CyprusCyprus: what to see and when to go
Cyprus sits further east than most people picture it, closer to Beirut and Damascus than to Athens, and that geography shapes everything about it. It is an island where you can…
FranceFrance: what to see and when to go
France is large and varied enough that "going to France" barely means anything until you decide which France you mean. The country people picture from films—Paris cafés, lavende…
GermanyGermany: what to see and when to go
Germany rewards people who arrive without a fixed idea of what it should be. It is less uniform than its reputation suggests: a country stitched together from regions that spent…
GreeceGreece: what to see and when to go
Greece is a country most people think they already know before they arrive: white houses on blue water, ancient ruins, long lunches by the sea. All of that exists, but it accoun…
HungaryHungary: what to see and when to go
Hungary sits in the middle of Europe but feels distinct from everything around it, starting with the language, which belongs to no family that a Balkan visitor will recognise. I…
IcelandIceland: what to see and when to go
Iceland is a small country that feels enormous. Fewer people live here than in many European cities, yet the landscape stretches out in a way that makes distances deceptive and…
ItalyItaly: what to see and when to go
Italy rewards people who slow down and disappoints those who try to see it all. The country is longer than most visitors realise, and the north and south feel like different pla…
MacedoniaMacedonia: what to see and when to go
North Macedonia is a small, landlocked country in the southern Balkans, and it tends to surprise people who arrive expecting a rougher version of Greece or a poorer cousin of Cr…
MaltaMalta: what to see and when to go
Malta is small enough to cross in an hour by car, yet it holds more layers of history than places many times its size. It sits in the middle of the Mediterranean, closer to Afri…
MoldovaMoldova: what to see and when to go
Moldova is one of those countries people struggle to picture, which is exactly why it rewards the curious. It sits between Romania and Ukraine, small and mostly rural, and it do…
PolandPoland: what to see and when to go
Poland is bigger than most people expect, and slower to reveal itself. It doesn't announce its charms the way Mediterranean countries do; it rewards those who look. For travelle…
PortugalPortugal: what to see and when to go
Portugal sits at the western edge of Europe, and for a long time it was overshadowed by Spain next door. That has changed, and the country now draws crowds it didn't used to, bu…
RomaniaRomania: what to see and when to go
Romania sits at the eastern edge of Central Europe, a large country of mountains, forests and farmland that still feels less trodden than most of the continent. People arrive ex…
SpainSpain: what to see and when to go
Spain rewards travellers who arrive without a fixed idea of what it is. People come expecting flamenco, bullfights and beaches, and find a country that changes character every f…
SwedenSweden: what to see and when to go
Sweden is long, quiet, and more varied than its reputation for cold and reserve suggests. People arrive expecting endless snow and expensive silence, and find, depending on the…
United KingdomUnited Kingdom: what to see and when to go
The United Kingdom is easy to think you already know before you arrive, filtered through television, films and second-hand impressions. What visitors from the Balkans often find…
Middle East & Caucasus
ArmeniaArmenia: what to see and when to go
Armenia sits at the edge of where Europe blurs into Asia, a small, landlocked country wrapped around mountains and river gorges, with a history that stretches back well before m…
AzerbaijanAzerbaijan: what to see and when to go
Azerbaijan sits at the point where Europe stops being recognisably European and the influences of Turkey, Iran and Russia start to blur together. It calls itself the land of fir…
GeorgiaGeorgia: what to see and when to go
Georgia sits at the seam between Europe and Asia, and it feels like both and neither. People arrive expecting a small, obscure post-Soviet country and leave surprised by the sca…
IsraelIsrael: what to see and when to go
Israel is small enough to cross by car in a day, yet it packs in a density of history, landscape and cultural friction that few countries its size can match. People arrive expec…
TurkeyTurkey: what to see and when to go
Turkey sits awkwardly in most people's imaginations, half Mediterranean beach holiday, half something more exotic and unfamiliar. In practice it is a large, varied country that…
United Arab EmiratesUnited Arab Emirates: what to see and when to go
The United Arab Emirates gets flattened in most people's minds into a single image: skyscrapers, shopping malls and desert heat. That version exists, but it's a small slice. The…
Asia
BangladeshBangladesh: what to see and when to go
Bangladesh sits in the shadow of its larger neighbours, and most people who go there did not plan a holiday around it. That is precisely why it rewards you. This is a country of…
ChinaChina: what to see and when to go
China is large enough to feel like several countries stitched together, and the mistake most first-time visitors make is treating it as one destination. You cannot "see China" i…
Hong KongHong Kong: what to see and when to go
Hong Kong is a city, a territory, and a state of mind more than a country, but it functions like a self-contained world for a visitor. It is dense, vertical, humid, and far gree…
IndiaIndia: what to see and when to go
India is not one destination but many, stitched together loosely enough that the country you experience depends entirely on where you land and what you're willing to accept. It…
JapanJapan: what to see and when to go
Japan rewards the traveller who arrives with fewer fixed ideas than they think. It is not a single experience of neon and temples, but a long, narrow country stretched across ma…
KazakhstanKazakhstan: what to see and when to go
Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country on earth, and its size is the first thing to understand about it. Most people picture either a Borat parody or a bleak of oil derricks an…
PhilippinesPhilippines: what to see and when to go
The Philippines is an archipelago of more than seven thousand islands, which means no single trip can sum it up. People often picture beaches and little else, and while the beac…
SingaporeSingapore: what to see and when to go
Singapore confuses people before they arrive. They picture either a sterile shopping mall of a country or an exotic Asian metropolis, and it turns out to be neither and both. It…
TaiwanTaiwan: what to see and when to go
Taiwan sits off the southeastern coast of China, an island a little larger than Belgium but folded into a spine of mountains that reach over three thousand metres. Most visitors…
ThailandThailand: what to see and when to go
Thailand rewards visitors who arrive without a fixed idea of what it should be. It is a country of dense, humid cities and quiet mountain villages, of temples with gilded roofs…
VietnamVietnam: what to see and when to go
Vietnam surprises people who arrive expecting a single, uniform experience. It stretches over 1,600 kilometres from the Chinese border down to the Mekong Delta, and the differen…
Africa
Cape VerdeCape Verde: what to see and when to go
Cape Verde sits in the Atlantic off the coast of Senegal, closer to Africa than to Europe, though its culture leans toward Portugal and Brazil. It is a nation of ten islands, no…
MoroccoMorocco: what to see and when to go
Morocco sits close enough to Europe that you can be in a different continent within a few hours, and it feels every bit that distance. This is a country of layered contrasts: sn…
South AfricaSouth Africa: what to see and when to go
South Africa surprises people who arrive expecting a single kind of landscape or experience. It is a large, varied country where you can stand on a Cape beach in the morning and…
Americas
CanadaCanada: what to see and when to go
Canada is vast in a way that's hard to absorb until you're there. It spans six time zones, and the distance between its coasts is greater than the distance from Lisbon to Moscow…
United StatesUnited States: what to see and when to go
The United States is less a single destination than a loose collection of countries that happen to share a currency and a language. The mistake most first-time visitors make is…