Stretched along the narrow Hicacos Peninsula on Cuba's northern coast, Varadero is built around one thing: more than 20 kilometers of fine white sand facing the warm, turquoise water of the Straits of Florida. It's Cuba's biggest resort destination, but
Set on a bend of the Mississippi River, New Orleans runs on live music, Creole and Cajun cooking, and architecture you won't find replicated anywhere else in the country. The French Quarter gets the postcards, but the city's best moments
Seattle sits on a narrow strip of land between two large bodies of water, Puget Sound and Lake Washington, with the Olympic and Cascade mountain ranges visible on clear days from nearly anywhere downtown. It's a city built by fishing,
Washington, D.C. is a city built around a two-mile stretch of green space, and nearly everything worth seeing sits along or near it. The National Mall puts the Capitol, the White House, and a run of world-class Smithsonian museums within
Puerto Vallarta sits where the Sierra Madre mountains drop straight into the Pacific, giving this Jalisco beach city a backdrop most coastal resorts can't match. Cobblestone streets and a whitewashed church with a wrought-iron crown anchor the old town, while
Mérida sits at the center of the Yucatán Peninsula, a colonial capital surrounded by the region's real headline acts: Maya pyramids, flooded limestone sinkholes, and pink-flamingo wetlands, all within a few hours' drive. The city itself, nicknamed "La Ciudad Blanca"
San Miguel de Allende looks the way a colonial Mexican town is supposed to look, which is exactly why it draws artists, retirees, and travelers in equal numbers. Pink stone church spires rise over cobblestone streets lined with centuries-old facades
Oaxaca is where Mexico's culinary and artistic reputation comes from firsthand experience rather than secondhand praise. Zapotec ruins sit on hilltops above a colonial city built from green volcanic stone, mezcal is distilled in the surrounding valleys the same way
Mexico City sits on the drained bed of an Aztec lake, and that history is never far from the surface. Colonial cathedrals stand on top of Aztec temple foundations, canals from a vanished lake system still carry boats through the
Quebec City is the only walled city north of Mexico and the historic heart of French North America. Founded by Samuel de Champlain in 1608, its UNESCO-listed Old Quebec district still feels like a European capital dropped onto a cliff