[ THE DISPATCH ]
Best-Of Lists
Ranked and curated for the decisive traveller. 164 dispatches and counting.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities for a Quiet Trip When Crowds and Noise Wreck You
Some of us don't recover from a loud, packed city — we just endure it and come home frazzled. These are the 10 best quiet cities to visit when crowds and noise genuinely wreck you.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities for a Steak Dinner Worth Loosening Your Belt
The best cities for steak aren't about the most expensive cut — they're about culture. Argentine asado, Tuscan bistecca, Texas ribeye. Ten places where the steak dinner is a reason to book the flight.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities for Public Saunas Where Strangers Become Friends
The best public sauna cities aren't about spa luxury — they're about sweating next to a stranger and somehow leaving as mates. Here's where the communal sauna ritual is alive, and how not to embarrass yourself.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities for Sandwiches You'd Fly Back For
The best cities for sandwiches treat the humble handheld lunch as high art. Banh mi, torta, panino, Philly hoagie — ten places where a sandwich is so good you'd genuinely book a flight just to eat it again.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities for Travelers With Toddlers Who Still Need Naps
Most family travel lists were written by people without a screaming two-year-old at 4pm. These are the 10 best cities to visit with toddlers — ranked on naps, strollers, and surviving the meltdown hour.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities for Watching a Storm Roll in From a Cafe Window
Everyone chases sunshine. I chase the opposite. These are the best rainy cities to visit — the ones that get better in bad weather, where the right move is a window seat and a long coffee while it pours.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities to Visit Entirely on Foot at Sunrise
A famous city at 6am, empty, is a completely different place than the same city at noon. These are the best cities for early morning walks — the ones worth setting an alarm for, when the crowds are still asleep and the streets are all yours.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Cities Where the Public Library Is the Best Building in Town
Some of the best public libraries to visit are better buildings than the cathedrals down the road — and they're free, warm, and have a toilet. Here are ten where the library is the finest thing in the city.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Metro Systems That Double as Underground Art Museums
Some subway stations are so beautiful you'd ride past your stop just to keep looking. These are the 10 best metro stations in the world — galleries you reach with a transit ticket.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Old-Growth Forests Worth Craning Your Neck For
Trees so old and so tall you walk around with your head tipped back and your mouth open. Ancient redwoods, dripping rainforest, gnarled beech older than your country. Ten old-growth forests worth the crick in your neck.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Open-Air Cinemas Worth Skipping a Sunset For
A film under the stars beats a film in a multiplex every single time, and a handful of places have turned it into something magical. These are the best outdoor cinemas in the world — rooftops, beaches, and one screen inside an actual ruin.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Opera Houses Worth Dressing Up For, Even If You Hate Opera
I don't always understand the plot. Honestly, I rarely do. But the best opera houses in the world are worth the ticket purely for the room, the ritual, and the spectacle — even if you spend half of it people-watching. Here are ten to dress up for.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Places to Watch Whales Without Chumming the Water
Whale and dolphin watching done right — ethical operators, reliable sightings, no boats charging the animals or baiting the water. Ten places where the whales show up because they want to, not because they're being herded.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Sculpture Parks Where Art Lives Outdoors All Year
Museums make me want to sit down and check my phone. Sculpture parks make me want to walk for hours. These are the best sculpture parks in the world — places where you stroll through the art instead of shuffling past it behind a velvet rope.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 10 Best Tide Pools and Rock Pools Worth Timing the Tide For
Nobody romanticizes a tide pool and that's a mistake. The best tide pools are tiny aquariums the ocean leaves behind twice a day — free, full of weird life, and gone in an hour. Here are ten worth setting an alarm for.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Brutalist Buildings Worth Loving On Purpose
Most people walk past a brutalist building and shudder. I stop and stare. The best brutalist architecture in the world is the stuff fans defend to the death and everyone else photographs anyway — here are eleven concrete monsters worth a detour.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Canyons You Can Hike Into Without a Helicopter
I have walked into more canyons than I can count, and the best ones don't need a guide, a chopper, or a death wish. Here are the eleven best canyons to hike — ranked by how easy it is to get your boots in the dirt and how hard the payoff hits.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Cities for a Cheap Beer That Doesn't Taste Cheap
The best cities for cheap beer give you a properly good pint for the price of a bus ticket. Czech taprooms, Vietnamese bia hoi corners, German beer halls — eleven places where value and quality finally agree.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Cities for Cheese Toasties on a Cold, Grey Day
Forget the cheese farms and the wheels under glass. This is about the melt — the croque, the raclette scrape, the tosti you eat standing up in the rain. Eleven cities ranked by how well they fix a cold, grey afternoon.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Cities for Comedy Where You'll Laugh in a Second Language
Comedy travels worse than music and better than you'd think. These are the best cities for live comedy — including the English-language nights tucked into non-English cities, where you'll laugh harder than you expected to.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Cities for Hot Chocolate So Thick You Eat It With a Spoon
I'm not talking about the watery instant stuff. The best cities for hot chocolate serve a cup so thick the spoon stands up in it. Here's where to find it, what to order, and the winter cafe ritual that goes with it.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Cities for People Who Plan a Whole Trip Around Breakfast
I am the kind of person who books flights around where I want to eat eggs. If you're the same, this is your list — the best cities for breakfast, where the morning meal is the headliner and not the warm-up act.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Cities for Window Shopping You Can't Afford a Thing In
I have walked Milan's golden quad in shoes from a market and not bought a single thing, and it was a perfect afternoon. These are the best cities for luxury window shopping — glamour as free theatre, no credit card required.
-
Best-Of ListsThe 11 Best Glaciers You Can Walk On Before They're Gone
Glacier walks and ice caves, ranked with an honest now-or-never edge. These rivers of ice are shrinking fast. Eleven you can still strap crampons onto and walk across — for now.