Bern

Bern Travel Guide

Humble and down-to-earth, Bern is a city of broad medieval streets, farmers’ markets, and friendly people. It is also a World Cultural Heritage city known for its sandstone arcades, fountains, and thick, sturdy towers. Though Bern is the Swiss capital, you won’t find much cosmopolitan affectation here: The cuisine du marché, based on the freshest ingredients available…

Bogota

Bogotá Travel Guide

Bogotá offers abundant contrasts: modern shopping malls and open-air markets, high-rise apartments and makeshift shanties, futuristic glass towers and colonial churches. Simultaneous displays of ostentatious wealth and shocking poverty have been a feature of life here for centuries. In the neighborhood of La Candelaria a rich assemblage of colonial mansions grandly conceived by the Spanish were built…

Tucson

Tucson Travel Guide

The Old Pueblo, as Tucson is affectionately known, is built upon a deep Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Old West foundation. Arizona’s second-largest city is both a bustling center of business and a relaxed university and resort town. Metropolitan Tucson has more than 850,000 residents, including thousands of snowbirds who flee colder climes to enjoy the sun…

Gent

Gent Travel Guide

Gent (also called Ghent in English, Gand in French) originated at the confluence of the rivers Leie and Schelde. It is said that Gent is the child of Leie (personified as Lise) and Schelde (personified as Scaldus). These two figures have become symbols of the city and often appear on civic buildings, such as the old fish…

Detroit

Detroit Travel Guide

Founded in 1701 as “la Ville d’Etroit”—the City at the Straits—Detroit is one of the Midwest’s oldest cities. Originally a strategic Native American and French trading post, by the mid-19th century the city was compared to Paris because of its scenic parks and beautiful architecture. The 20th century saw Detroit’s evolution into the modern Motor City, the…

Milwaukee

Milwaukee Travel Guide

A friendly Midwestern atmosphere prevails in Milwaukee, which is not so much a city as a large collection of neighborhoods situated on the shores of Lake Michigan. Wisconsin’s largest city is an international seaport and the state’s primary commercial and manufacturing center. Modern steel-and-glass high-rises occupy much of the downtown area, but they share the skyline with…

St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg Travel Guide

Conceived in the soul of a visionary emperor, St. Petersburg is Russia’s adopted child. With its strict geometric lines and perfectly planned architecture, so unlike the Russian cities that came before it, St. Petersburg is almost too European to be Russian. And yet it’s too Russian to be European. The city is a powerful combination…

Mexico City

Mexico City Travel Guide

By and large, people have the wrong idea about Mexico City. To many the name alone summons two words: crime and pollution. No doubt there are areas to be avoided, but the Distrito Federal is packed to the gills with decent people who will usually look out for one another, and for you.

Pollution summons visions…

San Francisco

San Francisco Travel Guide

San Francisco makes it wonderfully easy to tap into the Good Life. Between the hot arts scene, the tempting boutiques, the awesome bay views, and all those stellar, locally focused restaurants and wine bars, it’s the perfect place to indulge yourself.

San Francisco Sights

You could live in San Francisco a month and ask no greater entertainment…

Shanghai

Shanghai Travel Guide

As the most Westernized city in China after Hong Kong, Shanghai is on the cutting edge of China’s race for modernization. Almost a quarter of the world’s construction cranes stand in this city of 15 million. On the other hand, architectural remnants of a strong colonial past survive along the charming, winding, bustling streets that make this…

Philadelphia

Philadelphia Travel Guide

Historically speaking, Philadelphia is a city of superlatives: the world’s largest municipal park; the best collection of public art in the United States; the widest variety of urban architecture in America; and according to some experts, the greatest concentration of institutions of higher learning in the country.

Philadelphia Sights

Philadelphia is known as a city of neighborhoods (109 by…