THE AMERICAS
The Americas
From national parks to Andean cities, learn the rules for tipping, driving and Indigenous sacred sites.
City guides
Start with a city
Every city guide has a timeline, stories of local figures, must-see sights, festivals and local etiquette.
New York City
New York
5 places
From New Amsterdam to five boroughs: a world capital written by immigrants
.jpg?width=800)
San Francisco
San Francisco
2 places
A bay city made by the gold rush: the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars and Alcatraz
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
2 places
City of the Queen of the Angels: Hollywood, beaches and endless freeways
Honolulu
Honolulu
3 places
The old capital of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi: Waikīkī, Diamond Head and Pearl Harbor
Ciudad de México
Mexico City
3 places
An Aztec capital built on a lake: a city of palaces grown from the ruins of Tenochtitlan
Cancún
Cancún
2 places
From a fishing island with three residents to a Caribbean resort city, with Maya ruins nearby
Qosqo · Cusco
Cusco
2 places
Capital of the Inca Empire: Spanish churches built on Inca stone walls
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
3 places
A carnival city between mountains and sea: Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf and Ipanema
New Orleans · La Nouvelle-Orléans
New Orleans
3 places
A French old town on a bend of the Mississippi: jazz, Creole food and Mardi Gras
Ville de Québec
Quebec City
2 places
A walled French-speaking old city on the St Lawrence: where New France began
.jpg?width=800)
Yellowknife
Yellowknife
1 places
A gold-mining town on Great Slave Lake: Dene land and the northern lights
Grand Canyon
Earth's growth rings carved by the Colorado River over two billion years — the crown of America's national parks
Old Quebec
North America's only walled city: an old world with French charm
Chichén Itzá
The Maya's sacred city of astronomy, a pyramid where the Feathered Serpent descends at the equinox
Tulum
A Mayan city on a Caribbean cliff, where ancient civilisation meets a turquoise sea
Christ the Redeemer, Rio
Christ with open arms: the soul of Brazil on the summit of Corcovado
Iguazú Falls
A thunderous symphony of 275 cascades — the world's widest waterfall
.jpg?width=800)
Amazon rainforest
A green ocean, the lungs of the Earth — the ultimate sanctuary of biodiversity
Perito Moreno Glacier
A living glacier still advancing: the thunderous spectacle of ice crashing into the lake
Machu Picchu
The Inca Empire's 'city in the sky', a lost city in the clouds of the Andes
Nazca Lines
An alien canvas on the desert: the mystery of 2,000-year-old giant geoglyphs
Salar de Uyuni
A 10,000-km² sky mirror — the world's largest salt flat
%2C_Grand_Prismatic_Spring_--_2022_--_2514.jpg?width=800)
Yellowstone National Park
The world's first national park: a wilderness epic of geysers and bison
.jpg?width=800)
Easter Island
A lonely island watched over by 887 moai: a mysterious civilisation in the middle of the Pacific
Statue of Liberty
The light of liberty given by France in 1886: the welcoming goddess of New York Harbor
Times Square
'The Crossroads of the World': the neon-lit, crowded heart of New York
%2C_Hollywood_Boulevard%2C_Bing_Crosby_--_2012_--_5009.jpg?width=800)
Hollywood Walk of Fame
A Walk of Fame paved with 2,700 stars: the dream factory of the film capital
-L1004709.jpg?width=800)
Waikīkī, Hawaiʻi
The smiling beaches of the Rainbow State, birthplace of surfing under blue skies
Golden Gate Bridge
A suspension rainbow in International Orange: San Francisco's calling card
Niagara Falls
Thundering water on the US–Canada border, one of the world's three great waterfalls
Banff National Park
Sapphires of the Rockies: the mirror worlds of Lake Louise and Moraine Lake
Hawaiian poke
'Poke' simply means 'to cut' in Hawaiian: fishermen's offcuts mixed with salt and candlenut as a snack.
Feijoada (Brazilian black-bean stew)
Black beans slow-cooked with pork, blending Portuguese, African and Indigenous food; Brazilians eat it on Saturdays.
Poutine
A 1950s invention from rural Quebec that went from object of ridicule to cultural symbol.
New York bagel
A bread ring that's boiled and then baked, brought to New York by Polish Jewish immigrants.
New Orleans beignets
Square fried dough brought by French colonists, with café au lait made with chicory.
.jpg?width=800)
Peruvian ceviche
Peru's national dish, recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
Tacos al pastor
The kebab spit brought by Lebanese immigrants became a pork taco with pineapple in Mexico.
Sacsayhuamán
The Inca megalithic walls north of Cusco: huge stones fitted so tightly without mortar that you can't slip a coin between them.
French Quarter
New Orleans' old town: ironwork balconies, street jazz — and most of the houses were actually built under Spanish rule.
Sugarloaf Mountain
A 396-m granite peak at the mouth of the bay; ride the cable car, opened in 1912, for a panorama of Rio.
Teotihuacan
The Pyramids of the Sun and Moon: the largest city of the pre-Columbian Americas, which even the Aztecs revered as a sacred ancestral site.
.jpg?width=800)
USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor
A white memorial over the wreck of a sunken battleship; the surprise attack of 7 December 1941 changed the course of the Second World War.
.jpg?width=800)
Hollywood Sign
Originally just a real-estate advert reading 'HOLLYWOODLAND', meant to stand for only a year and a half.
Alcatraz
The federal prison that held Al Capone; three inmates who escaped in 1962 were never found.
Ellis Island Immigration Museum
Between 1892 and 1954 about 12 million immigrants were inspected on this small island before setting foot in America.
Central Park
843 acres of green in the middle of Manhattan, the breakthrough work of Frederick Law Olmsted, father of American landscape architecture.
New Orleans Mardi Gras
February 9, 2027
Purple, green and gold floats, and the beads thrown from them caught by outstretched hands: New Orleans' liveliest carnival before Lent.
Day of the Dead
November 1 – 2, 2026
Marigolds pave the way home, and altars hold the dead's favourite foods: Mexicans welcome their departed loved ones with reunion.