United States
7 destinations to explore
Yellowstone National Park
United States
The ground hisses. Steam rises from cracks in the earth between patches of snow and pools the colour of boiled candy. Old Faithful is the famous one, but the smell of sulphur and the bubbling mud pots of the Norris Basin are what actually stay with you. This whole landscape sits on a supervolcano, and the park makes no effort to let you forget it.
Grand Canyon
United States
A mile-deep, 277-mile-long chasm carved by the Colorado River through layered red rock in northern Arizona — one of the most staggering landscapes on Earth and a US national park icon.
Glacier National Park
United States
The Going-to-the-Sun Road crests at Logan Pass and you pull over because you have to, not because there's a sign telling you to. Mountain goats stand on a snow patch twenty feet from the car, indifferent. The glaciers that named this park are mostly gone now, which the rangers will tell you plainly. What remains is jagged, vertical, and green in a way that feels almost aggressive after the flatness of Montana below.
Alaska
United States
The silence hits you first. Not quiet, actual silence, broken only by a glacier calving into grey water a kilometre away with the sound of a cannon shot. Alaska is the lower 48 states turned sideways and multiplied: moose in supermarket parking lots, brown bears fishing ankle-deep in salmon streams, and highways that simply end where the wilderness begins. It does not feel like the rest of America.
Yosemite National Park
United States
El Capitan appears before you're ready for it, a vertical mile of grey granite filling the windshield as you round the tunnel bend into Yosemite Valley. The scale is disorienting in the best way. Waterfalls thread down sheer walls, black bears wander through campgrounds with professional indifference, and at dusk the valley floor goes golden in a way that makes people stop mid-sentence.
Maui
United States
Hawaii's second-largest island is a paradise of diverse landscapes — from the lunar summit of Haleakalā volcano to the lush Road to Hana rainforest and the golden beaches of Kaanapali. Maui consistently ranks among the world's best islands.
New York City
United States
The largest city in the United States, a dense, fast-moving collection of distinct neighbourhoods across five boroughs. Home to landmark skylines, major museums, Broadway theatre, and food from every corner of the globe.