Nestled in the rolling hills of Tuscany, Montepulciano is a quintessential Italian hill town that offers visitors a perfect blend of Renaissance architecture, fine wine, and stunning vistas. Famous for its Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, this town is a paradise for wine lovers. Touring local vineyards, such as Cantina Contucci, and sampling the region’s prestigious red wines is an experience that transports you into the heart of Tuscany’s wine heritage.
In the southern deserts of Peru, Nazca invites visitors to look beyond the horizon. This small city is world-famous for the mysterious Nazca Lines, enormous geoglyphs etched into the desert floor more than 1,500 years ago. From the air, shapes like hummingbirds, monkeys, and even a stylized astronaut come into view, some stretching over 300 meters. Their exact purpose remains a mystery, fueling decades of theories.
Cankuzo, tucked in Burundi’s eastern corner near the Tanzanian border, offers travelers a lesser-known but deeply rewarding experience. Known for its rolling hills, scattered woodlands, and untouched landscapes, Cankuzo is one of the country’s least populated provinces, which adds to its charm. The region’s peaceful setting makes it an ideal place to experience rural Burundi in its most genuine form.
Spello sits high on the slopes of Mount Subasio in the heart of Umbria, where visitors step into a place shaped by centuries of history. Each year, Spello’s streets become a living canvas during the Infiorate di Spello, a long-standing celebration tied to Corpus Christi. Residents work through the night before the feast to lay flower petals along the town’s main thoroughfares, creating patterns and images that stretch for over a mile.
Qatar invites discovery through both its modern ambition and traces of its desert heritage. In Doha, the Museum of Islamic Art, designed by I. M. Pei, rises over the waterfront to display centuries of calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, and metalwork. Nearby, the National Museum of Qatar presents the nation's story through exhibits and architecture shaped like the desert rose. Each space offers both insight and reflection.
Les Saintes (also known as Iles des Saintes) are perfect for the kind of traveler who relishes unspoiled tropical beauty and the serenity that comes from doing next to nothing on a vacation, but doing it à la française. While Guadeloupe's bustling epicenter, Pointe-à-Pitre, is just a l5-minute plane hop away, it seems continents apart from the eight pristine volcanic dots that comprise Les Saintes. There are about 3,000 inhabitants in the islands. About half of them live on Terre-de-Haut where only a few dozen four-wheeled vehicles travel its roads. There is just one doctor, and his home, designed to resemble a ship's bow, is something of a local landmark.