Travel Guides

5 Days in Žabljak

Montenegro's highest town, 18 glacial lakes and Europe's deepest canyon, planned for summer hiking and winter snow alike.

5 Days in Verbier

A freeride legend with 410 km of linked slopes and a lot of raclette. Five days in Verbier, four of them on skis, planned from the village.

5 Days in Val Gardena

Four ski days, one lap around the Sella massif and a valley where Ladin is the home language. Five days in the Dolomites.

Bases: Ortisei, Santa Cristina, Selva

5 Days in Val d'Isère and Tignes

300 km of pistes, two glaciers and a season from late November to early May. Five days across Val d'Isère and Tignes, one sector at a time.

Bases: Val d'Isère, Tignes

5 Days in St. Anton am Arlberg

Austria's biggest ski area, where alpine skiing was taught for the first time. Four ski days and one off, planned for good skiers.

Bases: St. Anton, Lech

5 Days in Sarajevo

Ottoman bazaar, the corner of 1914 and two Olympic ski mountains 30 km away. Five days in Sarajevo, with and without snow.

Bases: Jahorina, Bjelašnica

5 Days in Les 3 Vallées

600 km of pistes, 7 resorts and one pass. Five days across Courchevel, Méribel and Val Thorens, with honest notes on prices and snow.

Bases: Courchevel, Méribel, Val Thorens

5 Days in Kopaonik

Serbia's biggest ski resort, planned sector by sector: red runs, a few blacks, kafana lunches, night skiing and a day off the snow.

Bases: Konaci, Vikend Naselje, Brzeće

5 Days in Kolašin

Montenegro's unfinished ski town: cheap lift passes, no snow cannons, a primeval forest and a 13th-century monastery down the road.

Bases: Kolašin, Kolašin 1600

5 Days in Kitzbühel

A medieval town under the most famous downhill in the world. Four ski days and one town day, with the snow question answered honestly.

5 Days in Cortina d'Ampezzo

Three ski areas that don't quite join up, an Olympic past that just got a second chapter, and one very expensive main street.

5 Days in Chamonix

Four ski areas that don't touch, the highest cable car in France and a glacier you reach by train. Five days in Chamonix, planned properly.

Bases: Chamonix, Argentière

5 Days in Bansko

Bulgaria's biggest ski resort, planned day by day: three ski days, a stone Old Town, Rila Monastery and a soak in hot springs.

Bases: Bansko, Dobrinishte

5 Days in Sithonia

The calm middle leg of Halkidiki: long sandy beaches, pine hills and Mount Athos on the horizon. Five outings from one base.

Bases: Nikiti, Neos Marmaras, Vourvourou, Sarti, Toroni

5 Days in Rhodes

A walled medieval town, a white village under an acropolis and sandy bays. Five days on Rhodes, planned around the October season.

3 Days in Mykonos

A car-free white town, the sacred island of Delos and beaches that go quiet in October. Three days, planned properly.

5 Days in Tallinn

Hanseatic walls, Soviet concrete and a startup scene, all in one small capital. Five days in Tallinn, planned properly.

5 Days in Prague

Gothic towers, serious beer and a dry sense of humor. Five days in Prague, planned so the crowds work for you instead of against you.

5 Days in Ohrid

Fewer churches than the legend says, and better ones than you expect. Five days in Ohrid, built around real opening hours.

5 Days in Nuremberg

An imperial city, a rally city and a trial city, rebuilt on red beer, bratwurst and gingerbread. Five days in Franconia's biggest city.

5 Days in Munich

Beer halls, royal palaces and a surf wave in a city park. Five days in Bavaria's capital, planned around real opening hours.

5 Days in Leipzig

Bach's city, the cradle of 1989 and a beer that tastes of salt. Five days in Saxony's liveliest city, planned properly.

5 Days in Heidelberg

A castle ruin, the oldest university in Germany and a Neckar valley full of wine. Five days in Germany's romantic old town.

5 Days in Hamburg

Brick warehouses, harbor ferries, Sunday fish and the Reeperbahn after dark. Five days in Germany's Hanseatic port, planned properly.

5 Days in Freiburg

A university town at the edge of the Black Forest, with water in the gutters, wine on the hills and mountains on the tram map.

5 Days in Dresden

A city that was flattened, rebuilt after 1945 and still looks like a painting. Five days in Saxony's capital, planned properly.

5 Days in Cologne

A cathedral, a Roman colony and a beer served in 0.2 liter glasses. Five days in Cologne, planned properly.

5 Days in Berlin

A capital that was cut in two for 28 years and is still rebuilding itself. Five days in Berlin, planned properly.

5 Days in Zlatibor

Pine-covered hills, a gondola nine kilometers long, and the cheese, kajmak and pršut Serbs drive for hours to buy. Five days in the west.

5 Days in Vrnjačka Banja

Serbia's favorite spa: warm springs you drink from, a river promenade of twenty-odd bridges, a forested mountain and the great monasteries.

5 Days in Veliko Tarnovo

The medieval capital of Bulgaria, stacked on the cliffs above a looping river. Five days of tsars, painted churches and Revival-era crafts.

5 Days in Varna

The oldest gold ever found, Roman baths by the port, a park the size of a town and the Black Sea at its feet. Five days on Bulgaria's coast.

5 Days in Szeged

A city the Tisza wiped out in one night in 1879, rebuilt in Art Nouveau and paprika red.

5 Days in Sofia

Roman streets in the metro, gold domes, socialist statues and a mountain at the end of the tram line. Five days in Bulgaria's capital.

5 Days in Sibiu

A Saxon town whose rooftops watch you through half-closed eyes, with shepherd villages and fortified churches all around.

5 Days in Plovdiv

Thousands of years on seven hills, a Roman theater still in use and a whole city that runs on aylyak. Five days in Bulgaria's second city.

5 Days in Niš

The city where Constantine was born, a tower built of skulls and a burek tradition older than any other in Serbia. Five days in the south.

5 Days in Kosovo and Metohija

The cradle of medieval Serbia, its greatest monasteries still under guard. Five days in the province, and the history behind it.

5 Days in Eger

A baroque town that held off an Ottoman army, then spent the next centuries digging wine cellars into its hills.

5 Days in Cluj-Napoca

Transylvania's student capital, Romanian and Hungarian at once, with a salt mine down the road that has a Ferris wheel inside.

5 Days in Budapest

Two cities on one river, thermal water under both, and a hundred years of history you can still see on the walls.

5 Days in Bucharest

Belle Époque palaces, a dictator's concrete dream and the best mici in Romania, all in one loud, likable capital.

5 Days in Istanbul

Two continents, three empires and a ferry ride between them. Five days in Istanbul, planned properly.

5 Days in Cappadocia

Fairy chimneys, painted cave churches and a sky full of balloons. Five days in Cappadocia, planned properly.

5 Days in Athens

The Acropolis, a lot of marble and even more souvlaki. Five days in the city that invented democracy, planned properly.

5 Days in Antalya

Roman gates, mountain ruins and a sea that stays warm into November. Five days in Antalya, planned properly.

5 Days in Wrocław

A German city that became Polish in 1945, on a dozen islands with a bronze dwarf on every corner. Five days, planned properly.

5 Days in Warsaw

A capital destroyed on purpose and rebuilt by hand, with the best museums in Poland. Five days in Warsaw, planned properly.

5 Days in Gdańsk

A Hanseatic port rebuilt from rubble, where the war began and communism started to end. Five days on the Baltic, planned properly.

5 Days in York

Romans, Vikings, a cathedral the size of a town and a pub for every day of the year. Five days in York and a day by the sea.

5 Days in Vienna

An empire's capital that kept the palaces, the cake and the manners. Five days in Vienna, with a day on the Danube.

5 Days in Salzburg

A prince-archbishop's baroque capital, built on salt and remembered for Mozart. Five days in Salzburg and the lakes and mountains around it.

5 Days in Oxford

Eight centuries of scholars, three dozen colleges, a river for punting and a pub for every great writer. Five days in Oxford.

5 Days in London

Two thousand years of history, free museums, a pub on every corner and a river through the middle. Five days in London, without the queues.

5 Days in Liverpool

A great port, two cathedrals, two football clubs and the band that changed everything. Five days in Liverpool, and a pint at the Phil.

5 Days in Innsbruck

An emperor's town at the bottom of a mountain wall. Five days in Innsbruck, half of them in the old town and half above it.

5 Days in Graz

Austria's second city, with a Renaissance old town, a friendly alien on the river and pumpkin seed oil on everything. Five days in Graz.

5 Days in Bath

A Roman spa, a Georgian stage set and the only hot springs in Britain. Five days in Bath and a trip to Stonehenge.

5 Days in Gothenburg

Dutch canals, giant cinnamon buns, Sweden's best seafood and islands on a tram ticket. Five days in Sweden's harbor city.

5 Days in Venice

A city built on water that shouldn't exist and somehow still does. Five days to see past the crowds and find the Venice Venetians live in.

5 Days in Valencia

A Gothic old town, futuristic white architecture, a park where a river used to be, the beach and the home of paella.

5 Days in Utrecht

A medieval canal city with cafés at water level, a tower you can see from everywhere and the whole country within an hour by train.

5 Days in Tromsø

An island city 350 km north of the Arctic Circle, with northern lights in winter and the midnight sun in summer. Five days in Tromsø.

5 Days in Stockholm

Fourteen islands, a sunken warship, a medieval old town and the best cinnamon buns in the world. Five days in Sweden's capital.

5 Days in Seville

Orange trees, Moorish palaces, tapas at the bar and flamenco after dark. Five days in the most Andalusian city of all.

5 Days in Rovaniemi

A town burned in 1944 and rebuilt in the shape of a reindeer's antlers, on the Arctic Circle. Five days in Finnish Lapland.

5 Days in Rotterdam

The Dutch city that was bombed flat in 1940 and rebuilt itself as Europe's boldest playground of modern architecture.

5 Days in Pécs

Hungary's southern city: Roman tombs, Ottoman domes, glazed Zsolnay roofs and a wine country half an hour away.

5 Days in Oslo

A fjord at the bottom of the street, a forest at the end of the metro and a new waterfront of museums. Five days in Norway's capital.

5 Days in Nice

The capital of the Riviera: a Baroque old town, a pebble beach seven kilometers long and Monaco twenty minutes away by train.

5 Days in Naples

Loud, beautiful, chaotic and generous. Five days in the city that gave the world pizza, with Pompeii and Vesuvius on the doorstep.

5 Days in Maastricht

The most southern, most Burgundian and least Dutch-feeling city in the Netherlands, with Belgium and Germany a short ride away.

5 Days in Lyon

France's capital of food, on two rivers, with Roman theaters, secret passages and Beaujolais an hour up the road.

5 Days in Inverness

The last battle, the most famous loch, dolphins in the firth and a fiddle in every pub. Five days in the capital of the Highlands.

5 Days in Helsinki

A white Empire-style capital on the Baltic, a fortress on six islands and a sauna on every shore. Five days in Finland's capital.

5 Days in Granada

The last Moorish kingdom in Europe, a palace like nothing else, free tapas with every drink and the snowy Sierra Nevada behind it all.

5 Days in Glasgow

Free museums, red sandstone, Mackintosh, curry and a gig every night. Five days in Scotland's biggest and friendliest city.

5 Days in Galway

Buskers on Shop Street, a session in every pub and the Atlantic at the end of the road. Five days in the west of Ireland.

5 Days in Florence

The city where the Renaissance began, small enough to cross on foot in half an hour and too rich to see in a week.

5 Days in Edinburgh

A castle on a volcano, a medieval spine, a Georgian New Town and a pub on every close. Five days in Scotland's capital.

5 Days in Dublin

Georgian squares, rebel history, writers in every pub and a pint that tastes better here. Five days in Ireland's capital.

5 Days in Cork

A market, a harbor, two stouts that aren't Guinness and a city that calls itself the real capital. Five days in Ireland's south.

5 Days in Cardiff

A Victorian castle, Welsh cakes from the griddle, rugby on a Saturday and the sea at the end of the street. Five days in the Welsh capital.

5 Days in Brașov

A Saxon merchant town under a forested mountain, with castles, bears and fortified churches all within an hour.

5 Days in Bordeaux

A city of pale stone built on wine money, with Saint-Émilion and the Atlantic each less than an hour away.

5 Days in Bergen

A Hanseatic wharf, seven mountains, a lot of rain and the fjords on the doorstep. Five days in Norway's west coast capital.

5 Days in Belfast

The city that built the Titanic, lived through the Troubles and now pours one of the best pints in Ireland. Five days in Belfast.

5 Days in Thessaloniki

Roman emperors, Byzantine gold, a lost Jewish city and the best breakfast in Greece. Five days in Thessaloniki, planned properly.

5 Days in Heraklion

Minoan palaces, Venetian walls, bougatsa at the Lions and raki that arrives without asking. Five days in Crete's capital, planned properly.

5 Days in Corfu

A Venetian town the Ottomans never took, cricket on the main square and pastitsada on Sunday. Five days in Corfu, planned properly.

5 Days in Kraków

A royal city the war left standing, a Jewish town Nazi Germany destroyed, and a lot of pierogi. Five days in Kraków, planned properly.

5 Days in İzmir

Turkey's most easygoing big city, on a gulf that turns orange every evening. Five days in İzmir, planned properly.

5 Days in Belgrade

Two rivers, one fortress, late nights and a lot of grilled meat. Five days in Serbia's capital, planned properly.