The Philippines holds a festival almost every week, from drum-led street dances for the Santo Niño in January to a Christmas lantern show in December. This guide to Festivals in Philippines starts with five major celebrations, then covers the four festivals readers search for most, Ati-Atihan, the banana festivals, the Giant Lantern Festival and the […]
A granite rock shaped like a giant egg rises beside the Hyderabad–Warangal highway about 50 km from Hyderabad, and a medieval fort sits on top of it. The Bhongir Fort trek climbs steps and sloping rock to a ruined citadel, usually in about an hour, and is one of the most popular short outings from […]
Wisconsin packs a sandstone river gorge, a Gilded Age lake resort, a lighthouse-studded peninsula and a national lakeshore on Lake Superior into one state, with Milwaukee and Madison between them. This guide to places to visit in Wisconsin starts with five anchors, then covers the Wisconsin Dells in three ways, Lake Geneva, Door County, trip types, […]
Kalimpong sits on a ridge at about 1,247 meters, between Deolo Hill and Durpin Hill, with the Teesta River below and Kanchenjunga visible on clear days, according to Wikipedia. The things to do in Kalimpong range from hilltop viewpoints and centuries-old gompas to cactus nurseries, colonial bungalows, and a day trip into forest villages near […]
Wayanad’s treks run from a short grassy climb for sunrise to a two-day push to a ridge above a dam, with tea estates, shola forest, and a heart-shaped lake along the way. This guide to the Wayanad trek scene covers five trails, the permits and fees, preparation, the full list of trekking places, a pick-by-level, […]
Europe’s summer calendar runs from a Barcelona indie weekend in early June to an electronic week in Croatia in late August, and most of the big names sell tickets months ahead. This guide to festivals in Europe picks five to plan around, lays out a 2027 calendar, and then looks at three things readers search […]
It is hard to overstate how little rain falls in northern Chile. Wikipedia calls the Atacama Desert the driest non-polar desert in the world and says some weather stations there have never recorded rain. It is also a landscape of salt flats, geysers, red valleys, coastal fog, and some of the clearest night skies on […]
Matara is a busy commercial city on Sri Lanka’s southern coast, about 160 km from Colombo, and it is often treated as a stop on the way to somewhere else. Look closer and it has a Portuguese and Dutch fort, a star-shaped fort, a lighthouse at the island’s southernmost point, a tunnel temple and a […]
Mandvi is a port town on the Kutch coast that has built wooden ships for roughly 400 years, has a golden-brown beach lined with camels and windmills, and keeps a 1929 palace of the Kutch maharajas by the sea. It also sits in the same region as the Great Rann, which is where the topic […]
Vietnam’s festival calendar runs on the lunar calendar, which means the biggest nights land on the full moon. In Hoi An, motorbikes leave the old town, the electric lights go off and silk lanterns and candle floats take over, and in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City entire streets sell lanterns before Mid-Autumn. This guide […]