Travel

Places worth the effort of getting to.

Introduction to follow.

Wild places

To follow.

Cities

To follow.

Journeys

To follow.

Seas

To follow.

Wait for the train at the Slam Dunk crossing in Kamakura

What you remember afterwards isn't the train, small and green, already leaving, but the waiting: the barrier bell, the specific hush of thirty strangers holding phones still — and behind it all, the sea doing nothing dramatic.

Best time:Any season; clearest skies October–March, avoid the June rainy season
Cross Abbey Road on the white stripes like the Beatles

A black cab slows behind you, the driver's face unreadable, while you and four strangers from Ohio try to walk in step across the white stripes without looking like you're trying.

Best time:Any time of year, but early morning any day works best
Watch the sun clear the mountains from the Sun Gate above Machu Picchu

At 5:30 in the morning the stone steps are still wet and there's no one else on the trail, just your headlamp and the sound of your own breathing at 2,700 metres.

Best time:Dry season, May to September, for the best odds of clear skies
Photograph Table Mountain flat against the sky from Bloubergstrand

From the car park at Bloubergstrand the mountain sits dead level on the horizon, as if someone had sliced the top off with a ruler.

Best time:Autumn mornings (Apr–May) when the southeaster is calmer and cloud cover is less
Walk the torii tunnel at Fushimi Inari before the tour buses arrive

The first gate is not what you expect: vermillion paint still tacky at the edges, and beneath it, stencilled in white, the name of a noodle company you have never heard of.

Best time:Any time of year; spring and autumn give the mildest walking weather
Walk the Siq until the Treasury appears through the rock

Dust rises with every footstep, and somewhere ahead a donkey's hooves click on stone worn smooth by two thousand years of sandal leather.

Best time:March–May and September–November, for cooler walking weather
Sit on the bench where Forrest Gump waited with his box of chocolates

Chippewa Square is a quiet square with live oaks and Spanish moss, and every year a few visitors wander in looking for a bench that was never really there.

Best time:Spring or autumn, to avoid Savannah's summer heat and humidity
Walk the West Highland Way

By day three your feet have opinions of their own, and by day five you stop caring what you look like arriving at the pub in wet gaiters.

Best time:May to September, before autumn rain and after the worst of winter closures
Walk the Camino Frances to Santiago

At Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port a man sells chestnut walking sticks from a folding table, and by noon the fog on the first Pyrenees climb swallows the waymarks whole.

Best time:April to October, avoiding winter snow in the Pyrenees and summer's worst heat
Summit Kilimanjaro

Somewhere around 5,500 metres, most people stop being able to eat.

Best time:Dry seasons: January–March and June–October
Walk the Pennine Way end to end

Rain finds Cross Fell before you do, needling sideways at 893 metres, the highest point on the Pennine Way.

Best time:Late spring to early autumn, when moorland paths are driest and daylight is long
Trek the Torres del Paine circuit

The wind at Refugio Chileno hits sixty kilometres an hour and pins your jacket to your ribs before breakfast.

Best time:November to March, the southern summer
Sleep in a mountain refuge above the treeline

The dormitory at the rifugio held forty bunks, and every one had a body in it by eight.

Best time:Summer, when huts are staffed and fully open
Hike the Annapurna Circuit over the Thorong La pass

Your breath fogs the inside of your buff before dawn even breaks over Thorong Phedi.

Best time:Spring (Mar–May) or autumn (Sep–Nov) for clear skies and stable weather
Stand inside the Great Pyramid's King's Chamber

The queue at the ticket booth splits in two: one line for general entry, another—pricier—for the climb into the pyramid itself.

Best time:October to April, before midday heat sets in
Watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat's towers

The mud at the reflecting pool's edge is soft enough to lose a sandal in, and you will be standing in it before dawn with everyone else who read the same guidebook.

Best time:Dry season, cool mornings with clearer skies
Walk the full loop of Dubrovnik's city walls

Dubrovnik's walls have never fallen to an army, only to earthquakes and, once, Napoleon's paperwork.

Best time:Spring or autumn, and early morning any time of year
Watch the Parthenon floodlit from Filopappou Hill

There's a low, carved-out chamber near the top of Filopappou Hill that guidebooks call the Prison of Socrates, though nobody can prove he was ever held there.

Best time:Any time of year; go for the evening, not a particular month
Climb to Meteora before the mist clears

A monk building on top of a sandstone pillar in the 14th century wasn't chasing a view — he was trying to get away from people, and Meteora still works on that logic.

Best time:Spring and autumn mornings, when mist is common and crowds thinner
Walk the wagon-rutted streets of Pompeii

The wagon-ruts along Via dell'Abbondanza are worn pale and smooth in the stone, two grooves you can lay your foot into after two thousand years of cart wheels.

Best time:Spring or autumn, to avoid summer heat and crowds
Face the ranks of the Terracotta Army in Xi'an

A farmer's spade struck clay in the middle of a drought, 1974, where he expected to hit water instead.

Best time:Spring or autumn, to avoid summer heat and winter cold
Descend into the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela

A guide once told me the mistake people make is looking for a church on the skyline, when at Lalibela you should be looking down.

Best time:Dry season, especially around Genna, Ethiopian Christmas
Visit India

Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631, in childbirth, her fourteenth, and her husband spent the next twenty-one years building her a tomb instead of getting over it.

Best time:October to March, outside monsoon season
Visit Georgia

At some point in the evening a man you met an hour ago stands up, holds his glass at chest height, and talks for four minutes about your grandparents, whom he has never met and whose names he does not know.

Best time:Late spring and early autumn; mountain roads open roughly June to October
Sleep in a temple on Mount Koya

Koyasan is a mountain town of more than a hundred temples, and about fifty of them take guests.

Best time:All year; snow in winter
Walk the Kumano Kodo

Pilgrims have walked these forest paths on the Kii peninsula for about a thousand years, and the stone steps are worn into shallow bowls.

Best time:March to May, October to November
Visit Japan

What stays with you is how quiet a crowded place can be.

Best time:Late March to May, or October to November