Travel Bucket List

Terraced turquoise lakes and waterfalls.

Ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire.

The 1410 clock on Prague’s Old Town Square, where the Twelve Apostles parade every hour and Death rings the bell.

The world's largest car-free old city.

Medieval canals and the Ghent Altarpiece.

The Nguyen emperors’ walled citadel and the royal tombs along the Perfume River, Vietnam’s answer to the Forbidden City.

Vietnam’s beach resort capital — a long city beach, island snorkelling trips and Cham towers on the hill.

Morocco's blue-painted mountain town.

The largest ancient castle complex in the world, with St Vitus Cathedral, the Golden Lane cottages and the hourly guard change.

Thirty-six guild streets of scooters, street kitchens and colonial shophouses around Hoan Kiem Lake.

Nine giant steel spheres from Expo 58 — Brussels’ space-age landmark.

Prague’s 14th-century stone bridge lined with 30 baroque saints — walk it at dawn before the crowds and buskers arrive.

Riverside town squeezed between the Meuse and a citadel-topped cliff.

The "museum without walls": grassy royal burial mounds, the Cheomseongdae observatory and Silla-dynasty treasures across the town.

Lonely 14th-century church beneath Mount Kazbek — Georgia’s most photographed view.

Ancient rock-hewn town on the Silk Road, inhabited from the Iron Age.

Eighth-century Buddhist temple of stone pagodas and painted halls, paired with the Seokguram grotto Buddha above it.

Ruined former Siamese capital, UNESCO-listed.

Twelfth-century monastery city carved storey upon storey into a cliff face.

One of Shinto’s holiest shrines, said to house the sacred sword of the imperial regalia, set in a 1,000-year-old camphor forest.

The torch-bearing symbol of New York.

Buddhist temple where three million people come at New Year to ward off bad luck — and where the incense-smoke ritual is part of the visit.

The Arctic capital - aurora overhead, cathedral on the water, sun gone until January.

Polar bears outnumber people on an archipelago closer to the pole than to Oslo.

Ninety degrees north - every direction is south and there is no land underneath you.