From Japan's shrines to Jordan's rose-red city: a continent of ancient routes and living cultures.
A hillside temple on a wooden stage, reached through preserved lanes of tea houses and craft shops. Go early, before the tour groups, for the quiet.
A stretch of the old Edo-period trunk road through cedar forest, linking two post towns where wooden inns still stand. A gentle half-day walk.
A small island where museums, houses and outdoor works sit among fishing hamlets. Pair it with neighbouring Teshima for a two-day art trail.
A mountaintop monastic town with a vast forest cemetery leading to the mausoleum of Kobo Daishi. Visitors can stay in temple lodgings and join morning prayers.
A mossy cedar forest on a rainy southern island, with ancient trees and trails that inspired a famous animated film. Rain is the rule, not the exception.
Villages of steep, thatched farmhouses in a snowy mountain valley, still lived in. Staying overnight shows the place after the day-trip buses leave.
A wild peninsula of brown bears, sea eagles and drift ice, where boat trips show a coastline with few roads.
A small island group west of Okinawa with very clear water, coral reefs and turtles, reached by a short ferry from Naha.
A Silla-era temple and a granite grotto Buddha on a nearby ridge, the clearest surviving picture of a thousand-year-old Korean kingdom.
A volcanic island with a crater-topped mountain and a network of coastal walking paths that pass tangerine farms, sea cliffs and haenyeo diver villages.
A river-bend clan village of tiled and thatched houses where families still live, with a mask dance tradition performed nearby.
A palace with a hidden rear garden beside a hillside of hanok houses, in a capital that mixes royal history with cafes and night markets.
The Ming and Qing imperial palace, best paired with a slow walk through the surrounding lane neighbourhoods and a meal of regional dishes.
Thousands of hand-built terraces of the Hani people stepping down mountain slopes, with markets in nearby villages.
Tall sandstone pillars rising from forested gorges, reached by trails, lifts and glass walkways. Weekdays outside holidays are far calmer.
Granite peaks with twisted pines above sea-of-cloud views, and nearby Huizhou villages with ponds, carved gateways and ancestral halls.
A valley of travertine pools and Tibetan villages in the northern Sichuan mountains, with a second site of terraced calcite pools nearby.
A Silk Road oasis city with a long trading history. Visitors should read current advisories and travel with a registered operator.
A marble gorge cut by the Liwu River, with cliff-side paths, tunnels and temples. Some trails need permits and rockfall checks.
A narrow-gauge mountain railway into a cypress forest reserve, with tea country around it and sunrise from a ridge.
An island group a few kilometres off the Chinese coast, with fortified tunnels, Minnan-style villages and a strong food tradition of sorghum liquor and oyster omelettes.
A river valley of grassland, waterfalls and the old Mongol capital ruins at Karakorum, with herder families offering ger stays.
The singing dunes, red sandstone cliffs and fossil sites of the southern Gobi, crossed by camel herders on long desert tracks.
A fishing village of stilt houses at the western end of Lantau, reached by hiking the island trail or a short bus ride.
The ruined brick-and-stucco capital of a kingdom that traded across Asia, spread across river islands you can tour by bike or boat.
A walled northern capital of temples, cooking schools and markets, with a hill temple above the town reached by a long stair.
One of the oldest rainforests on earth, with limestone karsts and a lake where floating bungalows offer guided dawn boat trips.
A mountain road circuit with a thousand-plus curves, passing Shan temples, hot springs and hill-tribe villages near the Myanmar border.
A cluster of islands near the Malaysian border with clear water and coral, much quieter than the busier Andaman resorts.
A merchant port of timber shophouses and assembly halls on a river, with a strong food scene and tailors.
A highland circuit past terraced valleys, limestone peaks and ethnic minority markets near the Chinese border, usually travelled over three days.
Limestone islands rising from green water, best seen on a small boat in the quieter Lan Ha area rather than in the central tourist channels.
A national park of enormous caves and river systems, including Son Doong. Cheaper options such as Paradise and Dark Cave suit most visitors.
A web of canals and orchards in the south where boats sell produce at dawn, reached by a small-boat tour and homestays in orchard villages.
The Khmer capital’s temples across a vast forested plain, from Angkor Wat to Bayon and the tree-grown ruin of Ta Prohm.
Two quieter Khmer sites: a short-lived capital with a stepped pyramid, and a collapsed jungle temple that you can scramble through.
A river town of temples and French-era houses where the dawn alms procession is a living practice, best watched from a respectful distance.
Slow river islands on the Mekong near the Cambodian border, with waterfalls and rare freshwater dolphin habitat.
A ninth-century Buddhist monument and a Hindu temple complex on the Yogyakarta plain, both still used for ceremonies.
Dry islands where the Komodo dragon lives, with exceptional reefs and manta rays in the surrounding channels.
Highland villages known for boat-shaped houses and elaborate funeral ceremonies. Visit with a local guide and ask before attending any rite.
Island groups with some of the most diverse coral reefs known, visited from homestays or small boats run with local communities.
Bali’s arts centre in terraced rice country, with dance, craft villages and temples, best seen on foot at the edges of the town.
A port city of clan houses, shophouses and hawker stalls that records centuries of Chinese, Malay, Indian and European settlement.
A very old lowland rainforest with canopy walkways, river trips and hides for spotting tapir and elephant signs.
A park with vast caves, limestone pinnacles and a nightly bat exodus, reached by small plane or river.
A lowland river where boat safaris show proboscis monkeys, orangutans and hornbills between oil palm and forest.
A compact city with a long food culture of hawker centres and a skyline of conservatory gardens, easy to cover on foot and by train.
Terraces built by Ifugao communities, linked by trails to villages such as Batad. Hire a local guide and keep to footpaths.
A navigable river flowing through a limestone cave to the sea, in a protected forest park reached by boat from the coast.
Quiet central Visayas islands, with a community-run marine sanctuary where green turtles feed over sea grass.
A Spanish-era colonial town of cobbled streets, paired with a small-boat route through an island group on the Lingayen coast.
A large water village of homes on stilts opposite the capital, with a river taxi for visits and a landmark mosque nearby.
A small island a ferry ride from Dili, with reef snorkelling off simple guesthouses and community arts and weaving.
A multi-week trek around a Himalayan massif crossing a 5,416 m pass. Road works have shortened parts, but the high section is still demanding.
The reputed birthplace of the Buddha, with the Maya Devi temple, an Ashoka pillar and a garden of monasteries from many countries.
A medieval Newar city of potters’ squares, carved temples and pagodas, still a working town and rebuilding after the 2015 earthquake.
Lowland grassland and forest with greater one-horned rhino and Bengal tiger, visited by jeep and canoe with local naturalists.
A walled Tibetan-culture town in a high desert valley, with cliff caves and monasteries along the old salt trade route.
A monastery set on a cliff above the Paro valley, reached by a steady two-hour climb through pine forest.
A glacial valley where black-necked cranes winter, with a hilltop monastery and a nature trail through blue pine.
A central-Bhutan cluster of valleys with some of the oldest temples and monasteries in the country, and a festival calendar to match.
A fifth-century rock fortress with gardens and frescoes, best paired with a sunrise climb of neighbouring Pidurangala for the view of the rock.
A Dutch-built ramparted town still lived in, with streets of shops, mosques and churches and a coast on every side.
A slow hill-country railway through tea estates and cloud forest, often a full day’s journey from Kandy to Ella.
Two reserves with leopards, elephants and sloth bears. Wilpattu is quieter and has natural lakes in its forest.
An atoll with manta and whale shark aggregation at Hanifaru Bay, reachable on local-island guesthouses as well as resorts.
The Bangladeshi part of the largest mangrove forest on earth, explored by boat for deer, crocodiles and, rarely, tigers.
A high valley of apricot orchards, forts and glacier views along the Karakoram Highway, with villages that welcome visitors.
A planned city of the Indus civilisation about 4,500 years old, with brick streets and drains laid out on a grid.
Three tiled madrasas around a square in a city that was a Silk Road crossroads, with Shah-i-Zinda’s tomb lane and Gur-e-Amir nearby.
A walled desert oasis town of turquoise minarets and carved wooden columns, small enough to walk in an afternoon.
A museum with a huge collection of banned Soviet avant-garde art, and a long drive to the Muynak ship cemetery on the former Aral shore.
A high alpine lake where herding families summer, with yurt stays and horse trekking across open pasture at 3,000 m.
A town at the east end of Issyk-Kul lake and the base for hikes to alpine hot springs through spruce forests.
A red sandstone canyon cut by the Charyn River, with a walking path down to the valley floor of rock formations.
A fourteenth-century mausoleum of a Sufi poet, still a pilgrimage site, in a city that once was a key Silk Road stop.
A steppe park with a sand dune that hums in dry weather, painted hills and rock-carved Saka burial mounds.
Turquoise lakes strung along a valley and high passes for multi-day treks, reached from Penjikent over rough roads.
A high-altitude road across the Pamirs with Afghan villages visible across the Panj river, forts and hot springs along the way.
A burning natural-gas pit in the Karakum desert, usually seen on a night camp along with Konye-Urgench.
A Nabataean city carved in rose-coloured sandstone, entered through a narrow siq and spread over valleys. Plan two days to see the upper trails.
A red desert valley of sandstone mountains, camped in with Bedouin hosts who run jeep, camel and walking routes.
A reserve of rocky valleys and a stone village, with walking trails to Feynan Ecolodge and a route towards Petra.
Red dunes with Bedouin-run desert camps and a nearby green wadi with freshwater pools, easy to combine in a short eastern loop.
A round-tower fort and Friday goat market beside the old date-palm oasis, with a mountain road to terraced villages.
A white marble mosque with one of the largest handwoven carpets, open to visitors of any faith who dress respectfully.
A date-palm oasis with an irrigation system many centuries old, mud-brick forts and a mountain road with desert views.
A volcanic plateau of rock-cut churches, cave houses and valleys, best explored on foot rather than only from the air.
Colossal stone heads on a first-century BCE royal tomb summit, best at sunrise after a short climb from the car park.
A hillside town of golden limestone houses above the Mesopotamian plain, with Syriac monasteries and a mixed Arab, Kurdish and Assyrian cuisine.
A river-gorge capital of carved wooden balconies, sulphur baths and wine cellars, with a strong tradition of supra feasts.
High Caucasus villages of medieval stone defensive towers, linked by a multi-day trail through meadows below glacier peaks.
A monastery partly cut into a cliff and a first-century Hellenistic temple above a gorge, a short drive from Yerevan.
A ninth-century monastery on a gorge edge in southern Armenia, reached by a long aerial tramway across the canyon.
A mountain-foot town with a stained-glass summer palace of the khans and a caravanserai inn, known for its layered sweet piti stew and halva.
A desert valley with Nabataean tombs at Hegra, an old mud-brick town and sandstone canyons, now open with a tourist visa.
A vast Safavid-era square with a mosque, a palace and a bazaar, one of the best-preserved Persian city plans.
A tell with layers of settlement over four millennia, with a route of merchant houses that traces the island’s pearl trade.
A museum with a wide Islamic art collection on the waterfront, next to a rebuilt market quarter of spice shops and restaurants.
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How we chose. This is an editorial selection, in no particular order and not a ranking. Places are grouped by sub-region. Descriptions are written in our own words from public sources; seasons, permits, access and safety advisories change — approximate, verify before you travel. Last reviewed 2026-11-10. Your ticks are saved only on this device.
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