Sights in North America
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Dog Beach
The real action in Ocean Beach, of course, lies on the sands. Just north of the half-mile-long Ocean Beach Pier is the headquarters for the beach scene, with volleyball courts and sunset barbecues. Further up you'll reach Dog Beach, where pooches can run unleashed around the marshy area. A few blocks south of the pier, you'll find Sunset Cliffs Park, a great spot to watch the sun dipping below the horizon.
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Shelburne Museum
On a 45-acre estate, 7 miles south of Burlington in Shelburne, this museum boasts a stellar collection of American folk art, New England architecture and, well, just about everything. The wildly eclectic collection ranges from an early American sawmill to the Lake Champlain side-wheeler steamship Ticonderoga. How's that for lawn decor?
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Classical Chinese Gardens
The Classical Chinese Garden is a one-block haven of tranquillity, reflecting ponds and manicured greenery. Free tours are available with admission.
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Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park includes the following sights: MH de Young Museum, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco Botanical Garden, Japanese Tea Garden, Conservatory of Flowers and Stow Lake.
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Radio City Music Hall
A spectacular art deco diva, this 5901-seat movie palace was the brainchild of vaudeville producer Samuel Lionel 'Roxy' Rothafel. Never one for understatement, Roxy launched his venue on 23 December 1932 with an over-the-top extravaganza that included a Symphony of the Curtains (starring... you guessed it... the curtains), and the high-kick campness of precision dance troupe the Roxyettes (mercifully renamed the Rockettes),
For a real treat, join a one-hour guided tour of the sumptuous interiors, designed by Donald Deskey. But first, eye-up the building's 50th St facade, where Hildreth Meière's whimsical brass rondels represent (from left to right) dance, drama and song.…
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Museum of Modern Art
Founded in 1929, MoMA is one of NYC’s most popular museums, home to more than 100,000 pieces of modern artwork, most by A-listers – Van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rothko, Pollock, Bourgeois and many others. It’s dedicated to showcasing artwork based on the emerging creative ideas of the late 19th century through to those that dominate today. It’s easy to get lost in the vast collection for an entire day; if you want to maximize your time and create a plan of attack ahead of time, download the museum’s floor plan and visitor guide from the website beforehand. MoMA's permanent collection spans four levels, with prints, illustrated books and the unmissable…
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Ellis Island
An icon of mythical proportions for the descendents of those who passed through here, this island and its hulking building served as New York’s main immigration station from 1892 until 1954, processing the amazing number of 12,000 individuals daily, from countries including Ireland, England, Germany and Austria. The process involved getting the once-over by doctors, being assigned new names if their own were too difficult to spell or pronounce, and basically getting the green light to start their new, hopeful and often frighteningly difficult lives here in the teeming city of New York. In its later years, after WWI and during the paranoia of the ‘Red Scare’ in this…
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Metairie Cemetery
Visiting other New Orleans cemeteries doesn’t quite prepare you for the architectural splendor and over-the-top extravagance of Metairie Cemetery. Established in 1872 on a former race track (the grounds, you’ll notice, still follow the oval layout), this is the most American of New Orleans’ cities of the dead and, like the houses of the Garden District, its tombs appear to be attempts at one-upmanship. This is the final resting place for many of New Orleans’ most prominent citizens. William Charles Cole Claiborne, Louisiana’s first American governor, rests here, as does Confederate General PGT Beauregard. Jefferson Davis was originally interred here, only to be moved to…
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Half Dome
According to Native American legend, one of Yosemite Valley's early inhabitants went down from the mountains to Mono Lake, where he wed a Paiute named Tesaiyac. The journey back to the valley was difficult, and by the time they reached what was to become Mirror Lake, Tesaiyac had decided that she wanted to go back down to live with her people at Mono Lake. However, her husband refused to live on such barren, arid land with no oak trees from which to get acorns.
With a heart full of despair, Tesaiyac began to run toward Mono Lake, and her husband followed her. When the powerful spirits heard quarreling in Yosemite, they became angry and turned the two into stone: he became…
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Congress Ave Bridge
Every year up to 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats make their home upon a platform beneath the Congress Ave Bridge. It's become an Austin tradition to sit on the grassy banks and watch as the bats swarm out to feed on the local insect population. Capitol Cruises, behind the Hyatt Hotel, offers bat-watching cruises on Town Lake below the bridge.
Locals are proud of this, the largest urban bat colony in North America. The colony, which is made up entirely of female and young animals, is at its most active when swarming out for the nightly feed. Such is the bat-density that bat-radars have detected bat-columns up to 10,000 bat-feet (3,050m) high. In June, each female…
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St Lawrence Market & Hall
Old York's sensational market has been a neighborhood meeting place for over two centuries. The restored, high-trussed 1845 South Market building houses more than 50 specialty food stalls: cheese vendors, fishmongers, butchers, bakers and pasta makers with lots of action and yelling of prices in silly voices. Inside the old council chambers upstairs, the St Lawrence Market Gallery (admission free; 10am-4pm Wed-Fri, 9am-4pm Sat, noon-4pm Sun) is now the city's exhibition hall, with rotating displays of paintings, photographs, documents and historical relics. Hordes of school kids laugh it up, perhaps not as enthralled as you might be. On the opposite side of Front St, the…
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Biodôme
At this captivating, kid-friendly exhibit you can amble through a rainforest, the Arctic Circle, rolling woodlands or along the raw Atlantic oceanfront – all without ever leaving the building. Be sure to dress in layers for the temperature swings. The four ecosystems house many thousands of animal and plant species; follow the self-guided circuit and you will see everything. Penguins frolic in the pools a few feet away from groups of goggle-eyed children; the tropical chamber is a cross-section of Amazonia with mischievous little monkeys teasing alligators in the murky waters below. The Gulf of St Lawrence has an underwater observatory where you can watch cod feeding…
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Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera
To escape Guanajuato's bustling streets, head 2.5km west to this magnificent colonial home which is now a museum, Ex-Hacienda San Gabriel de Barrera, with stunning gardens. This tranquil retreat is well worth a couple of hours.
Built at the end of the 17th century, this was the grand hacienda of Captain Gabriel de Barrera, whose family was descended from the first Conde de Rul of the famous La Valenciana mine. Opened as a museum in 1979, the hacienda, with its opulent period European furnishings, provides an insight into the lives of the wealthy of the time.
The large, shady grounds, originally devoted to processing ore from La Valenciana, were converted in 1945 to a…
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Houmas House
In the 1940s members of the same Crozat family that salvaged Bocage Plantation also purchased Houmas House, 2 miles downriver. The original structure, built in the 1790s, now forms the back end of the main Greek-revival house, built in 1840. In its heyday, this plantation controlled 150,000 acres of sugarcane, covering towns of today up to 8 miles away. Most of the furnishings are not original to the house, but the current owner (and resident), Kevin Kelly, has collected some fine period antiques to fill in. Check out the fascinating 1800s map of plantation plats found in the house. As you tour the wonderfully landscaped gardens, keep a look out for decedents of Princess…
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Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park
This military fort and its pair of 8in guns were built by the US Army during WWII for a Japanese invasion that never came. In the end, Kodiak's lousy weather, not the army's superior firepower, kept the Japanese bombers away from the island. The fort is now a 186-acre state historical park, sitting majestically on the cliffs above scenic Monashka Bay. Between the guns is Ready Ammunition Bunker, which stored 400 rounds of ammunition during the war. Today it contains the small Kodiak Military History Museum.
Just as interesting as the gun emplacements are the tidal pools found along the park's rocky shorelines, where an afternoon of searching for sea creatures can be…
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Artillery Park
The French chose this location for their army barracks because of its strategic view of the plateau west of the city and the St Charles River, both of which could feed enemy soldiers into Québec City. English soldiers moved in after the British conquest of New France. The English soldiers left in 1871 and it was changed into an ammunition factory for the Canadian army. The factory operated until 1964 and thousands of Canadians worked there during the World Wars. Now you can visit the Officers’ Quarters and the Dauphine Redoubt where guides greet you in character (ie the garrison’s cook) and give you the scoop on life in the barracks. There’s also a huge model of Québec…
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Lincoln Center
This stark arrangement of gleaming Modernist temples contains some of Manhattan’s most important performance spaces: Avery Fisher Hall (home to the New York Philharmonic), David H Koch Theater (site of the New York City ballet), and the iconic Metropolitan Opera House, whose interior walls are dressed with brightly saturated murals by painter Marc Chagall. Various other venues are tucked in and around the 16-acre campus, including a theater, two film screening centers and the renowned Juilliard School.
Built in the 1960s, this imposing campus replaced a group of tenements called San Juan Hill, a predominantly African American neighborhood where the exterior shots for…
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Capilano Suspension Bridge
As you walk gingerly out onto one of the world's longest (140m) and highest (70m) suspension bridges, swaying gently over the roiling waters of tree-lined Capilano Canyon, remember that the thick steel cables you are gripping are safely embedded in huge concrete blocks on either side. That should steady your feet – unless there are teenagers stamping across to scare the oldsters. It's the region's most popular attraction – hence the summertime crowds and relentless tour buses. The grounds here include rainforest walks, totem poles and a network of smaller bridges strung between the trees, called Treetops Adventure. Drop by the souvenir shop, one of BC's biggest, for…
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Rockefeller Center
This 22-acre 'city within a city' debuted at the height of the Great Depression. Taking nine years to build, it was America's first multiuse retail, entertainment and office space – a modernist sprawl of 19 buildings (14 of which are the original art deco structures), outdoor plazas and big-name tenants. Developer John D Rockefeller Jr may have sweated over the cost (a mere $100 million), but it was all worth it, the Center declared a National Landmark in 1987.
There are views, and then there is the view from the Top of the Rock. Crowning the GE Building, 70 stories above Midtown, its jaw-dropping vista includes one icon that you won't see from atop the Empire State…
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Vancouver Aquarium
Stanley Park's biggest draw, the aquarium is home to 9000 water-loving critters – including sharks, wolf eels, beluga whales and a somewhat shy octopus. There's also a small, walk-through rainforest area of birds, turtles and a statue-still sloth. Check out the mesmerizing iridescent jellyfish tanks and the portly sea otter who eats the way everyone should: lying on its back using its chest as a plate (trust us: it's not as easy as it looks). Check the schedule for feeding times and consider booking an Animal Encounter tour (from $24), where you'll learn how to be a trainer. The attraction's newest draw is its 4-D Experience: a 3-D movie theater with added wind, mist and…
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Carlsbad Caverns National Park
- New Mexico, USA
- Sights › Other
Scores of wondrous caves hide under the hills at this unique national park, which covers 73 sq miles. The cavern formations are an ethereal wonderland of stalactites and fantastical geological features. You can ride an elevator from the visitor center or take a 2-mile subterranean walk from the cave mouth to the Big Room, an underground chamber 1800ft long, 255ft high and over 800ft below the surface. For claustrophobics and those prone to panic attacks, the chamber and the elevator ride down to it (which descends the length of the Empire State Building in under a minute) may be a less than enjoyable experience.
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BC Sports Hall of Fame & Museum
Located inside BC Place Stadium, the small but perfectly formed Sports Hall of Fame showcases top BC athletes, both amateur and professional, with special galleries devoted to each decade in sports. There’s a wealth of medals, trophies and sporting memorabilia on display (judging by the size of their shirts, hockey players were much smaller in the old days) and there are tons of hands-on activities to tire the kids out. Check out the stirring exhibits on Terry Fox and his ‘Marathon of Hope’ run across Canada, plus Rick Hanson and his ‘Man-in-Motion’ worldwide wheelchair journey.
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Top of the Rock
This open-air observation deck at the top of Rockefeller Center first wowed New Yorkers back in 1933. Designed in homage to ocean liners popular in the day, it was an incredible place – 70 stories above Midtown – from which to view the city. But it became off-limits for almost two decades starting in 1986, when renovation of the stunning Rainbow Room restaurant five floors below cut off access to the roof. The observation deck was reopened with much fanfare in 2005, and since then it’s been proving to be an even better bet than the Empire State Building: it’s much less crowded and has wider observation decks that span several levels – some are indoors, some are outside…
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Sea Lions at Pier 39
Beach bums took over San Francisco’s most coveted waterfront real estate in 1990 and have been making a public display of themselves ever since, canoodling, belching, scratching their naked backsides and gleefully shoving one another off the docks. Naturally these unkempt squatters became San Francisco’s favorite mascots, and since California law requires boats to make way for marine mammals, yacht owners have to relinquish valuable slips to accommodate as many as 1300 sea lions who ‘haul out’ onto the docks between January and July, and whenever else they feel like sunbathing.
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Mount Rushmore
Looking like they're either emerging from or being absorbed by the mountain, the stony faces of past presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt - carved 60ft tall in the granite of a Black Hills outcrop - are one of the most famous images in the USA and the top attraction in the state; the monument gets nearly three million visitors each year. You can't help but be impressed by its sheer scale and the massive physical effort of the team (led by sculptor Gutzon Borglum) that created it between 1927 and 1941.
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