Explore Asia

China Guide →

The Great Wall, the Terracotta Army, the karst peaks of Guilin, the futuristic skyline of Shanghai — China's sheer scale and cultural depth are simply unmatched.

Japan Guide →

Cherry blossoms in Kyoto, neon-lit Tokyo, ancient temples, bullet trains and extraordinary cuisine — Japan perfects the art of blending the ancient and the ultra-modern.

India Guide →

The Taj Mahal, the ghats of Varanasi, the backwaters of Kerala and the teeming bazaars of Old Delhi — India is an overwhelming, unforgettable kaleidoscope of culture and colour.

United Arab Emirates Guide →

Towering skyscrapers in Dubai, the heritage souks of Abu Dhabi and world-class luxury hospitality — the UAE has transformed desert sands into one of the world's most ambitious destinations.

Thailand Guide →

Ornate Buddhist temples, floating markets, world-class street food, idyllic islands and some of the warmest hospitality in Southeast Asia — Thailand truly earns its 'Land of Smiles' moniker.

South Korea Guide →

Seoul's dynamic fusion of ancient palaces and hyper-modern K-culture, the lantern-lit streets of Gyeongju, and some of the world's most celebrated fried chicken and barbecue.

Israel Guide →

Jerusalem's Old City holds the holiest sites of three religions, Tel Aviv buzzes with beach culture and innovation, and the Dead Sea offers the world's saltiest float.

Malaysia Guide →

Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers, the rainforest of Borneo, Penang's UNESCO street art and hawker food, and pristine islands — Malaysia is one of Southeast Asia's most rewarding destinations.

Philippines Guide →

Over 7,000 islands with some of the world's best diving, chocolate hills on Bohol, rice terraces carved into the mountains of Luzon, and incredibly warm local hospitality.

Indonesia Guide →

Bali's temples and rice terraces, Komodo dragons, Borobudur's Buddhist stupa, orangutans in Borneo and over 17,000 islands to explore in the world's largest archipelago.

Vietnam Guide →

Ha Long Bay's limestone karsts, the ancient town of Hội An, Hanoi's bustling Old Quarter street food and the dramatic mountains of Sapa — Vietnam rewards at every turn.

Singapore Guide →

A gleaming city-state at the crossroads of Asia — Gardens by the Bay, Hawker Centre feasts, impeccable safety and an electrifying blend of Chinese, Malay and Indian cultures.

Saudi Arabia Guide →

AlUla's ancient Nabataean tombs carved into red rock, the historic Diriyah, Jeddah's coral-stone old city and the holy city of Mecca mark a country opening up to the world.

Jordan Guide →

Petra's rose-red city carved into cliff faces, the alien landscape of Wadi Rum, the Dead Sea's otherworldly salt shore and legendary Jordanian hospitality.

Taiwan Guide →

Taipei's night markets, Sun Moon Lake, the dramatic Taroko Gorge and some of the finest tea culture and street food in all of Asia — Taiwan is consistently underrated.

Kazakhstan Guide →

The futuristic capital Astana, vast steppe landscapes, the Charyn Canyon and one of the world's most dramatic train journeys across the Eurasian heartland.

Hong Kong Territory

Asia's most breathtaking skyline by night, dim sum breakfasts, neon-lit night markets and a unique East-meets-West culture forged across one of the world's great natural harbours.

Lebanon

Beirut's resilient, exuberant spirit, the Roman temples of Baalbek, the Qadisha Valley and some of the best food culture in the Middle East.

Georgia

Ancient cave cities, the Caucasus mountains, distinctive polyphonic music, amber-coloured qvevri wine and Tbilisi's charming Old Town balconies — Georgia is a revelation.

Qatar

Doha's futuristic skyline, the Museum of Islamic Art, falconry in the desert and a country that put itself on the world stage by hosting the FIFA World Cup.

Bangkok

Gold-roofed temples, a river full of working boats and street food good enough to have its own Michelin stars — chaotic, humid and impossible to dislike.

Tokyo

Thirty-seven million people in the metropolitan area and somehow the quietest big city anywhere, with more Michelin stars than Paris and a subway that runs to the second.

Dubai

The world's tallest building, ski slopes indoors and a creek where wooden dhows still unload — a city that did not exist at this scale thirty years ago.

Singapore

A city, an island and a country at once, where hawker centres serve some of Asia's best food for a few dollars beneath supertrees and infinity pools.

Hong Kong

Skyscrapers pressed against jungle hills, the Star Ferry crossing the harbour since 1888, and hiking trails that start where the MTR ends.

Seoul

Fourteenth-century palaces among glass towers, a night market culture that never really closes, and mountains inside the city limits.

Kyoto

A thousand years as Japan's capital and spared the wartime bombing, leaving 1,600 temples, the Fushimi Inari torii and geisha districts still in use.

Kuala Lumpur

The Petronas Towers above a city of Malay, Chinese and Indian quarters, with limestone caves and a Hindu shrine at the end of the commuter line.

Shanghai

The Bund's colonial waterfront facing Pudong's skyline across the river — the clearest single view of what China did in thirty years.

Beijing

The Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and the Great Wall within a couple of hours, in a capital laid out on an axis for six centuries.

Bali

Rice terraces, surf breaks and a Hindu culture distinct from the rest of Indonesia, now busy enough that Ubud and Canggu need a plan.

Delhi

Mughal tombs, a Lutyens government quarter and Old Delhi's lanes, all at once — the entry point for the Golden Triangle and for India itself.

Ho Chi Minh City

Still Saigon to most residents, with French colonial buildings, war history told from the Vietnamese side and several million motorbikes.

Hanoi

An Old Quarter of 36 trade streets, lakes in the middle of town, and the best coffee culture in Southeast Asia — quieter and older than the south.

Taipei

Night markets and mountain trails in equal measure, with Taipei 101 above and the imperial Chinese collection at the National Palace Museum.

Osaka

Japan's kitchen, louder and more direct than Tokyo, with Dotonbori's neon and Kyoto and Nara both half an hour away.

Jerusalem

Holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam within a single walled square kilometre, and one of the most continuously contested cities on earth.

Siem Reap

The base for Angkor, whose temples spread across 400 square kilometres — go at dawn, and give it three days rather than one.

Mumbai

India's commercial capital, with Victorian Gothic railway architecture, Bollywood, and Asia's largest outdoor laundry running beside it all.

Kathmandu

A valley of pagoda temples and stupas rebuilt after the 2015 earthquake, and the staging point for almost every Himalayan trek.

Doha

The Museum of Islamic Art on its own island, a restored souq, and desert dunes running into the sea an hour south.

Chiang Mai

A walled old city of 300 temples in northern Thailand, cooler than Bangkok, and the base for ethical elephant sanctuaries and hill-country trekking.

Petra

A Nabataean city carved into rose-coloured sandstone and reached through a kilometre-long crack in the rock — one of the great arrivals in travel.

Samarkand

The Registan's three madrasas facing each other across a square is the single most spectacular sight on the Silk Road.

Colombo

Sri Lanka's entry point, with a colonial fort quarter and a seafront promenade, an hour from the tea country and the cultural triangle.

Built and rebuilt over roughly two thousand years, running some 21,000 kilometres in total — the Ming-era sections near Beijing are the ones almost everyone walks.

Shah Jahan's mausoleum for Mumtaz Mahal, finished around 1653 in white marble inlaid with semi-precious stone, and perfectly symmetrical but for his own later-added tomb.

The capital of the Khmer Empire across 400 square kilometres, including Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument ever built, and the faces of the Bayon.

The Forbidden City in Beijing and the palace at Shenyang: 980 surviving buildings, closed to ordinary people for five centuries.

Carved from living rock by the Nabataeans from the 4th century BC, then lost to the West until 1812. The Treasury facade is only the beginning of it.

Seventeen temples, shrines and one castle spanning a thousand years, preserved because Kyoto was deliberately spared the wartime bombing.

A 9th-century Buddhist monument in Java built as a single vast stupa, with over 2,600 relief panels walked clockwise as a pilgrimage in stone.

The Terracotta Army — thousands of individually modelled soldiers buried around 210 BC and found by farmers digging a well in 1974.

Inscribed as a cultural rather than natural site, for the pilgrimage routes, shrines and four centuries of art that made the mountain a symbol before it was a climb.

Over 3,500 Buddhist monuments across a plain of the Irrawaddy, built between the 11th and 13th centuries and inscribed only in 2019.

Nearly 1,600 limestone karst islands rising from the Gulf of Tonkin, most of them uninhabited and undercut by the sea into caves and arches.

Timur's capital and the Registan's tiled madrasas, sitting where the Silk Road routes converged for well over two thousand years.

A 5th-century royal citadel on top of a 200-metre granite plug, reached past frescoes and a gateway built as a lion's paws.

The ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, begun by Darius I around 518 BC and burned by Alexander in 330 BC.

The Siamese capital until the Burmese sacked it in 1767, leaving brick prangs, headless Buddhas and one stone head held in the roots of a fig tree.

The Dalai Lamas' winter palace in Lhasa at 3,700 metres, thirteen storeys of it built into the side of Red Hill from 1645.

Thirty-four Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monasteries and temples cut into a basalt cliff — the Kailasa temple carved downwards from a single rock.

A Southeast Asian trading port preserved almost intact from the 15th to 19th centuries, with a Japanese covered bridge and lantern-lit streets.

The finest surviving Japanese castle, white-plastered and never damaged by war, earthquake or fire in over four hundred years.

The last Vijayanagara capital, spread across a boulder-strewn landscape in Karnataka and sacked in 1565 but never built over.

Inscribed in 1981 and on the List of World Heritage in Danger ever since, holding sites central to three religions inside one square kilometre.

The Silla capital for a thousand years, with royal burial mounds rising out of parkland and the Seokguram grotto Buddha above the town.

Granite peaks and twisted pines above a sea of cloud, painted so often in Chinese ink that the landscape looks like an imitation of the art.

The first Siamese capital, whose 13th-century ruins and walking Buddha figures established the style later Thai art was measured against.

The shrine at Miyajima whose vermilion torii stands in the sea at high tide, on an island where the shoreline itself was treated as sacred.