Shanghai is a city where contrasting timelines meet at every corner. Once a small fishing village along the Huangpu River, it grew rapidly during the 19th century into a major trading port. Today, its skyline tells a story of that transformation. On one side, the Bund’s colonial-era buildings stand tall in limestone and granite; on the other, the futuristic towers of Pudong, like the Shanghai Tower and Jin Mao, stretch into the clouds.

About halfway down the Oregon coast, the picturesque Yaquina Head Lighthouse welcomes you to Newport, a town known for its Dungeness crab and glorious harbor under the graceful Yaquina Bay Bridge. The historic Bayfront offers a mixture of shops, galleries, canneries and restaurants that serve fresh clam chowder, shrimp, oysters, crab and salmon.

Batalha, a small town in central Portugal, is steeped in history and home to one of the country’s most magnificent monuments, the Batalha Monastery. This UNESCO World Heritage Site, also known as the Monastery of Santa Maria da Vitória, was built to commemorate the Portuguese victory over Castile at the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. I

A true destination, Alyeska is Alaska's biggest ski area. At the summit sits Mt. Alyeska Roundhouse, the state's only mountaintop museum.

The whole south of Morocco is summarized in the historical, traditional and exotic sounding word "Ouarzazate". In Ouarzazate everything is calm, beautiful and fresh - the very image of the authentic south of Morocco, where time has stood still for centuries. The town has been located in three different places during its existence, two of them still inhabited
today.

Ely, Minnesota, sits on the edge of the Superior National Forest in the state’s Northwoods, where boreal forest, rocky terrain, and interconnected lakes define the landscape. The community is best known as a major gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which contains more than one million acres of protected forest and waterways along the Canadian border. Ely itself has a compact downtown with independent shops, galleries, restaurants, and outfitters serving wilderness travelers.