tourist destinations

Before we dive into the chaos, picture this: you booked a great hotel deal through a third-party site, felt like a bargain-hunting genius, and then—disaster. Your dates are wrong, your room type isn’t available or maybe the system thinks you don’t exist at all. You call the website…they blame the hotel. You call the hotel…they blame the website. And somewhere along the way, you realize you’ve entered the hospitality version of a ping-pong match, except you’re the ball.

Some countries simply make backpacking easier, cheaper, and more rewarding. Using community insights from travelers, hostel-availability data, and affordability metrics, we’ve ranked 20 of the best backpacking countries in the world, ending with the country that backpackers overwhelmingly rank as the planet’s #1 destination.

Discover the 18 most peaceful countries in the world, ranked by data. From Iceland to Singapore, find out what makes these destinations the safest and calmest places to visit or live.

Everyone knows about that famously sticky Seattle spot—but surprise: it has a twin. Turns out, the U.S. has not one, but two tourist-approved gum alleys where walls glisten with decades of chewed-up history. Gross? Maybe. Iconic? Definitely. Let’s take a look…

Discover 15 of the best sandbars within the United States. From epic boat parties to relaxing solitudes, there's a sandy paradise for everyone.

Traveling solo as a woman can be exhilarating—but choosing the right country makes all the difference. Using aggregated safety data, traveler reviews, gender-equality indexes, and solo-friendly infrastructure ratings, we’ve ranked the 30 best countries for solo female travelers in 2025.