TIME is revealing its annual list of the World’s Greatest Places, according to its editors — and gave TODAY.com an exclusive preview. The 2024 list features 100 destinations to which intrepid travelers could plan their next vacation, up from 50 locations in 2023.
In a release, the magazine’s editors said this year’s destinations “reflect the id of humanity: what the collective we desires most when unburdened from daily stressors and responsibilities.”
The statement goes on to say that while last year’s list featured generally cities, this year, the magazine editors chose to include 100 and focus on more specific establishments.
Read on for highlights from the list provided to TODAY.com or see the full list here.
Maui Cultural Lands — Lahaina, Hawaii
After the Aug. 8 fire in Lahaina, Hawaii — which killed 100 people and displaced many more — the island reopened to tourism in November. This time, however, local leaders are leaning “more heavily into a new type of travel that encourages visitors to support the islands: regenerative tourism,” TIME writes.
“Maui Cultural Lands, one of the longest running indigenous-owned nonprofits in the Lahaina area, provides visitors hands-on ways to give back on their vacations.”
Kamba African Rainforest Experiences — Odzala-Kokoua National Park, Republic of Congo
The Congo Basin is an ecologically rich and fascinating nature-based vacation.
Borne out of a gorilla research camp at Ngaga, Kamba African Rainforest Experiences has turned into an international destination with an eye toward ecotourism — tourism that provides visitors with ethical and sustainable access to nature but while operating in a low-impact and locally-oriented way.
According to the company’s website, Kamba runs three lodges in the Republic of Congo’s national parks — and the company is the only private concessions allowed. Each trip is limited to 12 people maximum, with the shortest bookable trip starting at seven days.
“The famously diverse area is home to more than 600 types of trees and 10,000 species of animals, including the endangered western lowland gorilla,” the TIME list notes. “It’s an area little visited by travelers…However, Kamba, a company that focuses on low-impact ecotourism adventures and is the only private operator in the park, is working to change that, as well as advance our understanding of one of our closest cousins on the evolutionary tree.”
White Desert, Antarctica
For those with a bigger budget, TIME recommends a trip to Antarctica with White Desert. The company brings polar explorers (and scientists) to the interior of the most remote continent on earth during the sunny season.
Marko Prezelj / Courtesy of White Desert
“Now, White Desert welcomes fewer than 300 guests per eternal-daylight season at two luxury camps made up of convivial bubble huts in Queen Maud Land, surrounded by majestic nunataks, or rocky outcrops,” TIME’s editors write. “Once-in-a-lifetime activities include visiting the South Pole and the emperor penguin colony at Atka Bay, and exploring ice waves threaded with turquoise rivers.”
Single day experiences start at $15,950, according to the White Desert website.
Modern Elder Academy — Santa Fe, New Mexico
Modern Elder Academy aims to help people in mid-life “get unstuck,” the website reads. The academy offers workshops “designed to help you be expansive and connect to your higher purpose” throughout the year at both the Santa Fe, New Mexico, location and at a second location in Baja California, Mexico, according to the company website.
TIME’s editors celebrate the founder, entrepreneur and author Chip Conley, who is “on a mission to radically reframe the popular view on middle age, giving it the glowing appellation ‘midlife chrysalis.'”
The five day workshops run $6,000 for a private room and includes three meals a day, according to the company website (though those willing to bunk with someone can save $1,500.) Financial aid is also available.
Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui — Koh Samui, Thailand
TIME reports that the next season of “White Lotus” will be filmed at the Four Seasons Resort in Koh Samui, Thailand, so fans of the show (and gorgeous locations) better book their trips now.
Ken Seet / Courtesy of Four Seasons
“Since filming that first season on location at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea in Hawaii, and making San Domenico Palace, Taormina, a Four Seasons Hotel in Sicily the backdrop for last year’s star-making crime drama, the third season takes aim at the white sand beaches of Koh Samui, Thailand’s second largest island—the upcoming season is filmed at the Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, HBO confirmed exclusively to TIME,” the magazine reports. “Given the popularity of past locations, travelers will want to plan their own unscripted holiday at the five-star resort before the new season hits the small screen in early 2025.”
Mine + Farm Inn — Guerneville, California
Located in the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County, California, the Mine + Farm Inn is a bed and breakfast with an eye for sustainability.
The boutique inn is located in the small town of Guerneville, which is just outside the 805-acre Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. In addition to proximity to the greenery of the state park, Mine + Farm also grows its own marijuana on-site — or as TIME puts it, “a different green is part of a unique guest experience.”
It’s also worth noting the inn is only for adults ages 21+.
Le Grand Mazarin — Paris, France
Located in the eclectic 4th arrondissement of Paris, Le Grand Mazarin is a luxurious and interesting hotel with what Conde Nast Traveler once called “a Wes Anderson meets Alice in Wonderland literary-salon vibe.”
TIME reports that the hotel stands out for its “luxury and aesthetic.”
“While you might miss the discreet entrance in Le Marais, inside guests are instantly transported to architect and designer Martin Brudnizki’s fanciful reception where a seafoam green pleated silk ceiling and tasseled wall sconces create an atmosphere of salon-like sophistication,” TIME reports.
WA EV Network — Western Australia
For those looking to take a road trip in an electric vehicle, TIME recommends the WA EV network of charging stations in Western Australia.
Once completed, EV drivers will be able to charge their vehicles at 98 EV charging stations across 49 locations, from Mundrabilla at the South Australian border to Kununurra in the far north of Western Australia.
TIME notes that while travelers “tend to default to the popular east coast routes,” the Western Australia route could be just the ticket.
Silvestre Nosara — Nosara, Costa Rica
Silvestre Nosara is a family-friendly surf resort steps away from what the hotel bills as one of the best and most reliable surf breaks in the area.
The hotel, which features nine luxury residences, also has a rooftop terrace, infinity pool and lounge as well as a gym and wellness programming, according to the company’s website. Visitors also have access to surfboards and professional surf instruction.
“Now Silvestre, which means ‘wild’ in Spanish, is transforming the hotel landscape in the area, offering everything family or group travelers need for an active and luxurious trip to Nosara,” TIME reports.
teamLab Borderless Digital Art Museum — Tokyo, Japan
“Immersive art experiences are a dime a dozen these days, but when they’re done well, they’re exceptional,” TIME reports. “teamLab Borderless Digital Art Museum puts an atmospheric twist on a genre that’s become a social media cliche.”
The museum recently reopened in a new, larger location in a multi-use complex called Azabudai Hills. The previous location of teamLab Borderless held the Guinness World Record for the most-visited museum dedicated to a single art group, with nearly 2.2 admissions in one year.
Each instillation of the museum is designed to flow seamlessly to the next one, the museum website says.
The international art collective “seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world,” according to the teamLab website. The interdisciplinary artists aim “to explore the relationship between the self and the world, and new forms of perception.”
One Za’abeel — Dubai, UAE
“Even in a city with no shortage of gravity- (and logic-) defying skyscrapers, the new One Za’abeel development by Japanese firm Nikken Sekkei is a head turner,” TIME reports. “The complex’s dual towers rise from either side of a busy highway, and are bridged improbably by a horizontal structure hovering 300 feet in the air that’s nearly as long as the buildings are high.”
There are two hotels in the development, according to the official website, as well as plenty of dining and shopping options.
Olivia Foundation — Mexico City, Mexico
Nestled inside a renovated townhouse in Mexico City’s hip Roma Norte neighborhood, the Olivia Foundation is a by-appointment-only art hub.
“Set in a neoclassical townhouse from the early 1900s, the Olivia Foundation draws on the private collection of a Mexico City-native couple who, for the sake of discretion, named the project after one of their eight dogs, a long-haired dachshund,” TIME reports. “The family began collecting seriously around 2022, following the move from Mexico City to California, focusing their attention on post-war female artists like Helen Frankenthaler and Ruth Asawa as well as a new generation of creators including British artist Jadé Fadojutimi and the Brazilian painter Sophia Loeb.”
Zeyrek Cinili Hamam, Istanbul, Turkey
For the more historically inclined, visitors to Istanbul can enjoy a bath at the early-Ottoman-era spa, Zeyrek Cinili Hamam.
The bathhouse recently reopened after a 13-year restoration following centuries of disuse.
“When visitors recline on the polished marble platform inside the Zeyrek Cinili Hamam, ready to be scrubbed clean under its soaring dome studded with star-shaped skylights, they’re not just bathing in luxury — they’re bathing in history…It was originally built in the early 1500s atop one of Istanbul’s massive Byzantine-era cisterns by Mimar Sinan, the Ottoman Empire’s greatest architect,” TIME reports.
Visitors can do the traditional hourlong bath with an exfoliation scrub and a massage for about $114, according to the website.
International African American Museum — Charleston, South Carolina
After 20 years of planning and construction, the International African American Museum opened last summer in Charleston, South Carolina, at a former shipping wharf where approximately 40% of the nation’s enslaved persons disembarked.
In a release, IAAM staff wrote that the museum’s mission is to tell “different stories from the place so many American lives began in pain but now thrive in excellence.”
The museum features wide-ranging exhibitions “that tell the story of how Africans and African Americans — through their labor, resistance, and ingenuity — have shaped every aspect of our world,” according to the IAAM website. The museum also maintains a publicly available African Ancestors Memorial Garden.
“Proposed publicly by former Charleston mayor Joe Riley more than 20 years ago, and championed by Congressman Jim Clyburn, the nation’s second largest African American museum finally opened last summer,” TIME writes. “Connecting past and future on a more personal level, the IAAM’s Center for Family History also offers genealogy services and records oral histories.”
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