Find Your Perfect City

You pay the club entry with your soul. Every local is an artist who never makes art.

Every other apartment is an Airbnb. The real Lisboans now live 40km outside.

$6,000 rent, 80-hour weeks, and everyone tells you how amazing life is.

Perfect city, zero social life. You die alone between vending machines and neon lights.

Everyone is tolerant except toward people who can't afford to live here.

The city smells of urine and grandeur simultaneously. Locals hate you in French.

You need £5,000 for a one-bedroom with mold. But the pubs are great.

Pickpockets have higher success rates than the local startup scene.

Nothing works, but it's so damn beautiful you stop caring.

Museum density with cemetery atmosphere. World-class coffee houses, zero-point-zero pulse.

Everything works. Nobody laughs. A beer costs 8 francs. You won't find friends.

Locals form friend groups in primary school. You're not invited. Ever.

6 months of darkness test your will to live. An apartment costs a kidney.

Lederhosen facade hiding €3,000 rents. Order above all else. Fun strictly regulated.

Everything opens at midnight. Your sleep schedule dies in week two.

Every Friday the city becomes a British binge-drinking orgy. Locals flee to the suburbs.

Rapid growth, rising nationalism. Freedom has an expiration date.

Orbán's shadow hangs over everything. Cheap, beautiful, politically toxic.

The bureaucracy dates from antiquity and hasn't been updated since.

Chewing gum is practically illegal. Perfect infrastructure, zero soul, maximum surveillance.

Cheap beaches, impossible rents. Surfing as compensation for future poverty.

No alcohol on the beach. No criticizing the government. In return: brunch with gold decoration.

Most diverse city in the world, everyone lives in bubbles. Nobody knows why they're here.

Homeless people next to Tesla millionaires. Your app idea matters more than human suffering.

Work is religion. Cosmetic surgery is mandatory. Burnout at 30 is standard.

Political freedom: past tense. Freedom to buy: still available. Don't breathe too deep.

Largest helicopter fleet in the world — because the streets are life-threatening even for the rich.

Earthquakes, smog, corruption, cartels — and still the best food scene in Latin America.

Inflation shrinks your budget monthly. Erdoğan does the same to press freedom.

Best party city in the Middle East. Rocket alarm app is a mandatory download.

Everyone has a hot take on pour-over vs espresso. Rents: pure Melbourne-flavored trauma.

The most peaceful country China threatens daily. Existential dread, excellent food.

Even friendlier than Tokyo, even more closed off to foreigners. Takoyaki doesn't help.

20 million people, one direction: forward. Air: liquid poison. Energy: electric.

Most beautiful city in Africa, divided by invisible walls between rich and poor.

Honking is a language. Traffic jams are a lifestyle. Bureaucracy dates from the Middle Ages.

40°C heat, no escape without a car. Food: divine. Everything else: compromise.

€4,000 for a one-bedroom. In winter you get 4 hours of sun. The schnapps helps.

The heart of Europe has the soul of a filing cabinet. Frites save everything.

Without a car you're nobody. 2-hour traffic jam for 10km. Everyone is making a film about themselves.

Murderous winters, murderous crime in neighborhoods you avoid. Architecture: wow.

AQI 400+ in winter. Are you breathing air or tar? In Delhi that's a genuine question.

India's tech capital. Traffic collapse turns every 10km drive into a 90-minute adventure.

Power outages are the default. Laptop theft in 3 seconds. The energy is still unstoppable.

Matatu traffic swallows 3 hours daily. Kidnapping insurance is not a joke here.

Everyone is a yoga teacher, crypto trader, or both. The rice fields are now infinity pools.

Visa run every 90 days. You live in limbo between tourist and expat. Forever.

6 months ski, 6 months: now what? Small, cold, everyone knows everyone. That gets old.

Eternal climate, eternal mediocrity. Perfect for workaholics who need a beach nearby.

Burning Season makes the air in March a health hazard. Every. Damn. March.

Quinta Avenida is one long Spring Break corridor. Real Mexico: 5km away, unreachable.

Russian oligarchs flee here. Rents explode. Georgians watch with polite irritation.

E-Residency works; finding friends: Error 404. Dark, cold, efficient as a robot.

20,000 residents plus 200,000 seasonal tourists. In winter you're alone with 19,999 locals.

Cenote yoga for $200. No sewage system. Fecal matter ends up in the groundwater. Namaste.

Everyone is searching for themselves. Most of them sell retreat packages to other searchers.

Was cheap. Was authentic. Now: Instagram backdrop with local displacement.

Less cool than Barcelona, therefore still affordable. That's changing right now.

Internet for video calls: Russian roulette. Mezcal solves it emotionally, not technically.

Quieter than Chiang Mai. Maybe too quiet. No scene, no nightlife, pure nature.

Digital nomads drive up rents while blogging about affordable cost of living.

Brazil's most beautiful beaches. Portuguese mandatory. Bureaucracy: Kafkaesque on a samba rhythm.

Average age feels like 65. NHR tax paradise for Europeans, too quiet for the under-50s.

Mass tourism has steamrolled every authentic corner. Beautiful concrete bunker by the sea.

Asia's best food. Without a car you go nowhere. Contradiction served daily.

Crossing the street is an extreme sport. 9 million mopeds always have right of way.

Floods during high tide. Instagrammable 11 months. The twelfth: hip-deep in water.

No doctor, no hospital, no stable internet. Beautiful. Risky. Lonely.

Ottoman architecture meets Soviet concrete meets casino neon. Unexpectedly alive.

Beautiful, far from everything. Internet: pray. Coworking: bring your own.

The bridge was destroyed twice. The political system was built afterward. Works just as well.

3,000 years of history, 50,000 residents, 0 coworking spaces. For hermits with laptops.

Cheapest lifestyle city in Europe. Reason: not much happens. You get used to it.

Smallest EU capital. 6,000 residents. Everyone knows everyone. Gossip is the national sport.

Political tensions between indigenous communities and the state. You're a guest in a conflict.

The salsa dancer of your life finds you. Then someone else follows you with different intentions.

Africa's cleanest city. Plastic bags banned. Free speech: somehow also banned.

Cheap beer, trauma on every corner, questionable governance. Expats come anyway.

More beautiful than Split, quieter than Dubrovnik. In winter: ghost town with a sunset.

Sicilian bureaucracy is its own art form. The mafia is folklore and sometimes not.

Europe's best-kept secret. Small, affordable, boring — ideal depending on your perspective.

Volcano, Maya culture, no stable internet. Nomads come and forget to leave.

Beautiful, safe, sterile. The tourist bubble keeps real Guatemala out.

The temples are breathtaking. The tourism economy built around them: not so much.

Without a 4x4: trapped. Roads in rainy season: rivers. Internet: occasional surprise.

Monks at 5am, curfew at 11pm, internet like 2003. The most beautiful cage in Asia.

No cars, no roads, no internet. Paradise or productivity black hole.

Raw sewage in the ocean. Instagram filters hide the smell. Surfers come anyway.

2,000 residents in the old town. Cruise ships vomit 10,000 tourists daily.

Oil billions arrive, infrastructure stays broken. Progress: slow as molasses.

Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish — all peacefully coexisting and completely invisible to the world.

Ideal for the over-60s. Under 30: you are the attraction. The only young person for miles.

Russian mass tourism has aesthetically colonized the city. Locals have given up.

Kitesurfer mecca. Wind 300 days a year. Your laptop literally takes flight.

Middle of the Atlantic. Flights: expensive and rare. Why you're here: a valid question.

€200 million for giant statues of Alexander the Great. Healthcare budget: zero.

Cheap, growing, underrated. Infrastructure improving faster than its reputation.

Romania's second city, first-class ignored by nomads. Undeservedly.

Club Med enclave in wild Oaxaca. Neither village nor city. Tourist no-man's-land.

5,000km to the nearest tech hub. Internet: a matter of prayer. Community: tight and warm.

Africa's tidiest capital. Also Africa's loneliest expat experience.

Heat and traffic merge into one. Port energy, infrastructure lottery.

Economic crisis 2022: scars still visible. Value for money improves monthly.

English-speaking, stable democracy, genuine creative energy. Africa's most accessible capital for first-timers. Heat is relentless, traffic is a religion.

VPN always on. Surveillance: as casual as talking about the weather. Biggest city you never planned to visit.

Inflation 120%+. Your budget shrinks while you breathe. Tango and tears simultaneously.

Cheapest party city in Europe. Techno until Monday. Liver and bank account suffer simultaneously.

3,000m altitude. Your body needs 2 weeks to understand what's happening. After that: love.

Air raid alarm app on every phone. Shelter locations memorized. Life goes on.

Opens up to tourism while remaining a surveillance state. Schizophrenic transformation.

The Azerbaijan conflict is never far away. But the brandy is good, food fantastic, locals warm.

Seat of the African Union. Power cuts daily. You learn Amharic or you lose.

West Africa's warmest people. Power gone, roads broken, internet: sometimes.

No internet, no capital, no criticism. In return: the best 1950s cars and rum.

3,600m altitude. Day 1: headache. Day 3: can’t breathe. Day 7: you love it anyway.

Steuern: 10%. Infrastruktur: 10 Jahre hinter. Hitze: konstant. Langeweile: gratis.

South America's quietest democracy. Safe, expensive, leisurely. Retiree dream, nomad whatever.

Richest city in South America with an open wound: inequality. The Estallido Social left scars.

9 months of grey veil over the city. AQI: toxic. Food: world's best. Pure contradiction.

UNESCO old town: stunning. Security situation: requires research. Altitude: vertigo-inducing.

Shiny facade, tight political freedom. Criticism lands you in serious trouble.

Pakistan's safest city. VPN mandatory. Political volcano under a well-manicured surface.

25 million, no power, 45°C heat, variable safety. For adventurers who mean every word of it.

Military coup 2021: tourism collapsed, internet cut, citizens in resistance. Not now.

Winter: −40°C, PM2.5 at lethal levels. Summer: breathtaking steppe. The rest: forget it.

Power cut daily. Dust permanent. Traffic: nightmare. Mountains around the corner: forgives everything.

Densest megacity on earth. Traffic, heat, sewage, noise. Industry at the cost of everything.

Women can drive since 2018. Holding hands still carries arrest risk.

Economy collapsing. Power 2 hours daily. Currency worthless. Party culture as a survival strategy.

The Arab Spring started here. Democracy: abolished again 10 years later. Painful.

Economic metropolis without tourist charm. Real business pulse, zero romance.

Tourists pay 5x local prices. If you don't negotiate: you're liked, but fleeced.

Currency doesn’t work. Power intermittent. People: resilient in a way that makes you feel ashamed.

Extremste Armut neben Lemuren-Tourismus. Infrastruktur aus einer anderen Epoche.

Teuerste Stadt Afrikas. Gehst du Einkaufen ohne Reichtum: du gehst hungrig.

Everything cheap, little luxury. Expat scene: a handful of enthusiasts and NGO staff.

Gateway to the Pamir. Authoritarian, poor, breathtakingly beautiful once you get out. Visa: a migraine.

Taliban control since 2021. For Western expats: practically impossible. For others: extreme risk.

Oil state in free fall. Blackouts, hyperinflation, mass exodus. Courage or insanity required.

Gang control over entire neighborhoods. No stable state. Humanitarian crisis as permanent condition.

Parallel governments, militia control, no tourism. For expats: extremely high risk.

The most beautiful city in North America that nobody stays in. Everyone arrives, loves it, and leaves because they can't afford to.

What Berlin was in 2010. Empty warehouses, cheap rent, actual artists. Give it five years before the magazines ruin it.

The city where Italians actually want to live. Best food in the country, real university energy, zero tourists. Nobody has told the internet yet.

Turkey's most progressive city. Secular, coastal, genuinely liberal. The city Istanbul voters wish they lived in.

The only place you can have Caribbean weather, US infrastructure, and a New York bank account simultaneously. The tax incentive crowd has arrived and brought their problems with them.

The most cosmopolitan city in francophone Africa. Lagoon city, serious food scene, genuine nightlife. Post-conflict stability that feels permanent now. Traffic that will test you.

Seven hills, perpetual warmth, and some of the most genuinely welcoming people on the continent. Cheap, English-speaking, and increasingly connected. Anti-LGBT laws are real and serious.

The only capital city in the world where the beach is the main boulevard. Safe, quiet, genuinely charming. Almost no one from outside Africa has ever considered it. That's the point.

Southern Africa's most underrated base. English-speaking, stable, genuinely affordable. Not exciting in itself — but Victoria Falls, Zambia's wilderness, and a growing expat scene make it work.

Cameroon's economic engine and cultural capital. Hot, chaotic, alive. The kind of city where things actually happen in Central Africa — business, music, food. Not polished. Not for everyone. Absolutely real.

The most stunning city most people only visit for one day. The tapas are free with every drink. The rent is cheaper than almost anywhere in Western Europe. Most people still leave.

Europe's hottest major city at 45°C in August. Everyone knows this before they move. Nobody fully believes it until they're trapped inside for 6 weeks straight.

Bullet holes are still visible on buildings. This is not decoration — it happened 30 years ago. The city rebuilt itself through sheer will and has zero self-pity about it. That energy is either inspiring or heavy depending on your soul.

So pleasant it borders on boring. No grit, no edge, no chaos. If you need a city that challenges you, Ljubljana will disappoint. If you need a city that restores you, it's almost perfect.

It rains more than you think it will. The Festival in August is extraordinary and turns the city into the world's greatest cultural party — and also makes it unlivable for a month. You will not be able to leave either.

Paul Bocuse built a food empire here. Michelin stars per capita rival anywhere in the world. The locals know this and have absolutely no interest in explaining it to you. Learn French or eat alone.

The entire city centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site and also a functioning city. You will be living inside the world's greatest open-air museum and eventually find yourself annoyed by tourists blocking your commute to the supermarket.

Every Greek will tell you Thessaloniki has better food than Athens. Every Athenian will deny it. Both are right about different things. The unemployment rate among young people is brutal and the energy that creates is either creative tension or quiet despair.

The former communist dictator painted the buildings grey. The next mayor painted them every colour imaginable. That's Tirana in one story — taking something repressive and turning it loud. The chaos is real but it's optimistic chaos.

It looks exactly like the postcards. Suspiciously so. The lake really is that colour. The mountains really are that close. The price of rent reflects the fact that everyone has noticed.

World-class internet at a fraction of Western European prices, inside a medieval old town. The locals warm slowly — sometimes very slowly. Dark winters from November to March are not a metaphor. They are genuinely dark.

More Art Nouveau architecture per square kilometre than almost anywhere on earth. The locals are reserved to the point of seeming cold — this is cultural, not personal. Push past it and you find fierce loyalty. Winters are long, dark, and not for everyone.

The wine is cheaper here than anywhere else in the world because it literally comes from here. The French bureaucracy does not share this generosity. Getting a residency sorted will take months and patience you didn't know you had.

You are not in Monaco. The Promenade des Anglais is genuinely beautiful and also the site of a terrorist attack in 2016 that changed the city's mood permanently. Nice is safe, vibrant, and occasionally reminds you that the world is complicated.

You can ski to the city centre. This is both a marketing slogan and literally true. The mountains dominate everything — the skyline, the culture, the weekend plans, the reasons people stay forever.

Every summer the Festival brings in the wealthiest classical music audience on earth and the city prices itself accordingly. The rest of the year it is one of the most beautiful and manageable mid-sized cities in Europe. The hills are alive with something — just check what month you're arriving.

It rains 240 days a year. This is not an exaggeration — Bergen is one of the wettest cities in Europe. The Bergensers are proud of this in the way only people who have made peace with something truly inconvenient can be.

Glasgow has the highest rate of drug-related deaths in Europe. It also has the friendliest people in the UK by almost every measure. Both things are true simultaneously and both tell you something real about the city's soul.

It is a small city. Smaller than most expect. The pub sessions are real — musicians genuinely show up with instruments and play. The Atlantic storms in winter are also genuinely extreme. The two things are related.

This is Georgia before the digital nomads arrived. Tbilisi is already changing fast. Kutaisi is what Tbilisi was five years ago — raw, cheap, completely genuine, and still slightly baffled that foreigners want to come here.

The most expensive city in Spain by some measures. The Basque Country has its own language, its own culture, and a quiet separatist undertow that most visitors never notice. The food is so good it makes people angry that they have to leave.

The oldest continuously inhabited city in Western Europe — 3,000 years of history crammed into a peninsula so small you can walk across it in 20 minutes. The carnival is the most anarchic in Spain. The rest of the year it is delightfully quiet and slightly forgotten.

The traffic does not follow rules. The rules do not follow logic. The pizza is the best on earth and this is not a debate. Vesuvius is visible from the city and is overdue for an eruption. None of this stops anyone from moving here and most people who do never fully leave.

The city has not significantly changed since the 14th century. This is either paradise or claustrophobia depending on your temperament. The Palio horse race tears through the central piazza twice a year and the entire city divides into medieval wards that still genuinely hate each other.

Jordan is a political island of stability surrounded by countries in crisis — Syria, Iraq, the Palestinian territories. That stability comes at a cost: a heavy security presence that is visible and occasionally intrusive. The city is safe, functional, and quietly fascinating.

The largest expat community per capita in Latin America — mostly retired North Americans drawn by the climate, the cost, and the beauty. This creates a city that is sometimes more American than Ecuadorian in certain neighbourhoods. Dig deeper and the real Cuenca is extraordinary.

One of the most beautiful old cities in the Americas — and one of the most economically divided. The walled city is for tourists and the wealthy. Everything outside the walls is a different reality. Both exist simultaneously and the tension between them is the hard truth of Cartagena.

It rains for nine months. Not dramatically — just grey, drizzly, persistent. The locals call the period from July to September the reward and they are right. Those three months are among the most beautiful of any city on earth. You earn them.

Miami is the only major US city where speaking English is sometimes the minority option. It is also built on land that will be underwater within decades — the city is in active negotiation with sea level rise and losing. This does not seem to slow anyone down.

Most of the city is below sea level. Hurricane Katrina killed 1,800 people and displaced 400,000. The city rebuilt itself through music, food, and sheer stubbornness. It will flood again. Everyone who lives here knows this and stays anyway.

Kyoto has 17 UNESCO World Heritage sites and a tourist crowd to match. In autumn and cherry blossom season the famous spots become genuinely unlivable. The rest of the year — especially the grey, quiet winter — the city reveals what it actually is: one of the most beautiful and meditative places on earth.

Consistently ranked Japan's most livable city and almost nobody outside Japan has heard of it. Cheaper than Tokyo, warmer than most of Japan, with a beach, mountains, and the best ramen on earth within the city limits. The hard truth is the summer humidity is extreme even by Japanese standards.

Everything Seoul does, Busan does slower and cheaper with beaches attached. The problem is that Seoul gets all the attention and Busan is perpetually treated as the second city. If you've been to Seoul and found it too intense, Busan is the answer you were looking for.

Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are two completely different countries wearing the same flag. Hanoi is slower, more traditional, more Northern — and the locals will tell you this with considerable pride. The traffic is as chaotic as anywhere in Vietnam but the pace of life around it is genuinely different.

Auckland is built on 53 dormant volcanoes. None of them are currently active. The city is also one of the most expensive in the Southern Hemisphere — housing costs rival Sydney and London. The quality of life is extraordinary but it comes with a mortgage that takes a lifetime to pay.

Perth is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney. This is not a metaphor — it is a geographical fact that shapes everything about the city's psychology. It has learned to be entirely self-sufficient, which makes it surprisingly complete and surprisingly expensive. The Indian Ocean is at its feet and nobody from the east coast of Australia ever visits.

Yogyakarta sits between two active volcanoes — Merapi to the north has erupted multiple times this century. The city treats this with remarkable equanimity. The sultanate is still functioning — the sultan is also the elected governor — which gives the city a continuity of culture that Bali lost decades ago.

The bumper sticker says Keep Austin Weird. The city has spent the last decade becoming the most rapidly gentrifying tech hub in America. Tesla, Oracle, and a thousand startups moved here. The musicians who made it weird can no longer afford to live here. The live music is still extraordinary. The contradiction is unresolved.

Nashville is the fastest growing major city in the United States and house prices reflect this with painful clarity. The honky tonks on Broadway are real — the musicians playing them are extraordinary — and they are also surrounded by bachelorette parties seven nights a week. Both things are simultaneously true.

Montreal is Canada's most European city — and the winter will remind you why most Europeans don't live in Canada. From November to March the temperature drops to -20°C and the city responds by building the world's largest underground pedestrian network. You learn to navigate entire neighbourhoods without going outside.

You will explain to every visitor that you don't actually go to the Strip. Then you will go to the Strip. The city has no natural reason to exist in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Water scarcity is an existential crisis being managed quietly in the background. None of this stops it from being a genuinely functional and surprisingly livable city.

The fastest growing small city in America. Ranchers who have been here for generations are watching Silicon Valley transplants price them out of the land their families have worked for a century. The tension is real, unresolved, and the Yellowstone TV show has only accelerated it.

Donald Judd drove to the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert in 1971 and decided to put his art there permanently. The art world followed. The nearest airport is 3 hours away. The heat in summer is dangerous. The isolation is absolute and also, for some people, the entire point.

Hawaii is the most beautiful US state. It is also the most expensive. Housing costs are among the highest in the country for a median income that does not match them. Many locals are priced out of the islands their families have lived on for generations. You are living in paradise on someone else's ancestral land and the cost of living will remind you of both things constantly.

Portland spent a decade being called America's most livable city. Then a combination of housing costs, a visible homelessness crisis, and political tension reframed that narrative completely. The food trucks, the bookshops, the bridges, the mountains, and the genuine weirdness are still there. The city is in the middle of figuring out what comes next.

Quebec City is the only walled city in North America north of Mexico. It looks like Normandy. It sounds like Paris. It is -25°C in February and the locals celebrate this with an ice festival and outdoor parties that defy meteorological reason. French is not optional — it is the point.

Valparaíso is built on 42 hills connected by funicular elevators called ascensores, most of which are broken at any given moment. The city has been in economic decline since the Panama Canal opened in 1914 and rerouted Pacific shipping. This decline is also why the street art, the poets, and the anarchic energy are extraordinary.

The wind never stops. The Alizée trade wind blows through Essaouira approximately 300 days a year and has made it the kitesurfing capital of Africa. It has also kept the mass tourism that destroyed the atmosphere of Marrakech at a comfortable distance. The medina is quieter, cheaper, and more genuine as a result.

Kingston has one of the highest murder rates in the Caribbean. It also produced Bob Marley, reggae, dancehall, and a musical culture that changed the world. Both things are inseparably true. The city rewards people who understand which neighbourhoods to be in and when — and punishes those who don't.

Eleven rock-hewn churches carved directly into the mountain in the 12th century, still functioning as active places of worship. Getting here requires a domestic flight or a very long road through the Ethiopian highlands. The internet will humble you. The altitude is 2,500m. None of this diminishes what you find when you arrive.

Bilbao was a dying industrial port city until Frank Gehry put a titanium museum on the riverbank in 1997 and changed everything. The Guggenheim effect is real and documented. The city reinvented itself completely within a decade. The Basque separatist tension that defined its past is still present but now competes with a food scene that rivals anywhere in Spain.

Santiago de Compostela receives several hundred thousand pilgrims a year, many of whom have walked for weeks to get there. The moment they arrive at the Cathedral they either weep or go silent. Living here means you are permanently surrounded by people at the end of a transformative journey. That energy is either moving or exhausting depending on your temperament.

Zaragoza sits exactly halfway between Madrid and Barcelona and is visited by almost nobody making that journey. This is the city's great advantage and its only frustration. It has everything a Spanish city should have — extraordinary food, a magnificent basilica on the river, a real old town, warm summers — and none of the tourist inflation that comes with attention.

Turin invented Italian cinema, the automobile industry, Slow Food, and the political philosophy that unified Italy. It then watched Milan get all the credit for being cool. The city has responded by becoming genuinely, defiantly interesting — an aperitivo culture that rivals anywhere in Italy, a contemporary art scene that punches above its weight, and prices that remind you Milan is not the only option.

Romeo and Juliet is fiction. Juliet's balcony is a 14th century building retrofitted with a balcony in 1936 specifically for tourism. The queue to put your hand on Juliet's breast for luck is real and long. Beyond this singular absurdity, Verona is an extraordinary genuinely Roman city with a functioning 1st century arena hosting opera every summer.

The EXIT festival attracts 200,000 people to a 17th century fortress every July and has put Novi Sad on the global music map. The city was also bombed by NATO in 1999 and the bridges over the Danube were destroyed. The rebuilt bridges and the rebuilt city are both better than what existed before. That resilience is the city's soul.

Antalya is Turkey's fastest growing city and a genuine year-round destination rather than a seasonal resort. The old town — Kaleiçi — is Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman layered on top of each other inside intact walls. The rest of the city is rapidly modernising in ways that are impressive and occasionally chaotic. Political tensions with Western governments occasionally complicate expat life.

You are living in a landscape formed by volcanic eruptions 3 million years ago, carved into homes by early Christians fleeing persecution, and now inhabited by people running boutique cave hotels and balloon tour companies. The hot air balloons launch at dawn every morning the weather permits. It is as extraordinary as it sounds and the tourist infrastructure is significant.

Gothenburg is Sweden's most unpretentious city and its inhabitants are very proud of this distinction, which is itself slightly pretentious. The rivalry with Stockholm is real and Gothenburg wins on friendliness, food markets, and archipelago access. The rain is nearly as persistent as Bergen's. The coffee culture is extraordinarily serious.

Paul Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire from the outskirts of Aix over 60 times. The mountain is still there and still looks the same. The city has preserved this relationship with its own beauty very deliberately and the real estate market has noticed. Aix is the most expensive city in Provence and the most beautiful.

Hobart is the second oldest city in Australia and feels it — in the best possible way. It is also the closest city to Antarctica on earth. The wind that comes off the Southern Ocean is not metaphorical. MONA — the Museum of Old and New Art — is one of the most extraordinary private museums on earth and exists here by complete accident of its founder's eccentric genius.

Tórshavn is the capital of an autonomous archipelago that has 50,000 people, 80,000 sheep, and weather that changes every 20 minutes. It is one of the windiest inhabited places on earth. The Danish krone is the currency, the language is Faroese, and the island produces some of the world's finest wool and some of its most extreme landscapes.

Lofoten appears in every list of the most beautiful places on earth and the photographs do not exaggerate. The mountains rise directly from the sea. The fishing villages perch on stilts above the water. The midnight sun in summer and the northern lights in winter are both genuinely extraordinary. The infrastructure is thin and the cost of everything is Norwegian.

Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world. The Green Line — the UN buffer zone — runs directly through the city centre. You can cross it on foot with an EU passport and find yourself in a different country, a different currency, and a different version of history within 200 metres. This is either fascinating or haunting depending on your temperament.

Heraklion is a working city, not a resort — and this distinction matters enormously on an island where most visitors never leave the beach hotels. The Palace of Knossos is 5km away and represents a civilisation that was sophisticated when mainland Greece was still tribal. The food is some of the best in Greece. The summer heat is intense and the tourist season crowds the island roads.

Samarkand was the centre of the world in the 14th century when Timur made it his capital. The Registan — three madrasas facing each other across a central plaza covered in turquoise tilework — is one of the great architectural ensembles on earth. The Soviet restoration was heavy-handed in places. The original Islamic geometry underneath it is extraordinary regardless.

Fort Kochi is where the Portuguese, Dutch, British, Chinese, Jewish, and Syrian Christian communities all left their mark on the same small peninsula and somehow the result is harmony rather than chaos. The rest of Kochi is a normal Indian city — overwhelming, loud, and vital. The backwaters are extraordinary. The monsoon from June to August is total.

Quy Nhon is what Da Nang was 15 years ago — a real Vietnamese coastal city with extraordinary beaches that hasn't yet been fully converted into a tourist infrastructure. The Cham towers above the city are from a civilisation that predates Vietnamese culture here. The window of authenticity is closing and everyone who lives there knows it.

Santa Marta is the oldest continuously inhabited European city in South America, founded in 1525. It is also the base for the Lost City trek — a 4-day jungle hike to a pre-Columbian city older than Machu Picchu. The city itself is scruffier than Cartagena with less tourist polish. The Sierra Nevada mountains rise directly behind the city to 5,700m — the world's highest coastal mountain range.

Puerto Vallarta is Mexico's most openly gay-friendly resort city and has been for decades. The Zona Romántica is the established LGBTQ+ neighbourhood with a permanent community rather than a seasonal tourist one. The city is also genuinely beautiful — the Sierra Madre mountains meet the Pacific here — and the food is as good as anywhere in Mexico outside the capital.

Bern is the capital of Switzerland and almost nobody visits it. This is the city's greatest gift to itself. The medieval arcaded streets — the Lauben — have been covered walkways since the 12th century and you can walk the entire old city in any weather without getting wet. The bears in the bear park are real. The clocks are extraordinary. Everything costs what you'd expect Switzerland to cost.

Lugano is in Switzerland but feels Italian in every way that matters — the language, the food, the pace, the light on the lake. It is also priced like Switzerland, which means it is expensive in a way that occasionally makes you question whether the palm trees and the lake justify the cost. They do, but it requires a conversation with your bank balance first.

Oulu is the European Capital of Culture 2026 and most Europeans have never heard of it. It sits at 65 degrees north latitude, which means the sun barely sets in summer and barely rises in winter. Nokia built its most important research centre here, which is why the city has world-class digital infrastructure in the middle of the Arctic. The winters are genuinely extreme.

Everything in the medina is painted blue. Not metaphorically — literally every wall, every staircase, every doorway is a shade of blue that ranges from electric to indigo. Nobody agrees on exactly why. The most likely explanation is that the Jewish community painted it blue in the 1930s as a symbol of heaven. The Instagram photographers have replaced the Jewish community and the blue remains.

Rabat is the capital of Morocco and receives a fraction of the visitors that Marrakech gets, which is exactly what makes it interesting. The medina is compact and navigable without a guide. The Kasbah of the Udayas above the Atlantic is genuinely beautiful. The government presence means the city is clean, orderly, and significantly less chaotic than Fez or Marrakech.

Stone Town is the historic centre of Zanzibar and was a major hub of the East African slave trade until the 19th century. The slave market is still there, now a cathedral and a memorial. Freddie Mercury was born here in 1946. The narrow coral stone streets, the carved wooden doors, the call to prayer at dawn — it is one of the most sensory places in Africa.

Eritrea is one of the most isolated countries on earth. The government controls almost all movement and communication. Getting a visa requires patience and persistence. Once inside, Asmara reveals itself as the most extraordinary colonial time capsule in Africa — Italian Art Deco architecture from the 1930s perfectly preserved because nothing has been built since. The country emerged from a 30-year independence war in 1993 and has been largely closed since.

Córdoba is Argentina's second city and has been since the Jesuits founded its university in 1613 — the oldest in the country. The student population drives everything: the nightlife starts at midnight and peaks at 3am, the café culture is extraordinary, and the cuarteto music genre exists nowhere else on earth. The economic instability that defines Argentina affects Córdoba as much as anywhere.

Cuzco is at 3,400 metres and altitude sickness is real — plan two days of doing nothing when you arrive before attempting anything physical. The city was the capital of the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The Spanish built their colonial city directly on top of Inca foundations and you can see both layers simultaneously everywhere. Machu Picchu is 3 hours away by train.

Puerto Princesa is the gateway to Palawan — consistently voted the most beautiful island in the world — and is itself a pleasant, functional city that most visitors race through on their way to El Nido or Coron. Stay longer. The Underground River is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most extraordinary natural features in Southeast Asia. The city is genuinely clean by Philippine standards.

French Polynesia is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Papeete is the capital and it is a real city — markets, traffic, suburbs, bureaucracy — surrounded by the most improbable natural beauty. Everything costs what France costs, sometimes more, because everything is imported. The lagoons are exactly as described. The bill at the end of the meal is also exactly as described.

Easter Island is 3,700km from the nearest continental landmass. The nearest inhabited island is 2,075km away. The moai — the giant stone heads — are real and extraordinary and were carved by a civilisation that then largely destroyed itself through deforestation and resource depletion. The parallels with contemporary civilisation are left as an exercise for the visitor.

Curaçao is a Dutch Caribbean island and EU citizens have the right to live and work here without a visa. Willemstad's Handelskade waterfront — a row of impossibly colourful Dutch colonial buildings reflected in the Sint Annabaai harbour — is one of the most photographed streetscapes in the Caribbean. The island is outside the hurricane belt. The diving is world-class.

La Palma is the greenest and least developed of the Canary Islands. It is also the island that erupted in 2021 — the Cumbre Vieja volcano destroyed 3,000 homes and created 56 hectares of new land before stopping. The island is still recovering. The lava fields are still raw. The rest of the island was untouched and remains extraordinary.

La Réunion is a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean — EU territory, Euro currency, French bureaucracy, and an active volcano that erupted 7 times in the last decade. The Piton de la Fournaise is one of the most active volcanoes on earth and you can walk to the crater rim on a marked trail. The island has no tourist cliché — it is simply extraordinary nature that happens to be administered by France.