From world-class attractions and sports to legendary music, Liverpool offers old-world charm with modern sophistication, underpinned by a rich cultural history.

The Isle of Man, situated in the Irish Sea off the west coast of England, is a mountainous, cliff-fringed island and one of Britain’s most beautiful spots. Measuring just 30 miles by 13 miles, the Isle of Man remains semi-autonomous. With its own postage stamps, laws, currency, and the Court of Tynwald (the world’s oldest democratic parliament), the Isle of Man is rich with history and lore.Inhabited from Neolithic times, the island became a refuge for Irish missionaries after the 5th Century. Norsemen took the island during the 9th Century and sold it to Scotland in 1266. However, since the 14th Century, it has been held by England. Manx, the indigenous Celtic language, is still spoken by a small minority. The Isle of Man has no income tax, which has encouraged many Britains to regard the island as a refuge. Otherwise, it is populated by Gaelic farmers, fishermen, and the famous tailless manx cats. The varied landscape features austere moorlands and wooded glens, interspersed by fine castles, narrow-gauge railways, and scores of standing stones with Celtic crosses. The hilly terrain rises to a height of 2,036 feet at Mount Snaefell, which dominates the center of the island.

Nestled behind lofty city walls, Londonderry is a destination of culture, which boasts an increasingly envied reputation. This Northern Irish city is still riding on the momentum of a fantastic 2013, when it was named as UK City of Culture, and singled out as one of Lonely Planet's top 5 destinations to visit. The wonderfully preserved city walls are perhaps Londonderry's most treasured charm, and they encircle 1,450 years of history, and are over 400 years old. The walls came to the fore of the city's history during the Siege of Derry, back in 1688 - when King James's forces attacked, causing mass starvation and suffering over 105 days of stalemate. It takes approximately an hour to wander the entire circuit of the walls, and see their seven gates, and you’ll absorb a feast of information along the way. View the mighty cannons that boomed during the siege, or stop into one of the plentiful cafes, should you need a little refreshment before continuing your journey. St. Columb’s Cathedral, which dates back to 1633, towers over the walled city, and is one of the city's most significant historic sites. Its dreamy spire contains a set of bells that have peeled out melodies here since 1638, making them Ireland's oldest.

Founded by Dutch fishermen in the 17th century, Lerwick today is a busy town and administrative center. Handsome stone buildings—known as lodberries—line the harbor; they provided loading bays for goods, some of them illegal. The town's twisting flagstone lanes and harbor once heaved with activity, and Lerwick is still an active port today. This is also where most visitors to Shetland dock, spilling out of cruise ships, allowing passengers to walk around the town.

In bustling Kirkwall, the main town on Orkney, there's plenty to see in the narrow, winding streets extending from the harbor. The cathedral and some museums are highlights.

More than 600 miles (nearly 1,000 kilometres) from Denmark’s west coast lie the Faroes, a triangle of eighteen windswept islands, seventeen of which are inhabited. Only 48,500 people plus some 70,000 sheep roam these remote lands. Much of the islands’ heritage reflects a medieval past, beginning with the arrival of farmers from western Norway who settled here in the 9th century. Evidence of this Scandinavian heritage is preserved through centuries of isolation; ancient structures can still be seen in villages clustered around old churches. Sheer cliffs and waterfalls carve Streymoy, the largest of the islands, where Torshavn is one of the world’s smallest capitals with about 12,400 inhabitants, plus another 5,000 living in the suburbs of Argir and Hoyvik. Visitors find interesting museums, churches, monuments and all the amenities of a modern town and thriving harbour here. The world’s oldest, still active parliament was founded in the Viking age. Today, it houses the main offices of the local government. Many of the attractions are found outside of Torshavn in the rugged beauty of Streymoy. There are fields with grazing ponies and sheep, tiny hamlets where residents live in half-timbered houses topped by green grass roofs, and dramatic rock formations. Birds by the thousands populate the craggy seaside cliffs, which make an ideal stopover for migratory gannets, guillemots and puffins. The Faroes' climate is generally wet and windy. Because of the Gulf Stream, the temperature is a good deal more moderate than the latitude might imply; it also helps to keep Faroe harbours ice-free year-round.

Seyðisfjörður, a beautiful 19th-century Norwegian village on the east coast of Iceland, is regarded by many as one of Iceland's most picturesque towns, not only due to its impressive environment, but also because nowhere in Iceland has a community of old wooden buildings been preserved so well as here. Poet Matthías Johannessen called Seyðisfjörður a 'pearl enclosed in a shell'. The community owes its origins to foreign merchants, mainly Danes, who started trading in the fjord in the mid-19th century. But the crucial factor in the evolution of the village was the establishment of the Icelandic herring fishery by Norwegians in 1870-1900. The Norwegians built up a number of herring-fishing facilities, and in a matter of years the little community grew into a boom town. Today, about 800 people live in Seyðisfjörður. The local economy has long been based on the fisheries, while light industry also flourishes. Tourism is playing a growing role, as the picturesque town in its spectacular surroundings attracts more and more visitors. The car/passenger ferry Norrøna, which plies between continental Europe and Iceland every summer, docks at Seyðisfjörður every Thursday. Seyðisfjörður has been a cosmopolitan community from its foundation, and the ferry service has contributed to ensuring that it remains so.

Sprawling Reykjavík, the nation's nerve center and government seat, is home to half the island's population. On a bay overlooked by proud Mt. Esja (pronounced eh-shyuh), with its ever-changing hues, Reykjavík presents a colorful sight, its concrete houses painted in light colors and topped by vibrant red, blue, and green roofs. In contrast to the almost treeless countryside, Reykjavík has many tall, native birches, rowans, and willows, as well as imported aspen, pines, and spruces.Reykjavík's name comes from the Icelandic words for smoke, reykur, and bay, vík. In AD 874, Norseman Ingólfur Arnarson saw Iceland rising out of the misty sea and came ashore at a bay eerily shrouded with plumes of steam from nearby hot springs. Today most of the houses in Reykjavík are heated by near-boiling water from the hot springs. Natural heating avoids air pollution; there's no smoke around. You may notice, however, that the hot water brings a slight sulfur smell to the bathroom.Prices are easily on a par with other major European cities. A practical option is to purchase a Reykjavík City Card at the Tourist Information Center or at the Reykjavík Youth Hostel. This card permits unlimited bus usage and admission to any of the city's seven pools, the Family Park and Zoo, and city museums. The cards are valid for one (ISK 3,300), two (ISK 4,400), or three days (ISK 4,900), and they pay for themselves after three or four uses a day. Even lacking the City Card, paying admission (ISK 500, or ISK 250 for seniors and people with disabilities) to one of the city art museums (Hafnarhús, Kjarvalsstaðir, or Ásmundarsafn) gets you free same-day admission to the other two.

Sprawling Reykjavík, the nation's nerve center and government seat, is home to half the island's population. On a bay overlooked by proud Mt. Esja (pronounced eh-shyuh), with its ever-changing hues, Reykjavík presents a colorful sight, its concrete houses painted in light colors and topped by vibrant red, blue, and green roofs. In contrast to the almost treeless countryside, Reykjavík has many tall, native birches, rowans, and willows, as well as imported aspen, pines, and spruces.Reykjavík's name comes from the Icelandic words for smoke, reykur, and bay, vík. In AD 874, Norseman Ingólfur Arnarson saw Iceland rising out of the misty sea and came ashore at a bay eerily shrouded with plumes of steam from nearby hot springs. Today most of the houses in Reykjavík are heated by near-boiling water from the hot springs. Natural heating avoids air pollution; there's no smoke around. You may notice, however, that the hot water brings a slight sulfur smell to the bathroom.Prices are easily on a par with other major European cities. A practical option is to purchase a Reykjavík City Card at the Tourist Information Center or at the Reykjavík Youth Hostel. This card permits unlimited bus usage and admission to any of the city's seven pools, the Family Park and Zoo, and city museums. The cards are valid for one (ISK 3,300), two (ISK 4,400), or three days (ISK 4,900), and they pay for themselves after three or four uses a day. Even lacking the City Card, paying admission (ISK 500, or ISK 250 for seniors and people with disabilities) to one of the city art museums (Hafnarhús, Kjarvalsstaðir, or Ásmundarsafn) gets you free same-day admission to the other two.

The largest town in southern Greenland, Qaqortoq has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Upon arrival in this charming southern Greenland enclave, it's easy to see why. Qaqortoq rises quite steeply over the fjord system around the city, offering breath-taking panoramic vistas of the surrounding mountains, deep, blue sea, Lake Tasersuag, icebergs in the bay, and pastoral backcountry. Although the earliest signs of ancient civilization in Qaqortoq date back 4,300 years, Qaqortoq is known to have been inhabited by Norse and Inuit settlers in the 10th and 12th centuries, and the present-day town was founded in 1774. In the years since, Qaqortoq has evolved into a seaport and trading hub for fish and shrimp processing, tanning, fur production, and ship maintenance and repair.

Around the year 1000, Vikings from Greenland and Iceland founded the first European settlement in North America, near the northern tip of Newfoundland. They arrived in the New World 500 years before Columbus but stayed only a few years and were forgotten for centuries. Since the settlement's rediscovery in the last century, the archaeological site has brought tourism to the area. Viking themes abound but so do views, whales, icebergs, fun dining experiences, and outdoor activities. L'Anse Aux Meadows on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland is a remote community of just 40 people, with St Anthony, 40 minutes away, having a population of only 3,500. The region is locally famous for springtime polar bears, nesting eider ducks, the northern extreme of the Appalachians at nearby Belle Isle, numerous spring and summer icebergs, and a rich ocean fishery. L’Anse Aux Meadows National Historic Site is the UNESCO World Heritage Site that tells the story of Leif Erickson and the first Europeans in the new world. This site is often the keystone attraction for cruises themed around the Vikings. Discovered in 1960, it is the site of a Norse village, the only known one in North America outside of Greenland. The site remains the only widely-accepted instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, and is notable for possible connections with the attempted colony of Vinland established by Leif Ericson around 1003, or more broadly with Norse exploration of the Americas. The root of the name "L'Anse aux Meadows" is believed to have originated with French fishermen in the area during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who named the site L'Anse aux Meduses, meaning 'Jellyfish Bay'.

Acclaimed for its unearthly landscape, Woody Point is probably as close to Mars as you will ever get in this lifetime. Situated on the west coast of the island, the Tablelands behind Woody Point in the Gros Morne National Park are composed of peridotite — like much of the surface of Mars — and  NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, plus others are studying this unique land form searching for insights into possible bacterial life on the red planet. The story of the Tablelands earned Gros Morne its World Heritage Site status from UNESCO in 2010, and the area remains a geological wonder, showcasing a time when the continents of Africa and North America collided. When the plates struck 485 million years ago, the peridotite was pushed to the surface, and remained above sea level. The rock lacks the nutrients to sustain plant life, thus giving the Tablelands a barren, isolated appearance. As the name suggests, the flat topped mountains dwarf the tiny village (population 281!), yet Woody Point has retained its character and the historic houses and buildings dating from 1870 have been beautifully maintained.

If you come directly to Cape Breton via plane, ferry, or cruise ship, Sydney is where you’ll land. If you’re seeking anything resembling an urban experience, it’s also where you’ll want to stay: after all, this is the island’s sole city. Admittedly, it is not the booming center it was a century ago when the continent’s largest steel plant was located here (that era is evoked in Fall on Your Knees, an Oprah Book Club pick penned by Cape Bretoner Anne-Marie MacDonald). However, Sydney has a revitalized waterfront and smattering of Loyalist-era buildings that appeal to visitors. Moreover, it offers convenient access to popular attractions in the region—like the Miner’s Museum in nearby Glace Bay (named for the glace, or ice, that filled its harbor in winter), the Fortress at Louisbourg, and beautiful Bras d'Or Lake.

Surrounded by natural treasures and glorious seascapes, Halifax is an attractive and vibrant hub with noteworthy historic and modern architecture, great dining and shopping, and a lively nightlife and festival scene. The old city manages to feel both hip and historic. Previous generations had the foresight to preserve the cultural and architectural integrity of the city, yet students from five local universities keep it lively and current. It's a perfect starting point to any tour of the Atlantic provinces, but even if you don't venture beyond its boundaries, you will get a real taste of the region.It was Halifax’s natural harbor—the second largest in the world after Sydney, Australia’s—that first drew the British here in 1749, and today most major sites are conveniently located either along it or on the Citadel-crowned hill overlooking it. That’s good news for visitors because this city actually covers quite a bit of ground.Since amalgamating with Dartmouth (directly across the harbor) and several suburbs in 1996, Halifax has been absorbed into the Halifax Regional Municipality, and the HRM, as it is known, has around 415,000 residents. That may not sound like a lot by U.S. standards, but it makes Nova Scotia’s capital the most significant Canadian urban center east of Montréal.There's easy access to the water, and despite being the focal point of a busy commercial port, Halifax Harbour doubles as a playground, with one of the world's longest downtown boardwalks. It's a place where container ships, commuter ferries, cruise ships, and tour boats compete for space, and where workaday tugs and fishing vessels tie up beside glitzy yachts. Like Halifax as a whole, the harbor represents a blend of the traditional and the contemporary.

There’s history and culture around every bend in Boston—skyscrapers nestle next to historic hotels while modern marketplaces line the antique cobblestone streets. But to Bostonians, living in a city that blends yesterday and today is just another day in beloved Beantown.

There’s history and culture around every bend in Boston—skyscrapers nestle next to historic hotels while modern marketplaces line the antique cobblestone streets. But to Bostonians, living in a city that blends yesterday and today is just another day in beloved Beantown.

From Wall Street's skyscrapers to the neon of Times Square to Central Park's leafy paths, New York City pulses with an irrepressible energy. History meets hipness in this global center of entertainment, fashion, media, and finance. World-class museums like MoMA and unforgettable icons like the Statue of Liberty beckon, but discovering the subtler strains of New York's vast ambition is equally rewarding: ethnic enclaves and shops, historic streets of dignified brownstones, and trendy bars and eateries all add to the urban buzz.

From Wall Street's skyscrapers to the neon of Times Square to Central Park's leafy paths, New York City pulses with an irrepressible energy. History meets hipness in this global center of entertainment, fashion, media, and finance. World-class museums like MoMA and unforgettable icons like the Statue of Liberty beckon, but discovering the subtler strains of New York's vast ambition is equally rewarding: ethnic enclaves and shops, historic streets of dignified brownstones, and trendy bars and eateries all add to the urban buzz.