Login
login / signup
Stow-on-the-Wold, United Kingdom
Stow-on-the-Wold
Stow-on-the-Wold's 18th-century rhyme warns: 'where the wind blows cold' - earned by being the Cotswolds' highest town at 800 feet.
From the CommunityAll Places
Brașov, Romania
Tourist Information Centre
What was once an address for official decrees now helps visitors make considerably lighter decisions.
From the Community
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Hotel Posada de La Aldea
This hotel's 18th-century walls and 400-year-old fountain predate San Miguel de Allende's famous pink cathedral by decades.
From the Community
Harbin, China
The Ice and Snow World Post Office
At Harbin's ice festival, a working post office carved from frozen river blocks actually mails your postcards - stamp included.
From the Community
Standish, Maine, United States
Sebago Lake
Firefighters raced back from their Fourth of July picnic to find Portland ablaze and the tide too low to fight it.
From the Community
Keflavík, Iceland
Holmsberg Lighthouse
One of seven identical lighthouses designed by engineer Axel Sveinsson - this one got a sunny paint job in 1964 to stand out.
From the Community
Williamsburg, Virginia, United States
Williamsburg Public Hospital
America’s first hospital dedicated to mental health opened during the colonial era and has endured revolution, war, and changing ideas about care.
From the Community
Samcheok, South Korea
Maengbang Beach
The lifeguard stand grins at the East Sea while K-pop fans make their pilgrimage to Butter Beach.
From the Community
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
Bishkek Wedding Palace
When the Soviet Union traded churches for wedding palaces, Bishkek built a futuristic monument where thousands of couples still begin their happily ever afters.
From the Community
Wroclaw, Poland
Grand Hotel Wrocław
Wrocław’s Grand Hotel has spent a century changing names, identities, and fortunes - and is finally returning to its former glory.
From the Community
Thessaloniki, Greece
Hotel Augustos
Built in 1923 from the ashes of Thessaloniki's great fire, this hotel has witnessed a century of the city's transformation.
From the Community
Cape Town, South Africa
Muizenberg Beach Huts
Muizenberg's bathing boxes started as Victorian modesty machines on wheels, then lost their wheels when mixed bathing became legal in 1901.
From the Community
Sign up for our Newsletter
The AWA Bulletin: A quick & curated bi-weekly break
Paternoster, South Africa
Paternoster Biblioteek
Among Paternoster's white-washed cottages, the library's yellow shutters are the village's brightest rebellion.
From the Community
Buxoro Viloyati, Uzbekistan
Chor Minor
Chor Minor means 'four minarets,' but the towers were never minarets. Three stored supplies; one had stairs.
From the Community
Jewett, New York, USA
Windham Mountain Outfitters
A family-owned ski shop with a fire-engine red roof, a rescue dog named Wiggles, and coffee next door: ski country essentials.
From the Community
Miami Beach, Florida, United States
Cavalier South Beach Hotel
Roy F. France moved to Miami Beach in 1931 and designed the Cavalier with a mantra: let in the air and sun.
From the Community
Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy
The Old Striped Lighthouse of Lignano Sabbiadoro
This retired lighthouse survived demolition on one condition: it had to give up its light and stand next to its replacement.
From the Community
Porto, Portugal
Porto, Portugal
Two brothers gifted this street to Porto in 1824. Today, its true landlords have four legs and answer to no one.
From the Community
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Chiang Mai Station
Chiang Mai Station: The northern terminus of a 25-year railway odyssey that required boring through a mountain by hand.
From the Community
Robert Sobukwe, South Africa
Frontiers Karoo Restaurant
South Africa's most monument-dense town was once so rebellious its burghers declared independence from colonial rule: twice.
From the Community
Valletta, Malta
Valletta Post Office
Malta's British post boxes still bear royal ciphers from Victoria to George VI, and unlike their UK cousins, many still collect mail.
From the Community
Glasgow, Scotland
RISOTTO Studio
Mackintosh's first job? Designing drainage for a Victorian lemonade factory that's now a risograph print studio.
From the Community
Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig
Leipzig built 12,500 ornamental Gründerzeit buildings in just 43 years, housing a population boom from 100,000 to 700,000 residents.
From the Community
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Dancing of the Giglio
Every July, a four-ton tower with a 12-piece brass band is lifted by more than 100 men and 'dances' through Brooklyn's streets.
From the Community
Saronikos, Greece
Bus Line 122
Greek bus schedules operate on 'elastic time,' where the sea and a driver's coffee break hold equal weight with timetables.
From the Community
Easton, Pennsylvania, United States
Wilson Borough Water Authority
Wilson Borough's brutalist water tower: no paint, no charm, just concrete angles pointing the way home since the late '90s.
From the Community
Marbella, Spain
Marbella
A breakdown in a 900-person fishing village: how Prince Alfonso de Hohenlohe's faulty Rolls-Royce accidentally created Marbella.
From the Community
Nice, France
Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas de Nice
Built for Russian aristocrats fleeing winter, this cathedral's patron—Tsar Nicholas II—never saw the revolution coming.
From the Community
Söder-Öster, Sweden
Kampagården, Bokhultet Reserve
Every hiking trail in this Swedish nature reserve was accidentally created by soldiers during 78 years of military training.
From the Community
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States
Santa Fe Depot
This 1934 depot sat abandoned for 20 years until a developer spent seven years negotiating to buy it for $374,667.
From the Community
Barcelona, Spain
Casa Vicens
Gaudí's first house began with marigolds: the young architect turned wildflowers into ceramic tiles for a stockbroker's summer escape.
From the Community
Innsbruck, Austria
Südtiroler Platz 1
A Belle Époque hotel with its own power plant was bombed flat in 1944, rebuilt in orange concrete, and became an alpine icon.
From the Community
Panamá, Panama
Palacio Bolivar
Bolívar organized the 1826 Congress to unite Latin America but skipped it; too busy presidenting elsewhere. Only one nation ratified the dream.
From the Community
Chatuchak, Thailand
Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal
A vintage railway office sits inside a station that took seven years to build, where trains once saved a kingdom from colonization.
From the Community
Khet Bang Rak, Thailand
The Standard Hotel Bangkok Mahanakon
The elevators at The Standard Bangkok come in bold, clashing colors: a chromatic rebellion inside a pixelated tower.
From the Community