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Best Culture Destinations in North America

50 city guides · 3-day culture itineraries

3-day city guides focused on museums, galleries, performing arts and local creative scenes.

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Acapulco

A Diego Rivera shell mosaic, a Manila Galleon fortress, Guerrero mask halls and the salsa floors tha…

North America
🇬🇹 Guatemala

Antigua

Convent cloisters turned museums, working printmaking and textile studios, and the marimba-and-Baroq…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Atlanta

Three days through the High Museum, the Fox Theatre, Emory's antiquities and the West End's African-…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Austin

Ellsworth Kelly's stained-glass chapel, the Harry Ransom Center's Gutenberg Bible, and a working pri…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Boston

Isabella Stewart Gardner's Venetian palace, the MFA's Art of the Americas wing, the Theater District…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Calgary

Contemporary galleries in a converted planetarium, Canada's largest Blackfoot collection, an all-Can…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Cancun

Museums of Yucatán archaeology, a submerged sculpture park, mariachi plazas and the working-class ar…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Charlotte

Four museums on one Levine Center block, a Southern folk-art collection with no equal, and a textile…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Chicago

Modernist masterpieces, Steppenwolf ensemble theatre, mosaic-lined libraries and the South Side gall…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Dallas

An architecture-heavy walk through Texas's densest museum quarter, the Meyerson's shoebox acoustics …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Denver

Clyfford Still's private universe, Adjaye and Graves architecture, Five Points jazz history and the …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Detroit

Contemporary galleries, Art Deco theatres, Eastern Market murals and the city's own jazz rooms.…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Guadalajara

Orozco's frescoes, Barragán's first house, national-prize ceramics and a 1921 cantina where the trio…

North America
🇨🇺 Cuba

Havana

Hand-pulled lithographs, the Ballet Nacional's marble palace, Afro-Cuban mural alleys and a cooking-…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Honolulu

From Kalākaua's palace and Doris Duke's Islamic art house to Chinatown galleries, Kaka'ako murals an…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Houston

A city with no zoning laws and no admission fees: eleven museums in one district, a Renzo Piano mast…

North America
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

La Romana

Amber-and-larimar workshops, a Regional Museum of Taíno artefacts, a 5,000-seat Grecian amphitheatre…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Las Vegas

Rembrandts inside a casino, a graveyard of salvaged neon, the Smith Center's art-deco tower and 18b'…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Los Angeles

Gehry steel downtown, Wilshire's Museum Row, and the printmaking and mariachi traditions east of the…

North America
🇳🇮 Nicaragua

Managua

National museum collections, Rubén Darío's neoclassical theatre, Solentiname primitivist canvases an…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Mexico City

Rivera's frescoes, Barragán's colour-drenched modernism, Ballet Folklórico under Tiffany glass, and …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Miami

Private collections in warehouses, a Gilded Age villa on the bay, Little Haiti drum circles and the …

North America
🇯🇲 Jamaica

Montego Bay

Plantation great houses, Jamaican fine art, Sunday gospel choirs and the neighbourhood sound systems…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Monterrey

Legorreta and Tadao Ando architecture, contemporary galleries, a foundry turned arts district, and t…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Montreal

Five linked museum pavilions, a garment factory full of galleries, 6,489 organ pipes and the Saint-L…

North America
🇧🇸 Bahamas

Nassau

The national collection in an 1860s mansion, a sculptor's stone cottage, hand-printed cloth and the …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

New Orleans

Ogden's Southern art collection, Preservation Hall's acoustic sets and the brass-band workshops of T…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

New York

Abstract Expressionism on Madison Avenue, Cloisters tapestries, off-Broadway basements and Brooklyn …

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Ottawa

A capital-city culture route through Moriyama and Cardinal's landmark museum buildings, free federal…

North America
🇵🇦 Panama

Panama City

Contemporary art on Ancón hill, Roberto Lewis frescoes in the 1908 National Theatre, Guna textile ga…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Philadelphia

Museum mile on the Parkway, Furness Gothic and Viñoly glass, plus the mosaic alleys and mural walls …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Phoenix

Frank Lloyd Wright's winter camp, the Musical Instrument Museum's 200-country collection, and Roosev…

North America
🇭🇹 Haiti

Port-au-Prince

Cathedral ruins, recycled oil-drum sculpture, Nader family collections and the hillside galleries th…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Portland

The West Coast's oldest art museum, Michael Graves' founding postmodern block, a Suzhou walled garde…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Puebla

Sibyl murals, the Americas' oldest public library, a Toyo Ito baroque museum and painted barrio wall…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Puerto Vallarta

Wixárika beadwork, a converted hacienda arts centre, folk-ballet nights and the Wednesday gallery wa…

North America
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

Punta Cana

Brutalist basilicas in Higüey, the artists' village and amphitheatre above the Chavón gorge, and the…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Quebec City

Riopelle canvases, a Jordi Bonet mural wall, Ex Machina stagecraft and the Saint-Roch gallery strip…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

San Diego

Modernist landmarks in La Jolla, free Sunday organ recitals and Chicano Park's bridge-pylon murals, …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

San Francisco

SFMOMA's seven storeys, a Diego Rivera fresco hidden in an art school, the Castro's deco palace and …

North America
🇨🇷 Costa Rica

San Jose

Jade and gold vaults, a 1897 opera house, contemporary galleries in a former liquor factory, and the…

North America
🇵🇷 Puerto Rico

San Juan

Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, the Ballajá barracks museums, an 1824 theatre and Santurce's painted b…

North America
🇨🇺 Cuba

Santiago de Cuba

Cuba's oldest museum, the island's oldest house, Afro-Cuban cabildos and folkloric rehearsals across…

North America
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo

Beyond the colonial postcards: Dominican modern art collections, the national opera house, ceramic w…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Seattle

Chihuly's blown-glass forests, Benaroya Hall acoustics, Asian art in an Art Deco landmark and the Ce…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

St Louis

A world-class free art museum, a 1934 movie palace turned Broadway house, mosaic-covered cathedral d…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Toronto

Gehry's AGO, Libeskind's crystal, Canada's National Ballet stage and the street-art alleys of Queen …

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Vancouver

Emily Carr canvases and Bill Reid carvings, Arthur Erickson concrete, a 1927 vaudeville palace and 3…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Veracruz

Coral-rock exhibition halls, Agustín Lara's piano, danzón at dusk and a raw-concrete concert hall at…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Washington DC

Vermeers and Rothkos without a ticket, Duke Ellington's U Street, embassy-row mansions and a Kennedy…