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Best History Destinations in North America

50 city guides · 3-day history itineraries

3-day city guides centred on historical sites, monuments, old quarters and untold stories.

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Acapulco

From the Manila Galleon fortress and Pacific trade routes to Diego Rivera murals, Independence battl…

North America
🇬🇹 Guatemala

Antigua

Convent ruins, the Spanish colonial capital's fallen monasteries and the 1773 Santa Marta earthquake…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Atlanta

Mississippian mound builders, Kennesaw's Civil War trenches, a 371-foot battle panorama and the Blac…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Austin

From the 1839 Republic of Texas street grid to Emancipation-era Freedmen's towns and the Great Socie…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Boston

Burying grounds, meeting houses, a 1797 frigate and the hill that ended the siege — Boston's own tim…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Calgary

From 6,000-year-old buffalo jumps and Blackfoot winter camps to the 1875 Mounted Police fort, the sa…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Cancun

Postclassic Maya trading ports, colonial Yucatán churches and the planning blueprints that turned a …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Charlotte

From the 1775 Mecklenburg Declaration and America's first gold rush to Confederate naval secrets and…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Chicago

From the Fort Dearborn stockade and the 1871 Great Fire to Pullman's company town, Hull-House and a …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Dallas

From John Neely Bryan's 1841 cedar cabin on the Trinity bluff to the Freedman's Cemetery of Old Nort…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Denver

From Folsom spear points and an 1859 stagecoach cabin to Dr. Justina Ford's house, the Rossonian's j…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Detroit

From the 1701 French landing at Ste. Anne to the Model T loft, the Underground Railroad crossing and…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Guadalajara

From the El Ixtépete pyramid to Porfirian mansions — four city foundings, three centuries of baroque…

North America
🇨🇺 Cuba

Havana

Spanish fortress walls, baroque plazas, the Granma yacht and Che's bullet-marked palace — Havana's f…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Honolulu

From the sacred royal grounds of the Hawaiian Kingdom to the sunken battleships of December 7, told …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Houston

From the 1836 founding bank on Buffalo Bayou to freed-slave brick streets and the Apollo consoles th…

North America
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

La Romana

From pre-Columbian rock art and a 1505 conquistador's house to the company town that sugar built…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Las Vegas

From the 1855 Mormon Fort adobe walls to Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo and the Nevada Test Site mushroom c…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Los Angeles

From the 1781 pueblo plaza and Mission San Gabriel to Union Station, the Coliseum and the Watts Towe…

North America
🇳🇮 Nicaragua

Managua

From pre-Columbian footprints in volcanic mud to the roofless cathedral and the bunkers of the Somoz…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Mexico City

From the excavated Great Temple of Tenochtitlán to Trotsky's bullet-scarred study — five centuries o…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Miami

From a 2,000-year-old Tequesta circle carved in limestone to the Bay of Pigs memorial flame, tracing…

North America
🇯🇲 Jamaica

Montego Bay

Georgian sugar mansions, the square where Sam Sharpe was hanged, and the Georgian port town where sl…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Monterrey

From Chichimeca hunter-gatherers and an 1846 battlefield palace to the foundry chimneys that forged …

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Montreal

From the 1642 Ville-Marie settlement buried under Pointe-à-Callière to the Iroquoian villages of Mou…

North America
🇧🇸 Bahamas

Nassau

Lucayan cliffs, privateer mansions, slave-auction houses and the African settlements the Royal Navy …

North America
🇺🇸 United States

New Orleans

Colonial convents, Creole townhouses, Civil War archives and the Tremé ground where jazz was born…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

New York

From the Dutch wall that became Wall Street to Ellis Island's registry room and the tenement kitchen…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Ottawa

From Algonquin river routes and Colonel By's military canal to the Peacekeeping Monument and the Die…

North America
🇵🇦 Panama

Panama City

From the 1519 ruins Henry Morgan burned to the locks that rewrote world trade — five centuries of is…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Philadelphia

Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Eastern State Penitentiary and the founding of a nation…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Phoenix

From 1,500-year-old irrigation ditches and platform mounds to the 1901 territorial Capitol, Route 66…

North America
🇭🇹 Haiti

Port-au-Prince

Colonial sugar mills, Dessalines-era mountain forts, 2010 quake ruins and the gingerbread quarter of…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Portland

From a Hudson's Bay stockade and the Oregon Trail's end to Vanport's erased city, Japanese American …

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Puebla

From the 1531 Spanish grid and Talavera-tiled convents to the forts of the 5 de Mayo battle and the …

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Puerto Vallarta

From Aztatlán petroglyphs and the 1851 salt port of Las Peñas to the Hollywood scandal that built th…

North America
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

Punta Cana

Petroglyph-carved cenotes, the 1502 first colonial town of Higüey, Basílica pilgrimage sites and the…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Quebec City

From Champlain's 1608 trading post to Laval's seminary, the Augustinian hospital, the British citade…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

San Diego

From the 1769 Spanish mission and adobe presidio to Cold War aircraft carriers, Victorian brothels a…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

San Francisco

Ohlone shellmounds, Spanish adobe, Gold Rush banking halls, 1906 fire lines and the Chinatown, Fillm…

North America
🇨🇷 Costa Rica

San Jose

From jade carvings of chiefdoms that vanished in 1502 to the bullet-scarred fortress where a preside…

North America
🇵🇷 Puerto Rico

San Juan

From Ponce de León's 1521 stone house to the 1952 Constitution — five centuries of Spanish, African …

North America
🇨🇺 Cuba

Santiago de Cuba

From the oldest house in the Americas and a UNESCO clifftop fortress to Santa Ifigenia's marble maus…

North America
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo

Beyond the cathedral: the Americas' first hospital and university in ruins, Taíno collections, and t…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Seattle

From the buried 1889 streets beneath Pioneer Square to the Klondike gold ships, Boeing's first hanga…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

St Louis

Cahokia's earthen pyramids, the courthouse where Dred Scott sued for freedom, and the brick neighbou…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Toronto

War of 1812 battlefields, a Victorian castle, Canada's first parliament and the Underground Railroad…

North America
🇨🇦 Canada

Vancouver

From a 4,000-year-old Musqueam village to the storefronts emptied by internment and the head tax.…

North America
🇲🇽 Mexico

Veracruz

From Totonac cliff tombs and Cortés's first landfall to bastions, the Naval School of 1914 and the t…

North America
🇺🇸 United States

Washington DC

From a 1753 Alexandria merchant's mansion to Lincoln's summer cottage and the wall of 209,145 US Col…