The World’s Best Cities
Nat Geo’s latest travel tome is more for the coffee table than the backpack
There are several aspects when it comes to travelling — culture, food, people, nightlife, to name only a few. So if you are in search of a travel bible that compiles all these travel angles, World’s Best Cities is one of the good choices. The 335-page volume is not just another travel guidebook that suggests what to eat or where to shop. Rather it also digs into the history of some of the major cities and presents to readers interesting historical information with regard to those places. Of course, the book recommends iconic places for tourists to visit, but at the same time it also provides cultural context which allows readers to have more indepth understanding of their interesting spots.
In this book, there are 220 cities altogether. They include, for example, Tokyo, New York, Paris, Barcelona, San Francisco and Marrakesh, as well as Bangkok. Take Tokyo, for example. The history of Ginza is explained in the book with comparison to how the area looks at present. There is also information on rare eats in Tokyo and the city’s famed cuisine in case visitors are interested to give them a try.
What’s also interesting about World’s Best Cities is that each city comes with vital statistics worth knowing.
For instance, in London, there are 4,390 pubs and 45 universities. The city hosted the Olympics three times in 1908, 1948 and 2012. In Bangkok, there are more than 100,000 registered taxis. The average morning humidity is 87% and the typical price for a bowl of noodles at a street stall is around 33 baht, according to the book.
Another highlight is the part entitled “The Best Cities” which is scattered throughout the book. Basically The Best Cities compiles the top spots in several categories, for example, the best Olympic Cities (such as Calgary in Canada, Nagano in Japan and Sochi in Russia), the best food cities (Buffalo in New York, Osaka in Japan) and the happiest cities (Thailand’s Ko Samui is also on this list).
The only downside of this book is that it is quite heavy. Given the book size of A4, it is not a travel guidebook that people would carry around while holidaying. Rather it is one that readers might have a proper sit-down with while flipping through pages of information.