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Lower-demand months work best in destinations that still have usable routes after the beach crowds, cruise peaks, or blossom-season rush fades. The trip needs walkable streets, indoor stops, food plans, museums, festivals, mild weather, or landscapes that stay accessible outside the main summer window.
Madeira gives travelers Funchal, gardens, levada walks, viewpoints, natural pools, and mild year-round temperatures. Malta keeps Valletta, Mdina, the Three Cities, temples, fortifications, countryside walks, and ferry routes in play outside peak beach season. Dubrovnik offers the Old City, walls, churches, palaces, autumn food events, and winter cultural dates after the heaviest summer traffic leaves.
Kyoto’s winter calendar includes limited-time openings at temples, shrines, and historic buildings, while spring blossoms and late-autumn foliage bring the largest visitor numbers. Seville’s cooler months make longer walks around the cathedral area, Santa Cruz, Triana, María Luisa Park, and Plaza de España easier than the hottest summer weeks.
Travelers should still check weather, ferry schedules, trail status, opening hours, festival dates, and daylight before booking. A quieter month can reduce crowd pressure, but it does not remove the need for restaurant reservations, attraction tickets, or a backup indoor plan.
1. Madeira, Portugal
Madeira has the weather profile needed for a lower-demand trip with real outdoor time. The official tourism board says the archipelago has a mild climate throughout the year, with average temperatures ranging from 15°C in winter to 25°C in summer. That range supports walking, viewpoints, gardens, natural pools, and levada routes outside the hottest months.
Funchal can cover a slower day without a car-heavy plan. Travelers can build a route around the market, old streets, cafés, the waterfront, cable cars, gardens, seafood, and ocean views. Cloudy mornings do not automatically ruin the day, but mountain weather can differ from coastal weather, so trail plans need a same-day forecast check.
The levadas and Laurissilva Forest give the island a stronger off-season case than a standard beach destination. Visit Madeira says the Laurissilva Forest has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999 and can be explored through trails and levadas.
Route choice still needs care. Some levada walks include tunnels, wet stone, narrow sections, exposure, or longer distances than casual walkers expect. Travelers should check distance, trail status, footwear, daylight, and transport before choosing a route.
2. Malta
Malta has enough history and walking routes to carry a trip outside peak swim season. VisitMalta says the islands have a favorable climate with 300 days of sunshine, mild winters, countryside walks, beaches, diving, cultural sites, Gozo, and Comino. That mix lets visitors plan around Valletta, Mdina, harbor views, prehistoric sites, and local food instead of relying only on beach weather.
Valletta can anchor the first day with museums, fortifications, churches, harbor views, cafés, and evening walks inside a compact capital. Mdina and Rabat can take another block, while the Three Cities work better with a separate harbor-focused plan. Gozo needs ferry time, so it should not be treated as a casual late-afternoon add-on.
Winter and shoulder months can bring wind, rain, and rougher sea conditions. Travelers planning Comino, boat trips, coastal walks, or Gozo should check ferry operations and the forecast before locking in a day. Indoor stops in Valletta or Mdina make useful backups.
A Malta trip outside summer should be built around culture first and swimming second. Temples, fortifications, museums, bakeries, village streets, waterfront walks, and ferry routes can fill the itinerary even when a beach day becomes a walking day.
3. Dubrovnik, Croatia
Dubrovnik’s Old City is easier to read outside the heaviest summer flow. The Dubrovnik Tourist Board describes the city as a preserved treasury and museum with Baroque, Renaissance, and Romanesque churches and palaces, including the Old City, Stradun, Rector’s Palace, Sponza Palace, St. Blaise’s Church, Orlando’s Column, historic streets, and cathedrals.
The Old City walls, Stradun, church stops, palaces, cafés, harbor edges, and museums can fill a day without summer heat controlling every hour. Lower-demand months also make narrow lanes and viewpoints easier to handle, especially for travelers who want photography, history, and food stops rather than a swim-focused itinerary.
Autumn adds a food reason to consider Dubrovnik after summer. The Dubrovnik Tourist Board says the Good Food Festival returns from October 5 to 18, 2026, with a culinary program tied to gastronomy, wine, and local food experiences.
Travelers should still check cruise schedules, museum hours, restaurant openings, and seasonal transport before booking. Some services reduce frequency outside high season, while major festivals and holiday periods can raise hotel demand even when summer beach crowds are gone.
4. Kyoto, Japan
Kyoto’s off-season case starts with avoiding the largest crowd periods. Kyoto’s official tourism FAQ says late March to early April cherry blossoms and mid-November to early December autumn foliage see the largest tourist numbers. Winter changes the trip from blossom and foliage chasing to temples, museums, food, gardens, and limited-time cultural openings.
The Kyoto Winter Special Openings give winter visitors a specific planning target. Kyoto City Tourism says the 2026 event period runs from January 9 to March 18, with venues including Kodai-ji Temple, Hōkō-ji Temple, Toyokuni-jinja Shrine, Daitoku-ji Daikō-in Temple, Kekō-ji Temple, Ninna-ji Temple, Tō-ji Temple, and others.
The same official notice says opening dates and hours vary by location. Travelers should check the individual site pages before booking a day around one temple, shrine, or historic building. Some sites may have limited hours, different admission rules, or closures tied to ceremonies or weather.
Winter Kyoto still needs cold-weather planning. Temples, gardens, and old streets can involve outdoor waiting, unheated spaces, and early sunsets. A practical winter route should group nearby sites, reserve meals where needed, and keep one indoor museum, market, or café stop available for cold or wet hours.
5. Seville, Spain
Seville rewards travelers who avoid the hottest part of the year. Andalucía’s official tourism site describes the region’s climate as warm Mediterranean, with mild winters, dry hot sunny summers, an average year-round temperature of about 18°C, and more than 300 days of sunshine per year. Cooler months allow longer walks around the cathedral area, Santa Cruz, Triana, María Luisa Park, and Plaza de España.
A lower-demand Seville day can start around the cathedral and Giralda area, continue through Santa Cruz, pause for lunch, and move toward Plaza de España or María Luisa Park later in the day. Triana can take another block with ceramics, tapas, riverside walks, and a different neighborhood route across the Guadalquivir.
Summer heat can force visitors to plan around shade, siesta hours, hydration, and shorter outdoor sections. Cooler months give travelers more usable hours for walking, photography, patios, markets, churches, and tapas without building the whole day around midday avoidance.
Major holidays, fairs, Holy Week, and local events can change prices and crowd levels even outside summer. Travelers should check the calendar before booking a supposedly quiet Seville trip, especially around spring celebrations and long weekends.
The cities with the most five star hotels are indicators of a tourism infrastructure, investment appeal and ability to attract high-spending travellers. But which cities have built the world’s biggest luxury hotel ecosystems?
Where does this data come from
For this ranking, we combined data from Euromonitor International’s Top 100 City Destinations Index with hotel inventory data from Google Hotels. Euromonitor’s annual report ranks the world’s leading urban destinations based on tourism performance, while Google Hotels aggregates listings from hotel websites, online travel agencies and booking platforms around the world.
This marks a change from our previous ranking, which relied on Booking.com listings. By using Google Hotels, which draws inventory from multiple sources rather than a single booking platform, we’re able to capture a broader snapshot of luxury hotel supply across major global destinations.
The methodology
To compile this ranking, we analysed cities from Euromonitor International’s latest list of the world’s most-visited urban destinations and recorded the number of properties classified as five-star on Google Hotels in June 2026.
Because Google Hotels aggregates inventory from hotel websites, Booking.com, Expedia and other travel providers, it offers a broader view of luxury accommodation than any single booking platform. The ranking reflects the total number of five-star hotels visible on Google Hotels at the time of analysis.
What the data says
Istanbul tops the ranking with 290 five-star hotels, comfortably ahead of Dubai, which comes in second with 233. London remains Europe’s luxury hotel capital with 185 five-star properties, while Bangkok continues to cement its reputation as one of Asia’s leading destinations for luxury travel.
India does not feature among the cities analysed here, but Delhi and Mumbai remain significant luxury hotel markets, with 60 and 48 five-star properties (respectively) catering to both domestic and international travellers.
The cities with the most five-star hotels in the world, ranked
- Istanbul — 290 five-star hotels
- Dubai — 233 five-star hotels
- London — 185 five-star hotels
- Bangkok — 167 five-star hotels
- Paris — 123 five-star hotels
- Kuala Lumpur — 70 five-star hotels
- Hong Kong — 67 five-star hotels
- New York — 60 five-star hotels
- Macau — 42 five-star hotels
- Antalya — 40 five-star hotels
- Kyoto — 38 five-star hotels
- Cancun — 36 five-star hotels
- Los Angeles — 31 five-star hotels
- Medina — 23 five-star hotels
Standing back from a world map, the outline of land against water starts to look less tidy than it first appears. Some countries are stretched across hundreds or even thousands of fragments, scattered like broken glass across vast stretches of ocean. Others sit almost entirely on a single mass of rock but still qualify as island nations in their own right. There are places where the distance between communities is measured in ferry hours rather than roads, and others where a capital city is closer to another continent than to its own outer edges. WorldAtlas reports that these countries do not sit comfortably in one shape. They drift, in a sense, across water that has long shaped how people live inside them.
World largest islands countries
Indonesia
Indonesia sits in a long arc between Asia and Australia, pulled apart into a mass of islands that seem to keep going once you start counting. The spread is so wide that the country crosses different time zones without much effort. Some islands are heavily populated and built up, others remain quiet and forested, rarely mentioned outside maps.Java carries an outsized share of people, while Sumatra and Borneo’s shared stretches give the country a sense of uneven weight.
Far to the east, New Guinea’s western side adds another layer of distance, making the country feel stitched together rather than whole in the usual sense. Travelling across it is less a journey within one place and more a sequence of separate worlds linked by sea.
Madagascar
Madagascar sits alone off the African coast, separated by a wide strip of ocean that has kept it physically distant for millions of years. Most of the country rests on one large island, with a few smaller pieces nearby that barely change its overall outline.That long separation has shaped life there in unusual ways. Species evolved without much outside influence, which is why many plants and animals found there do not appear anywhere else. The landscape shifts from dense forest to dry regions with little transition, giving the island a sense of internal contrast that feels almost self-contained.
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of New Guinea and a scattering of surrounding islands. The terrain is steep in places, heavily forested in others, and often cut off by natural barriers that make movement between communities difficult.Inside that geography sits an extraordinary spread of languages, with hundreds still in use. Many developed in isolation across valleys and ridges, where contact between groups remained limited for generations. The surrounding islands add another layer of separation, leaving the country fragmented not just by water but by land that resists easy travel.
Japan
Japan runs along the edge of East Asia in a narrow chain that curves through cold northern waters down to subtropical regions. The main islands form a clear spine, but the surrounding smaller ones complicate any simple picture of the country.At one point, official mapping suggested a certain number of islands. Later surveys, using improved methods, revised the figure sharply upward. Nothing about the land changed, yet the way it was counted did. The coastline remains irregular, shaped by volcanic activity and shifting seas, giving the country a constantly measured, slightly uncertain geography.
Malaysia
Malaysia exists in two separate parts, split by a stretch of ocean that keeps them physically apart. One-half sits on the Malay Peninsula, sharing land borders with Thailand. The other rests on Borneo, alongside Indonesia and Brunei.This separation affects daily movement in practical ways. Flights often replace what would otherwise be overland travel, and national administration spans a gap of open water. The islands and coastal edges add further fragmentation, though most of the population is concentrated in urban centres that anchor each half of the country.
Philippines
The Philippines spreads across a wide section of the western Pacific, made up of thousands of islands of varying size and shape. Some are large enough to contain major cities and entire provinces, while others are little more than strips of land surrounded by reef and deep water.The three broad regional groupings help make sense of it, though they do not remove the sense of dispersion. Travel between islands often depends on weather and sea conditions, which can shift quickly. The result is a country where distance is measured less in kilometres and more in how long it takes to cross water.
New Zealand
New Zealand sits far from major landmasses, made up mainly of two large islands and a long list of smaller ones. The South Island carries mountains, rivers and wide open spaces, while the North Island holds most of the population and administrative centres.Despite its size, the country feels relatively contained, with most people living in coastal cities. Beyond those areas, landscapes open out quickly into sparsely populated regions. The sea plays a constant role in shaping that separation, with even internal travel often involving long stretches between settlements.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom is anchored by Great Britain, a single large island that holds England, Scotland and Wales. Nearby lies another sizeable landmass shared with the Republic of Ireland, with Northern Ireland forming part of the political structure on its own side.Surrounding waters have long influenced how the country connects internally and externally. Even within the main island, distances are short enough that no point sits very far from the coast. Offshore territories and smaller islands extend the reach further, though the core remains tightly concentrated on a single stretch of land.
Cuba
Cuba sits at a point where several major bodies of water meet, giving it a long, narrow shape stretched across the Caribbean. The main island dominates, with smaller surrounding islands adding texture to its outline without changing its overall form.Its position places it close to other major landmasses, yet still clearly separated by water. Coastal regions vary between quiet stretches and more developed urban areas, while inland zones remain less densely populated. The island’s shape makes travel across it relatively straightforward compared with more fragmented archipelagos.
Iceland
Iceland lies in the North Atlantic, closer to the Arctic Circle than to continental Europe. Most of the population is concentrated in a small part of the island, while large areas remain uninhabited due to volcanic terrain and harsh weather.The land itself continues to shift slowly as tectonic forces pull it apart. New formations appear over time, while others change shape under geothermal activity. Despite its size relative to the list, it stands as a single landmass shaped as much by movement beneath the surface as by the ocean around it.
Cross-border travel within Europe bounced back hard after the pandemic. Tourist numbers in the major cities sit above their pre-2020 highs. London still tops the visitor charts. Paris and Istanbul follow close behind. A shared currency across most of the European Union and a tight rail network make hopping between any two cities easier than ever. The fifteen below pull in the bulk of the continent’s international arrivals.
London, United Kingdom
London leads the continent, pulling in roughly 20.7 million international visitors a year. The United Kingdom sits across the English Channel from the mainland and is no longer part of the EU after the 2016 Brexit vote, but the Eurostar trains keep running between London and Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam in a few hours flat. The city itself runs on contrast. Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and the Thames bridges anchor the postcard view, while the West End theaters, the British Museum, and free entry at the National Gallery and Tate Modern do the cultural heavy lifting.
A few practical things to know: Heathrow remains one of the busiest and most strictly screened airports on the continent, and the Tube can get you almost anywhere for less than the price of a cab. Skip the chains and stick to the pubs, curry houses on Brick Lane, and the food halls at Borough Market. London is expensive, but the museums are free and the parks are vast.
Paris, France
Paris draws around 16.8 million international visitors a year, and the post-2024 Olympics infrastructure upgrades have lasted. The Seine is cleaner than it was a decade ago, the riverside expressways have been turned into pedestrian promenades, and most of the city’s headline museums are open again after their pre-Games renovations. The Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and the freshly reopened Notre-Dame all sit within walking distance of each other, and the Eiffel Tower still does what it has always done.
Paris is not cheap, but it is not all gold-trimmed either. Plenty of decent hostels cluster around the Gare du Nord. The boulangerie on the corner makes a better baguette than any restaurant. A long walk along the Seine costs nothing, and the views from Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre are free at sunset. The French capital rewards travelers who slow down rather than tick boxes.
Istanbul, Türkiye
Istanbul takes the bronze with about 12.1 million visitors a year, and it is the only major city on the planet that straddles two continents. The Bosphorus splits the European and Asian sides, and a quick ferry ride across counts as crossing continents. It is the largest city in Türkiye, though Ankara holds the capital title. For travelers coming out of Western Europe, prices feel pleasantly low, and the food alone is reason enough to visit.
Once known as Constantinople, the city was for centuries one of the most powerful cities in the world. The Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Topkapı Palace all sit within a short walk of each other in Sultanahmet. The Grand Bazaar covers 60-plus alleys and 4,000 shops, and the Spice Bazaar is the better one for actually eating things. The Bosphorus dinner cruise is a tourist staple worth doing once.
Antalya, Türkiye
Antalya sees roughly 10.7 million visitors a year, most of them headed for the beaches along the Turquoise Coast. The Mediterranean climate is long and dry, the resorts are stacked one after another along the coast, and the dental-tourism scene has turned this city into an unlikely medical hub for European patients. Hadrian’s Gate, a Roman triumphal arch in white marble at the old-town entrance, has carried carved reliefs honoring the Roman emperor Hadrian since 130 AD, the year of his visit to the city then known as Attaleia.
The beaches along the Mediterranean are the main pull. Lara Beach is the family-friendly long sandy stretch east of town. Konyaaltı is closer to the center with cliffs at one end. Damlataş Beach in Alanya, a couple of hours east, has a 15,000-year-old cave full of stalactites right next to the sand. Drinks and food run about a quarter of London prices, which is a major part of the appeal.
Rome, Italy
Rome pulls in around 9.7 million visitors a year, and 2025 was a Jubilee Year, which means the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica was open and millions of pilgrims came through. The Colosseum, Pantheon, Roman Forum, and Trevi Fountain do not need much introduction. The Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel sit inside the independent state of Vatican City, walkable from central Rome with no border check.
Food is the other main reason to come. Roman cuisine is built on five or six core pasta dishes (carbonara, cacio e pepe, amatriciana, gricia, pasta alla checca), and the best versions are not the ones with English menus out front. Stick to the Testaccio and Trastevere neighborhoods for the better trattorias. Gelato at Giolitti is the tourist favorite, but the smaller artigianale spots out toward Monti or San Lorenzo are usually better.
Prague, Czech Republic
The Czech capital welcomes around 9 million travelers a year, and the cheap-beer reputation is well earned. Pilsner-style lagers run about half what they cost in Berlin, and the medieval Old Town is small enough to walk in an afternoon. The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square still does its hourly puppet show. The Charles Bridge is best crossed before 9 in the morning before the crowds arrive.
Prague is one of the more architecturally layered cities in Central Europe, with Gothic, Baroque, Art Nouveau, and Cubist buildings standing on the same block. The “City of a Hundred Spires” looks especially good viewed across the Vltava on a tram ride. The Jewish Quarter, Prague Castle, and the Strahov Monastery library are the next layer beyond the Old Town set pieces.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Amsterdam draws about 8.5 million visitors a year, and the city has been actively trying to dial back the rowdier end of that traffic. The “stay away” advertising campaign aimed at British stag parties launched in 2023, several of the coffeeshops in the red-light district have closed, and cruise ships are being phased out of the central harbor by 2026. None of which makes the city less worth visiting; the museums, canals, and bike culture are still all here.
The Anne Frank House requires advance booking and sells out weeks ahead. The Rijksmuseum holds Rembrandt’s Night Watch, while the Van Gogh Museum next door is its own day. Rent a bike and use it the way locals do. Amsterdam-Schiphol is one of the better-connected airports in Europe and a common Atlantic-crossing layover.
Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona logs roughly 6.7 million international arrivals a year. The relationship between the city and its tourists is openly tense; the 2024 “tourists go home” protests with water guns made global news, and the city government has pledged to phase out all short-term tourist apartment rentals by 2028. Visiting is still completely fine. Just rent through hotels rather than apartments, and lean into the parts of the city locals actually use.
The Sagrada Família reached its architectural completion on February 20, 2026, when the upper arm of the cross was installed atop the 172.5-metre Tower of Jesus Christ; the basilica is now the world’s tallest church, surpassing Ulm Minster in Germany. Interior work and the Glory Façade are still expected to continue through the late 2020s and beyond. Park Güell, Casa Batlló, and Casa Milà fill the rest of the Gaudí circuit. The Gothic Quarter and El Born are the older medieval core. The Camp Nou stadium is in the middle of a multi-year rebuild, but FC Barcelona is playing matches at the Olympic Stadium on Montjuïc in the meantime.
Milan, Italy
Milan pulls in about 6.5 million visitors a year. The city co-hosted the 2026 Winter Olympics with Cortina d’Ampezzo in February. The Olympic preparations meant new rail links to the Alps and an aggressive push on pedestrian zones, both of which have outlasted the Games themselves. Half a millennium after the Italian Wars, Milan has settled into its role as the country’s fashion and finance capital, with a skyline that mixes Renaissance churches and skyscrapers in roughly equal measure.
The Duomo, with its 135 spires, is the headline architecture. Da Vinci’s Last Supper at Santa Maria delle Grazie requires booking three months in advance. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, opened in 1877, is one of the world’s oldest active shopping arcades and the place to be photographed pretending you can afford the boutiques. For dinner, Milanese cuisine leans on osso buco, risotto alla milanese, and cotoletta.
Vienna, Austria
The Austrian capital sees roughly 6.3 million visitors a year. Vienna has topped the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most livable city rankings for several of the past years running, and the orderliness shows. The streets are clean, the public transport runs on time, and the coffeehouses still serve melange in china cups with a small glass of water on the side. Habsburg-era buildings line nearly every block in the central First District.
The Schönbrunn Palace and the Hofburg Palace are the imperial pair. The Belvedere holds Klimt’s The Kiss. The Vienna State Opera runs nearly every night and sells standing-room tickets for a few euros. Mozart wrote much of his major work here, and Freud kept his consulting room a short tram ride away on Berggasse 19, now a museum.
Berlin, Germany
Berlin draws about 5.8 million visitors a year, and the clubbing reputation is real. Berghain remains the temple of techno, Sisyphos and About Blank pull crowds every weekend, and even the smaller bars stay open well past sunrise. The city is also where 20th-century European history compresses into a single walkable map: the Berlin Wall remnants at the East Side Gallery, Checkpoint Charlie, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the Reichstag all sit within a few stops of each other.
Museum Island holds five major museums on a single small island in the Spree, including the Pergamon (under partial reconstruction through 2027) and the Neues Museum. The food scene has shifted in a major way over the past decade, with Vietnamese, Turkish, and Levantine cooking now anchoring the city as firmly as currywurst. Berlin is still one of the cheaper major European capitals, though prices have climbed steadily since 2020.
Madrid, Spain
The Spanish capital pulls in around 5.5 million international visitors a year, and the city has been the surprise European story of the past few years. While Barcelona pushes back against tourism, Madrid has been actively courting it, with a wave of new hotel openings and a rising profile as a financial alternative to London since Brexit. The Baroque Palacio Real, the former home of the Spanish royal family, anchors the western edge of the historic core. The Puerta del Sol, the symbolic center of the country, sits a few blocks east.
The Golden Triangle of museums (Prado, Reina Sofía, and Thyssen-Bornemisza) sits within a 10-minute walk. The Prado holds Velázquez’s Las Meninas and Goya’s late “black paintings.” Reina Sofía holds Picasso’s Guernica. Retiro Park covers 350 acres in the middle of the city. Eat late, drink late, and embrace the siesta.
Venice, Italy
Venice sees about 5.4 million visitors a year. As of April 2024, day-trippers now pay a five-euro access fee to enter the historic center on busier days, an attempt to manage the crushing weight of tourism on a city that is literally sinking under it. The city was traditionally founded in the 5th century as a refuge from Barbarian invasions and rose by the 12th century into one of Europe’s great maritime powers.
The Piazza San Marco, St. Mark’s Basilica, and the Doge’s Palace are the headline trio. The Rialto Bridge is the famous crossing, but the Accademia and Scalzi bridges are quieter. Take a Vaporetto (the public ferry) instead of a private gondola if you want to actually get somewhere; gondolas are for the photo, ferries are for transport. Visit in winter for half the crowds and the eerie fog through the canals.
Moscow, Russia
The Russian capital held around 5.4 million international visitors a year before 2022, though the picture has shifted dramatically since the invasion of Ukraine. Western airlines have suspended flights, the visa process for most Europeans and Americans has become considerably more difficult, and Western credit cards no longer work inside the country. International visitor numbers have dropped substantially, and most current tourism comes from China, the Middle East, and other non-Western markets.
For the cultural record: St. Basil’s Cathedral, with its candy-cane spires, anchors the southern end of Red Square. The Kremlin walls run along the western side, with the Lenin Mausoleum at the base. The Tsar Cannon, the Tsar Bell, and the Kremlin Armory all sit inside the Kremlin grounds. Napoleon and Stalin both wanted St. Basil’s destroyed; it survives anyway. The Bolshoi Theatre, opened in 1825, still runs the Bolshoi Ballet at its six-tier auditorium.
Dublin, Ireland
Dublin rounds out the list with around 5.2 million visitors a year. Ryanair, headquartered just outside the city, runs cheap flights to nearly every airport in Europe, and Dublin is a common stopover on transatlantic crossings between North America and the continent. The city is small enough to walk in a couple of days, with Trinity College, the Book of Kells, and Temple Bar all within a short stretch of each other.
Phoenix Park, the largest enclosed urban park in Europe, runs twice the size of New York’s Central Park and is home to a wild herd of fallow deer. The Guinness Storehouse at St. James’s Gate is the most-visited tourist attraction in the country, with a pint included on the rooftop Gravity Bar. Get off the headline streets for the better pubs (Grogan’s, The Long Hall, Mulligan’s), and head out to the Wicklow Mountains, Howth, or Glendalough for day trips into the rest of the island.
