The 25 Best City Experiences in Asia

The holiest site in Sikhism sits at the centre of a large square pool, its upper floors gilded in real gold and doubled by a near-perfect reflection in the still water.

Pilgrims circle the marble walkway at all hours, and the temple runs one of the world's largest free communal kitchens, feeding tens of thousands daily.

Lit at night, the gold dome and its reflection form one symmetrical image.

One of the world's oldest and largest covered markets, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar has traded continuously since 1461 across more than 4,000 shops lining 60 vaulted, hand-painted streets.

Copper lanterns, hand-woven carpets, gold jewellery and spice stalls spill into each other beneath domed ceilings that have survived earthquakes and fires for over five centuries.

Hoi An's Old Town is a remarkably intact 15th-19th century trading port, its ochre-walled shophouses, Chinese assembly halls, and the Japanese Covered Bridge lining the Thu Bon River.

By day it's a working town of tailors and lantern-makers; after dark the riverside glows with silk lanterns and candlelit boats.

UNESCO-listed and largely traffic-free, it rewards slow wandering more than a checklist visit.

Three connected towers topped by a ship-shaped rooftop pool anchor this city-state's skyline, reflected in Marina Bay alongside a garden of illuminated Supertrees.

The city's obsessive approach to greenery and cleanliness has made it one of the most striking modern skylines anywhere.

Hawker centres serving Michelin-recognised street food sit near some of the world's most expensive real estate.

Nearly 1,500 years old, this Byzantine cathedral-turned-mosque carries a vast dome that dominated the ancient world's skyline for centuries.

Gold mosaics of Christian saints sit alongside Islamic calligraphy inside, a rare visible record of the building's several religious lives.

Dozens of windows ringing the dome's base light the vast interior.

The State Hermitage occupies the Winter Palace and four adjoining buildings on Palace Square, holding one of the world's largest art collections — over three million objects spanning Rembrandt, da Vinci and Impressionist masterpieces inside gilded Romanov staterooms.

A full circuit covers roughly 20 kilometres of galleries, so most visitors pick a handful of wings rather than attempt everything in one visit.

Jaipur, the Pink City, commits harder to Diwali than almost anywhere in India: the old city and its bazaars are strung with thousands of clay oil lamps and fairy lights for over a week, and the illuminated pink sandstone facades of Johari Bazaar are considered among the country's best Diwali displays, fireworks lighting the sky above the City Palace.

The Temple of Dawn rises in a steep, porcelain-and-seashell-encrusted spire directly on the bank of Bangkok's Chao Phraya River.

Its silhouette against a sunset sky, seen from the river or the opposite bank, is one of the most recognisable images of the city.

Close up, the tower is covered in thousands of tiny inlaid ceramic fragments, a texture that only shows up on approach.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, universally known as the Blue Mosque for its Iznik tile-clad interior, is Istanbul's most iconic building.

Completed in 1616, it is the only mosque in Turkey with six minarets and its cascading domes and slender minarets form one of the world's most beautiful skylines.

Four kilometres of powder-fine white sand lined with resorts, beach bars, and sunset boat cruises, split into three "stations" by how developed each stretch is.

It's the Philippines' most famous beach and one of Southeast Asia's busiest, powdery enough that the sand squeaks underfoot.

A government-mandated cleanup and visitor cap in recent years has kept water quality noticeably better than its reputation from a decade ago.

Thailand's traditional New Year erupts across Chiang Mai's old city moat every April, when the custom of pouring water over elders' hands to bless them expands into a citywide water fight, with super-soakers, hoses and buckets thrown from pickup trucks.

Locals and travellers alike end up soaked head to toe against a backdrop of ancient brick gates and temples.

Red Square is Moscow's central plaza, framed by the Kremlin's fortified walls, the red-brick towers of the State Historical Museum, the glass-roofed GUM arcade and Lenin's Mausoleum.

It has staged state parades, revolutions and coronations for over five centuries and remains the city's default gathering point — a vast cobbled space distinct from the single view of St Basil's Cathedral at its southern end.

Al-Balad is Jeddah's old town, a UNESCO-listed maze of coral-stone merchant houses several storeys tall, their facades covered in ornately carved wooden latticework called rawasheen that once let residents watch the street below without being seen.

For centuries this was the gateway for pilgrims arriving by sea for Mecca and Medina, and the district's souqs, mosques, and courtyard houses still carry that trading-port history.

Traditional hanok tiled-roof houses cluster in the Bukchon district within sight of glass skyscrapers, a centuries-old palace, and a mountain that rises straight out of the city centre.

Gyeongbokgung Palace's guard-changing ceremony still runs daily in period costume against a backdrop of modern high-rises.

Cable cars up Namsan Mountain give a full skyline view at night, when the whole city lights up at once.

Saffron-robed monks file silently through the streets at dawn to collect alms, a centuries-old ritual that still happens daily in this Mekong River town.

Gilded temple roofs and French colonial shopfronts sit side by side along streets largely protected from development by UNESCO status.

It also serves as the natural base for visiting Kuang Si Falls' turquoise pools nearby.

A boat trip up the Bosphorus is the easiest way to see how Istanbul straddles two continents, passing Ottoman waterfront palaces, fortified castles, and the suspension bridges linking Europe and Asia.

Ferries run the full length from the old city to the mouth of the Black Sea, or shorter tourist cruises loop back after a couple of hours — either way, it's a relaxed, scenic break from the city's crowded streets and hills.

An intact Edo-period merchant district with preserved wooden machiya townhouses, working sake breweries, and morning markets, set against a backdrop of the Japanese Alps.

One of the country's best-preserved old towns outside Kyoto, and considerably less crowded.

Bangkok's Chatuchak is one of the world's largest weekend markets, spreading across more than 8,000 stalls and 35 acres selling everything from vintage clothing and antiques to exotic plants and street food, packed into a dense grid of covered lanes.

It's as much a local institution as a tourist draw, and the market only runs Saturdays and Sundays.

Cebu City's Sinulog honours the Santo Nino with the festival's namesake dance - two steps forward, one step back - performed by thousands of costumed dancers moving to non-stop drumbeats along a route lined with several million spectators.

It grew from the same Santo Nino devotion as Kalibo's Ati-Atihan but has become the country's largest festival, climaxing in a grand parade on the third Sunday of January.

Hong Kong's Lunar New Year is marked by a mile-long night parade through Tsim Sha Tsui, with illuminated floats, international marching bands, and lion and dragon dance troupes performing for crowds packed along the harbourfront.

The festivities culminate two nights later in a fireworks display over Victoria Harbour, one of the most-watched pyrotechnic shows in Asia, visible from vantage points on both sides of the water.

After Tokyo's famous wholesale tuna auctions moved to Toyosu in 2018, Tsukiji's original outer market stayed put, its narrow lanes still packed with over 400 shops selling fresh seafood, knives, dried goods and some of the city's best breakfast sushi.

Vendors grill scallops and tamagoyaki right on the street, the smell of tuna and charcoal drifting between stalls.

Masmak Fortress is a squat clay-and-mudbrick fort in the middle of old Riyadh, built in the 1860s and the site of the 1902 raid that let a young Abdulaziz Ibn Saud retake the city and begin building what became modern Saudi Arabia.

A spear mark from that battle is still visible in one of the main gate's doors, and small museum rooms inside display weapons, historic photographs, and traditional Najdi architecture around a central courtyard.

Every February and March, Hong Kong Arts Festival brings international opera, theatre, and dance companies to venues across the city alongside new work by local artists, positioning itself as a bridge between Western and Chinese performing arts traditions.

Programming spans the grand Cultural Centre auditorium to smaller black-box theatres, with commissioned pieces that often blend Cantonese opera technique with contemporary staging.

Old Delhi's Chandni Chowk has operated as one of India's busiest markets since the 17th century, built as a moonlit shopping square for the Mughal court outside the Red Fort.

Its narrow lanes are a dense tangle of spice merchants, wedding-sari shops and some of Delhi's most famous street food, navigated by foot, cycle-rickshaw and the occasional cow.

The old walled Spanish city at the heart of Manila, Intramuros holds the country's colonial-era core: Fort Santiago's parade grounds and dungeons, the baroque San Agustin Church (a UNESCO site), and cobbled streets enclosed by their original stone fortifications.

Large sections were destroyed in WWII and rebuilt, so what remains is a mix of genuine ruins and reconstruction, a stark contrast to Manila's modern sprawl outside the walls.