The 14 Best City Experiences in North America

The Golden Gate Bridge has been San Francisco's calling card since 1937: 2.

7km of International Orange suspension bridge strung between the city and the Marin Headlands.

It's that rare landmark that looks better in bad weather - the towers rising out of rolling fog are the classic view.

Walk or cycle the deck, then take it in from Baker Beach, Fort Point or Battery Spencer.

The walled heart of Quebec City is the only fortified colonial city north of Mexico still standing, its narrow cobblestone streets climbing from the St.

Lawrence River up to the castle-like Chateau Frontenac hotel.

Founded by French settlers in 1608, the Old Town's stone houses and ramparts earned it UNESCO World Heritage status, and the Dufferin Terrace boardwalk gives sweeping river views.

Pastel colonial facades line the streets of Old Havana, many crumbling in ways that somehow add to the city's atmosphere rather than detract from it.

Vintage American cars from before the 1959 revolution, kept alive through decades of improvised repairs, still work as everyday taxis along the seafront Malecon.

Live salsa and son music spills from bars most nights.

The Brooklyn Bridge was the world's longest suspension bridge when it opened in 1883, and its stone Gothic towers and web of steel cables remain New York's most distinctive crossing.

An elevated timber boardwalk runs above the traffic for the full 1.

8km span, with Lower Manhattan directly ahead the whole way from the Brooklyn side.

It is free, open at any hour, and takes about half an hour to walk.

A glass-towered harbour city wedged between the Coast Mountains and the Pacific, where downtown ends abruptly at the seawall and North Shore peaks rise directly across the water.

Stanley Park's rainforest and shoreline path wrap the downtown peninsula, while Granville Island's public market sits a short ferry hop across False Creek.

Vancouver pairs an outdoor-focused lifestyle with skiing, hiking and beaches within a short drive of downtown.

Guanajuato is a former silver-mining city built into a ravine, its brightly painted houses stacked up impossibly steep hillsides and connected by a maze of underground tunnels and narrow alleys.

The centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site of baroque churches and plazas, and the Callejón del Beso — an alley so narrow that neighbouring balconies almost touch — draws crowds for its star-crossed-lovers legend.

Pastel-painted colonial buildings and crumbling Spanish Baroque church ruins fill this former capital, framed on clear days by the smoking cone of Volcan de Fuego.

Cobblestone streets laid out in a strict grid by 16th-century Spanish planners still define the town today.

Climbing a nearby volcano for sunrise, with Antigua's rooftops spread out below, is the classic local excursion.

New Orleans' Mardi Gras builds for weeks through parades run by dozens of krewes, social clubs that design elaborate floats and toss beads, cups and doubloons to crowds along St Charles Avenue and through the French Quarter.

By Fat Tuesday the city is in full costume, with the Krewe of Zulu and Krewe of Rex parades considered the day's centrepiece events.

Cobblestone streets in this 16th-century sugar-trade town are lined with candy-coloured colonial houses, many still lived in by the families who've owned them for generations.

Vintage American cars from the 1950s, kept running through decades of improvisation, cruise past pastel facades and a crumbling bell tower overlooking the town.

Live music spills from open doorways most evenings.

Niagara Falls sits on the border between Ontario and New York State and comprises three waterfalls: the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls, and the Bridal Veil Falls.

The Canadian side offers the most dramatic panoramic view of the Horseshoe Falls, which at 57 metres tall and 670 metres wide is the most powerful waterfall in North America.

Operating continuously since 1907, Seattle's Pike Place Market is best known for the fishmongers at Pike Place Fish Market who throw whole salmon across the counter to each other before customers, a bit of theatre that's become one of the city's signature spectacles.

The market spans multiple levels of produce stalls and quirky curio shops above the waterfront.

Cuba's second city and historic revolutionary heartland has a distinctly different feel from Havana — hillier, hotter, and steeped in Afro-Cuban culture that shows up in its music, religion and the country's biggest Carnival celebration each July.

Landmarks include the Moncada Barracks, site of Castro's failed 1953 attack that kicked off the revolution, and the hilltop Castillo del Morro fortress guarding the harbor mouth.

Palm Springs is a desert resort city in the Coachella Valley in southern California, set against the dramatic backdrop of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Famous for its concentration of mid-century modern architecture, the city's pastel-coloured bungalows, extravagant swimming pools, and surrounding date palm groves create a uniquely Californian aesthetic.

Walt Disney World's Orlando resort spans four theme parks, two water parks and dozens of hotels across an area the size of a small city.

Magic Kingdom's castle, the parades and the character meets are the classic draw for younger families, while Epcot and Animal Kingdom skew older.

Ride queues, the distances between parks and the cost of a multi-day ticket all reward planning rather than improvisation.