The Upside-Down Travel Planner

Because the world is full of pleasant surprises

Vacations, like everything else in life, come with baggage. The physical kind, of course, but also the cerebral: We assume things about the places we visit—and, perhaps more tellingly, the ones we don’t. But until we’re actually there, shooting the curl in some Alaskan fishing village or dancing all night in stuffy Vienna, it’s difficult to reconcile a newspaper-and-pop-culture-fed vision of a place with its on-the-ground reality. Which is why we bring you this: trips to every corner of the globe, reimagined for a different breed of traveler. Who knew that Hong Kong could be good for your lungs? That Nantucket was affordable? Or that the world’s tastiest tortillas might just be hot-pressed in Tokyo? Consider your preconceived notions formally dismissed.

Spring Travel 2012 Reporting by Courtney Balestier, Joe Coscarelli, Alyssa Giacobbe, Nicholas Gill, Sarah Gold, Jillian Goodman, Georgina Gustin, Cemile Kavountzis, Catie Keck, Lauren Murrow, Stephanie Emma Pfeffer, Everett Potter, S. Jhoanna Robledo, Celia Shatzman, Emma Sloley, Kathleen Squires, Alexa Tsoulis-Reay, and Katherine Ward.