Sweden

For a city this size, Stockholm’s food scene is absurd. Gastrologik has a Michelin star and seats only about thirty people at a time — small enough that, as the World’s Best Restaurants list put it, a carrot gets treated with the same respect as a truffle. Ekstedt is the odd one out: also Michelin-starred, but built entirely around open-flame, wood-fired cooking — meat, berries, hay, and smoke doing most of the work. For a place to stay, Downtown Camper leans into “lagom,” the Swedish idea of just the right amount, right in the heart of the city. And for the view that ties Stockholm’s geography together — the bridges, the islands, the water running through everything — a helicopter tour with Flyover Stockholm was one of the best things we did on the whole trip.