North America

Big cities, open roads and rugged country

North America

North America combines cosmopolitan cities with vast forests, deserts, mountains and coastlines. Its scale impresses, but the strongest trips often focus on one landscape or region.

North America lends itself to overland travel. Railways connect some major cities, while cars and campers open up national parks, small towns and remote coastal roads. Beyond the familiar natural landmarks, music cities, regional cuisines and communities shaped by Indigenous, colonial and migration histories merit attention.

The distances make realistic choices essential. A route through the Rocky Mountains is very different from an east-coast city trip or a journey across the southwest. Account for snow, heat, hurricane seasons and busy holiday periods. Planning fewer miles leaves more time for walks, museums and the detours that give a trip its character.

From the magazine

Stories about North America

Editorial stories linked to North America and to the countries and places within this region.

Drumheller: where Alberta’s dinosaur beds meet the badlands
Article

Drumheller: where Alberta’s dinosaur beds meet the badlands

Around Drumheller, the Red Deer River valley cuts through pale sandstone, dark shale and bare, fluted slopes. Those exposed beds preserve part of a Late Cretaceous coastal plain, where wetlands, forests and dinosaurs stood in place of today’s dry badlands.

Fogo Island: Fishing Rooms, Punts and Work That Continues
Article

Fogo Island: Fishing Rooms, Punts and Work That Continues

In Fogo, stores, lofts and stages still run between the main street and the harbour. In Tilting, houses, gardens and fishing buildings gather around a smaller sheltered bay, on ground shaped by family plots and coastal work.

Granville Island Still Works for a Living
Article

Granville Island Still Works for a Living

Fishmongers portion halibut beneath an old lifting crane, glassmakers work near former machine shops, and boat crews haul vessels from False Creek. On Granville Island, Vancouver’s industrial fabric still holds a market, workshops and a working shore together.

Haida Gwaii Begins at Ḵay Llnagaay
Article

Haida Gwaii Begins at Ḵay Llnagaay

Six monumental poles stand beside the water at Ḵay Llnagaay, each linked to villages and clans whose descendants live in Skidegate today. They make one fact plain: Haida culture belongs to the present, and visitors enter Haida homeland as guests.

Down into the Frenchman River Valley
Article

Down into the Frenchman River Valley

In the West Block of Grasslands National Park near Val Marie, the Frenchman River runs below dry uplands cut by coulees and buttes. Water shaped this corner of southern Saskatchewan, but grass, bison and a long human presence still define it.

Twelve Minutes Across the Saint Lawrence
Article

Twelve Minutes Across the Saint Lawrence

At Québec City, cars queue below the old town while pedestrians and cyclists take the separate route to a ferry across the Saint Lawrence. Twelve minutes later, the ramp drops at Lévis, with Québec’s lower town, cliff and upper city spread across the water behind it.

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Countries in North America

Countries with a full guide come first. Below them you will find more countries to explore.

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