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TIME magazine has revealed the eighth installment of its annual World’s Greatest Places List for 2026 — and two New York City cultural hotspots were part of the list.
The selection highlights 100 destinations worldwide, categorized into places to stay and places to visit.
In order to choose the places, TIME solicits nominations of places — including hotels, cruises, restaurants, attractions, museums, parks, and more — from its international network, as well as putting out an application process.
Among this year’s World’s Greatest Places include Philadelphia’s Netflix House; the Disney Destiny cruise ship; the United Arab Emirates’ Surf Abu Dhabi, which was the first artificial surf park to join the pro surf championship circuit; Universal Epic Universe in Orlando; London’s new V&A Storehouse East; and Cizhong, China’s Songtsam Lodge, a boutique hotel network that tries to get tourists out of the cities.
Two of the destinations that made the list were right here in New York City: Studio Museum in Harlem and The Frick Collection.
The Studio Museum was originally founded — famously above a liquor store — in 1968 and reopened in November 2025 after seven years of construction at 144 West 125th Street.
Led by former intern and longtime director Thelma Golden, the institution acts as both an archive and incubator for Black artists and Black culture. It houses a gallery, art studios, a library, community meeting area, gift shop and rooftop garden.
Visitors will find works by trailblazers like sculptor Elizabeth Catlett and photographer Gordon Parks, as well as artists-in-residence turned household names like Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas and Kerry James Marshall.
The 150-seat lobby functions as an inverted stoop, and the building is inspired by Harlem’s churches, apartments and street corners. The seven-story building nearly doubles the museum’s gallery space at 82,000 square feet and is the institution’s first purpose-built home since its founding, according to TIME.
The Frick Collection also reopened in 2025 after a $220 million restoration project in time for it’s 90th anniversary. When it closed in 2021, “New York didn’t just lose access to one of the world’s great museums — it lost entry into a rarefied private world,” TIME said.
The institution is known for its “intimate presentation” of European art, spanning the Renaissance through the late 19th century, housed in the original home of Henry Clay Frick.
After reopening in April, it granted access to a the second-floor living quarters once lived in by Henry Clay, Adelaide Frick and their daughter Helen Clay Frick, where artworks were returned to their original settings. Most notably, François Boucher’s eight-painting series, The Arts and Sciences, has been rehung in its original space in Adelaide’s upstairs boudoir.
“By reopening its private rooms, the Frick restores the sensation that has always made it singular: the privilege of being invited inside,” TIME noted.
The renovation also made way for a new exhibition gallery, auditorium, education room, restaurant, coffee bar, restored 70th Street Garden and improved ADA access.
A few California destinations also made the list, including Highway 1 — also known as the Pacific Coast Highway, Hotel del Coronado and the Counterculture Museum in San Francisco.
Highway 1 had been partially closed since January 2023 and finally reopened in its entirety on January 14. It went through extensive stabilization work, such as reinforced slopes and cable-net drapery to catch falling debris.
The coastal route links some of California’s most iconic landmarks, such as Carmel-by-the-Sea, Hearst Castle and full access to Big Sur.
Hotel del Coronado, dubbed “The Del,” was originally built in 1888 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. The hotel just completed a seven-year, $550 million renovation, focusing on painstaking restoration and preservation keeping up with its landmark status.
As the story goes, Hotel del Coronado hosted a ball for 1,000 guests in honor of Edward, Prince of Wales, in April 1920, and at the time, his future wife lived in Coronado, then married to her first husband, TIME noted. In 1936, the newly crowned King Edwards abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson, “cementing the Del’s place in a century of gilded transatlantic lore.”
The Counterculture Museum opened in June 2025, full of memorabilia, artifacts and educational materials from the 1960s, including FBI fugitive posters of members of the far-left militant group Weather Underground.
Special sections focus on women’s rights, gay rights and civil rights, which cofounder Estelle Cimino notes remain urgently relevant today.
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