Oh, the Places We Went!

17.12.2024 - 10:39 / nytimes.com

Each January, the Travel section offers a list of “52 Places to Go” in the coming year, filled with recommendations for destinations that we think are prime to be visited. Our choices are meant to be an inspiration for travelers — and dreamers — not a checklist to be ticked off (though for two years we did send 52 Places Travelers racing around the globe). With next year’s list almost ready to go, here’s a look at how The Times’s writers and photographers covered the places we showcased on our 2024 list when they visited them this year.

The path of April’s total solar eclipse was our No. 1 pick for 2024, encompassing an area that extended “from the beaches of Mazatlán, Mexico, to the rugged coves of Maberly, Newfoundland,” as we wrote. The day turned into perhaps the biggest travel event of the year, with millions of people heading to a roughly 110-mile wide belt across North America, often ending up in smaller cities that happened to be in the path. Hertz said car reservations jumped 3,000 percent over the previous year, and Airbnb reported a 1,000 percent increase in searches for listings. The traffic afterward: a nightmare. Reporters and photographers from The Times were there to document the minutes of totality and the surrounding hoopla. If you missed it, or the experience turned you into an eclipse chaser, your next chance is in 2026.

Paris, already one of the most visited cities in the world, made our list for a confluence of noteworthy events: the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games; the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition (an occasion shared with Normandy); and the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral, ravaged by fire in 2019. The city promised to use some of its most famous sites as a backdrop for the Olympics, including an opening ceremony spread throughout the city and swimming events in the Seine, and delivered. We offered help in navigating the Games (including bakeries at which to fuel up), and capping off the year, Notre-Dame reopened as planned. Here’s how to arrange a visit.