But the city is becoming known for more than its history. Its yearly photography festival, which takes place in late summer, has attracted enthusiasts and professionals from across the globe for a decade. Another sign that Pingyao is being embraced by the fashionable set: in 2009, the city’s first boutique hotel, the 19-room Jing’s Residence, a Relais & Chateaux member, opened in a restored courtyard house built more 200 years ago by a Qing dynasty silk merchant.

— DAN LEVIN

38. Salonika, Greece

Out of the country’s economic woes, a new wave of artists.

It may come as cold comfort to the Greeks, but the country’s financial woes have made it prime territory for bargain-hunting tourists. The coastal city of Salonika, often overlooked by tourists in favor of Athens, has been gaining momentum for the last several years with its prolific cultural scene. Now, with British Airways adding a direct route from London and a new mayor pushing forward a spate of major cultural and tourism initiatives, Salonika is hotter than ever.

The newest wave of culture makers in the laid-back city include the nonprofit Dynamo Project Space, which gives a platform to up-and-coming local artists, architects and designers, and Sfina, a self-appointed “urban prankster network” that instigates flash mob-style events in public spaces. Since it opened last summer, the eco-conscious design firm 157173 has garnered attention for its offbeat minimalist lamps, mobiles and other design objects that are equal parts Bauhaus and Joan Miró.

— CHARLY WILDER

39. Okinawa, Japan

A ‘Japanese Amazon’ with some luxury thrown in.

The latest news about Okinawa might focus on the future of the American military base there, but the cluster of coral-lined islands has long been a uniquely lovely place to experience wild Japan. Few foreigners make it here, though Okinawa is a popular vacation spot for Japanese mainlanders as it’s just a few hours from Tokyo by plane and has excellent diving, hiking and palm-fringed white-sand beaches.

Playing off an increased awareness of the islands as a destination for non-Japanese tourists, new hotels are popping up all over the prefecture: InterContinental opened the first two luxury resorts last year, and in March, the Tera Resort Hotel is scheduled to open near the Shuri Castle ruins, which are part of a Unesco World Heritage Site. On Okinawa Island visitors should head to the northern coast for a decidedly unspoiled, natural experience replete with sugarcane fields, hibiscus-lined beaches, and traditional ceramics studios that use old-fashioned Okinawan firing techniques and dragon-shaped kilns. Farther southwest, the island of Iriomote is the wildest of them all, with dense coastal jungle, mangroves, rich indigenous wildlife, and tiny villages accessible only by boat. They don’t call it the Japanese Amazon for nothing.

— BONNIE TSUI

40. Budapest

A scene pops up in abandoned buildings, and glamour rises.

From Castle Hill to Heroes’ Square, Budapest is renowned for its grandeur. But in areas blighted by poverty and neglect, a surging bohemian culture revels in the wreckage at “ruin pubs.” Originating in the scruffy old Jewish quarter downtown, these bars occupy abandoned buildings and their courtyards, hosting hipsters quaffing German and Czech beers while reclining on cast-off furniture amid haphazard flea market finds. Szimpla Kert epitomizes the “romkocsma” (“ruin pub”) movement, which has exploded beyond the district to encompass not just vacant lots, but rooftop bars such as Corvintet, which bills itself as an underground club in the open air.

Not all of Budapest’s historic buildings are celebrated for their distress, of course. The Buddha-Bar Hotel Budapest Klotild Palace, opening in summer 2011, will occupy a vintage 1900 former palace, with 102 rooms and a branch of the Paris-famed Buddha-Bar glassed in on the roof.