When you’re American and you tell people you’re heading to Beirut on vacation, nobody will believe you. “Sure,” they will crack, “Beirut makes a lot more financial sense than North Korea.” Perhaps after a quick Google Maps search to remind themselves where Lebanon actually is, they will inform you that it shares a border with Syria, and that Beirut is but 70 short miles from Damascus.

Here’s the thing: People in the rest of the world have been partying here for ages. In the Middle East, Lebanon is considered a beacon of peace and progressivism. It’s where rich kids from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Gulf buy their luxury goods and blow off steam.

I spent three nights in Beirut this spring, and the only time I ever felt unsafe was when my Uber driver couldn’t figure out his GPS. Yes, the city was once wracked by civil war, but that war ended 27 years ago. Beirut today is a gorgeous place, a picture of cosmopolitanism, with a promenade along the Mediterranean Sea and maybe the best nightlife I’ve ever witnessed. The weather’s balmy. The food’s incredible. You should go. Here’s how to do it.

Courtesy of Mothershucker

10 PM: Beats and Bivalves

By 10 o’clock, you’ve already had dinner at Loris and done your share of shopping at the four-story concept shop Le 66 and the east-west mashup boutique Orient 499. Now you’re ready to drink.

If you tell your cabbie to drop you anywhere in Mar Mikhael, you’re gonna have a good time. It’s a rowdy nightlife neighborhood akin to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, mostly gentrified but with hints of scruff. Bars line Armenia Street, which is the spine of the neighborhood, and they’ll be packed with either locals or tourists from the region. (You won’t run into other Americans, which frankly is part of the pleasure.) Most of these bars require reservations, even if you’re not eating, so call ahead.

Just off Armenia you’ll find Mothershucker, which bills itself as an oyster and gin bar. I’d shown up around 8 and it was dead. When I came back a couple hours later, it had transformed into a club packed with astonishingly beautiful people flirting and smoking and drinking and convulsing to “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life.” I’d read before I came that Beirut’s famed Skybar club had closed, as if that one closure signified some kind of broader decline, but this brand new spot suggested the kind of renewal that’s crucial for any scene to survive.