Some weeks the internet hands you a whole wish list, and this latest batch of curiosities from Messy Nessy Chic is exactly that — a grab bag of places, finds and oddities that could each spark a trip on their own.
The stand-out for architecture fans is Asmara, Eritrea's surprisingly sleek capital, officially recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city is one of the world's best-preserved ensembles of 1930s Modernist architecture — think clean lines and geometric facades that look like Wes Anderson scouted them himself. Dr Edward Denison of the Bartlett School of Architecture, who has championed the city's preservation since 2001, argues Asmara deserves a central spot in the Modernist canon alongside far more famous European examples.
Berlin offers a gentler kind of wonder just off its southwestern edge: Pfaueninsel, or Peacock Island. King Friedrich Wilhelm II built the little Schloss Pfaueninsel there — privately a hideaway for his mistress, cheekily dubbed the 'little castle of lust' at court. Today the island is a nature reserve (and UNESCO-listed since 1990) where peacocks roam free among the ruins of a grand Palm House designed by Schinkel in 1831 and lost to fire in 1880.
If you like your travel with a side of geopolitical quirk, look up the Haskell Free Library & Opera House on the US–Canada border: the stage sits in one country while half the audience sits in the other. And treasure hunters might enjoy the tale of the Saddle Ridge Hoard, the largest buried gold-coin find in US history — 1,427 coins worth around $10 million, dug up in Northern California in 2013 by a couple walking their dog. Theories about its origins run from the 1901 San Francisco Mint theft to Jesse James and the Knights of the Golden Circle; the truth may simply be one cautious soul who trusted the ground more than the banks.
Beyond the places, the roundup is a treat for anyone who collects: a grandmother's bathroom papered with more than 100 little chairs, 19th-century still-lifes by Blaise-Alexandre Desgoffe, a 1947 LIFE photo story on photography-printed fabrics, and a rare art bookshop worth bookmarking. There's also a nod to zines as a handmade, anti-AI stronghold — plus a crash course if you want to make your own travel zine — and a list of little-known ghost towns for the ruin-lust file.
Why care? Because this is the kind of reading that turns vague wanderlust into a real itinerary. Asmara is genuinely reachable for determined travellers and unlike anywhere else in Africa; Pfaueninsel is an easy day trip within a major European capital; and the Haskell library makes a fun detour on any New England–Quebec road trip. Collectors and design lovers get inspiration for what to hunt for on their next city break, from ceramics to vintage photobooks. One roundup, several trips.