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Two decades of destinations constitute more than 300,000 words. If we look closer, we see more than the human eye.
By Amy Virshup
Amy Virshup is a desk editor at The New York Times.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of The New York Times’ signature travel piece: the “52 Places to Go” list, which we publish every January.
To commemorate this anniversary, we take a look at how the list (and the trips themselves) have evolved over the past 20 years.
Through outdated reporting, Tariro Mzezewa, a Times Travel alumnus, discovered that the list came about almost by chance: In late 2004, Stuart Emmrich, Travel’s editor-in-chief at the time, said he and his aides discovered that Many New Yorkers were traveling to Bhutan and wondering what other destinations might be popular.
They compiled a list called “Where to Go”, with no numbers attached, and published it on January 9, 2005. From that point on, the list became an annual event, varying from year to year until 2014, when, at Despite everything, it settled on “52 places to go”, one for each week of the year.
But identifying themes and inflection issues on the list proved more complicated.
Two decades of destinations are uploaded. As of 2024, we had named 914 places in total, adding 145 countries, 366 towns and cities, and 41 U. S. states. It has been a major event in the U. S. , as well as some important occasions such as last year’s general solar eclipse. In total, this represents more than 300,000 words.
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