For anyone traveling to India, the state of Kerala is a must. And for anyone traveling to Kerala, The Tea Pot Cafe in Fort Kochi is an absolute must. Relaxed and elegantly worn goes with the territory in these parts, but this particular cafe has all the local tastes and flavours, with the quirkiness and natural cool you might find people trying to replicate in other parts of the world. A homage to the teapot, this cafe offers food and hot and cold beverages in an interior littered with vintage teapots, trinkets and relics from the old tea trade days of the Malabar coast.

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Cape Town is a pretty exciting place in general but if you are keen on art, good food, and second-hand shops, you should head down to Woodstock. Find new exhibitions at the Goodman Gallery and the Stevenson Gallery, have lunch at Superette or The Kitchen, and do some vintage shopping at The Cat’s Meow or Second Time Around. If you feel like some people watching and good food on a Saturday morning, then head down to the arts and crafts market, known locally as the Old Biscuit Mill.

A couple years ago, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Gundam anime series, Sunrise Studios built a life-sized, 60-foot-tall Mobile Suit Gundam in Tokyo. Now, a small museum/theme park has been announced devoted to the giant robots, slated to open in April of this year. My inner child is peeing himself.

Fountain Studios is curated and directed by husband and wife team Troy Hagenbart and Susan Gargulio. Since it opened in 2008, Fountain has exhibited a large number of emerging artists, oftentimes as two person shows that spin contrasting bodies of work into unexpected dialogue, drawing parallels between installation, experimental music, photography, painting, and sculpture. Slowly shifting its mission (and possibly name) to include more conceptually oriented exhibits, I am looking out for upcoming delights.

Somewhere, somehow, someone had a lot of time on their hands. It has not been disclosed where this town is, but methinks you might want to worry about your neighbours.

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Hong Kong is narrow skyscrapers, over crowded streets, the Bank of China tower, shopping malls and a Chinese junk with Hong Kong’s main island in the background. But it’s also old-fashioned and easygoing.

Have you ever wished there was a unique place where you could take a date or a friend to really knock their socks off? Do you dream of clandestine, candle-lit whisperings over expertly crafted cocktails? If so, then I have just the place for you, but you can’t tell anyone about it. Seriously. Please Don’t Tell. You won’t find it just wandering down the street. You can’t just walk in there. To get into this exclusive speakeasy, I recommend you dress to the nines and prepare to be screened.

How would you find this place? Let’s say you’re walking down St Mark’s, in the East Village, between 1st Avenue and Avenue A, one fine evening. You might stop into an inconspicuous little restaurant by the name of Crif Dogs. I hear they have a really great hot dog there and you might even try one, but you’re not going there for the food. Once you step inside, you’ll notice a phone booth to your left. You and your friend should step inside and pick up the phone, which may lead to your gaining admittance. You didn’t hear any of this from me, though.

The Aurora Borealis is awesome, and I can imagine this would be the ultimate way to see it. In Kakslauttanen, Finland, you can stay in the glass igloo village and have a full view of the incredible Northern Lights. ‘The Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?!’ BYO steamed hams.

Found at the foot of the snow-capped Hochschwab mountains, the Green Lake in Austria is a bit of Autobot. In winter, it looks exactly like what it is: a county park. In spring, the park becomes a diving paradise as melted mountaintop snow runneth down the slopes and submerges the park entirely, with water levels reaching to as high as 10 metres. What a place.

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This timelapse footage of Yosemite National Park is pretty awe inspiring. In the future, they will have tiny little tablet postcards with this on them.

At this unique privately owned museum in Los Angeles, one has to walk through a maze of corridors within the softly lit exhibits where you are introduced to an alternative history that you would not read in history books.

Hundreds of stories are told through some equally strange artefacts, including some of my favourites such as the folk art paintings of the first canines that were rocketed into space before humans, the microscopic sculptures of Napoleon and Pope John Paul II, which would each fit in the eye of a needle, or the collection of wise tales, such as the ant eggs, thought in the Middle Ages to cure love-sickness, and the duck’s breath captured in a test tube, once believed to cure thrush.

This secretly underground art space in Dumbo is organized by Shawn Lyon and his friends, who love art and are also artists themselves. They have held numerous art exhibitions with young artists from all over the world. They also provide various programs for the public, such as Rabbit Tale (reading and performance), Brooklyn Creative (photo workshop), Movie Nights, and even Yoga classes.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s toothbrush, Charles Darwin’s walking stick, Lord Nelson’s razor, pieces of tattoed human skin from 1850, male anti-masturbation devices from 1880 … all those pieces are in the Wellcome Collection permanent exhibition in London. Half morbid and half historic, they have excellent temporary exhibitions, but their permanent one is worth the visit to this not very famous museum.

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Where would you buy X-Ray Vision powder if you were a superhero? Or a secret identity kit? Or supplemental gravity for outer galaxy travel? Or just a new cape? This little store in Brooklyn provides all that and gives the money they make to the nonprofit organisation 826NYC to support students ages 6-18 with their creative writing skills. Just remember you will have to swear that you won’t use your purchase for evil purposes.

The East Village in New York City is the neighborhood where you can get almost everything, including a coffin from the 18th century or a real pair of shoes, size 40. These are examples of the things you can get at the Obscura Antiques store, next to Tompkins Square Park. It’s tiny but literally full of interesting material.

This is simply awe-inspiring: ‘This time lapse is a culmination of 10,000 RAW images and multiple shoots capturing some of the cities’ relentless energy and pace of change’.

I went to a charity dinner at Café Hanoi, a modern Vietnamese restaurant, hidden behind a bright red door away from the bustling streets of downtown Auckland. Growing up in a predominantly Vietnamese community, I am quite familiar with the flavours that make up this delicate cuisine. I fell in love with their Pho, presented in a fresh and unique way while still retaining the authenticity of the trademark dish.

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This site is like an online education for photographers, with tutorials and epsiodes to watch. Funny and inspirational, it is packed with great thoughts on how to handle social media and how to relate to people on the internet. Learn how to do a self-portrait or the best way of writing down your New Year resolutions, for instance.

While Victoria Falls is not the tallest waterfall in the world, the sheer volume of water that flows through it, makes it the Largest! But, don’t get me wrong, it’s still pretty tall; with a 360ft drop, where the Zambezi river rushes over the edge. On that very edge is the Devi’s Pool. During Africa’s dry summer season (September to January), adventure tourists can swim right up to the edge of the fall in relative safety, for a breathtaking view.

Talk about tourist traps. Described as a ‘survival drama in a Soviet bunker’, tourists are (mis)treated as citizens of the USSR in 1984. The experience includes being stripped of your belongings, KGB interrogations, ‘light beatings’ with leather strap, and vodka shots at the end of the two-hour ordeal cultural experience.