North America

Mexico grew from the Aztec heartland conquered by Spain in 1521; New Spain's capital became Mexico City, for three centuries the largest city in the Americas. Independence came in 1821. The US grew from thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic coast, independent in 1776, and pushed west across Indigenous lands and half of Mexico's territory by 1848. Canada united British colonies in 1867 and kept the British monarch; Québec's French-speaking society is older than the country.

Those founding stories still show on a trip: Spanish colonial plazas in Mexico, Puritan town greens in New England, bilingual signs in Ottawa and French-only ones in Québec City. Indigenous nations — First Nations, Métis and Inuit in Canada, tribal nations in the US, 68 recognised language groups in Mexico — keep lands, laws and languages of their own.

After 1956 the US Interstate Highway System laid 77,000 km of motorway across the country, and suburbs, motels, drive-ins and malls followed. Passenger rail shrank to a thin network run by Amtrak since 1971; Canada's VIA Rail followed in 1977. For a visitor this means that outside a few dense cities — New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Montréal, Mexico City — a car or a domestic flight is the only practical way to move.

Plan by time, not distance. Four to five hours at the wheel is a sensible day; a coast-to-coast drive is five full days without stopping to see anything. Fuel is cheap in the US by European standards, but one-way rental fees and parking in big cities are not.

Yellowstone became the world's first national park in 1872; Banff, Canada's first, followed in 1885. Today the US has 63 national parks and hundreds of other protected units, Canada 48 national parks and reserves, and Mexico a growing network of biosphere reserves. Greenland's Northeast Greenland National Park is the largest on earth.

Popularity has brought rules. Several US parks run timed-entry or vehicle reservations in summer, lodges inside parks book up a year ahead, and from 2026 non-residents pay a surcharge at the busiest parks (check the current list and amount). Canada's Moraine Lake is reachable only by shuttle or bike. Book early or go in the shoulder months.

Mexico holds more UNESCO World Heritage sites than any other country in the Americas. Olmec heads on the Gulf coast, Teotihuacan's pyramids outside the capital, Monte Albán above Oaxaca and the Maya cities of Palenque, Chichén Itzá and Calakmul span 3,000 years before Spain arrived.

Mexican cooking — itself on UNESCO's intangible heritage list — is regional: moles in Oaxaca and Puebla, cochinita pibil in the Yucatán, seafood on the Pacific, cabrito in the north. Day of the Dead (1–2 November) is the best-known festival and the busiest time to visit Oaxaca and Pátzcuaro.

Greenland is geologically North American and politically Danish, with home rule since 1979 and self-government since 2009. Most of its 57,000 people are Inuit and speak Kalaallisut. There are no roads between towns: you fly or sail. A jet-capable runway in Nuuk opened in late 2024, and new direct routes are changing access — check the current schedule.

Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory of 64,000 people on a volcanic seamount in the Atlantic. It is wealthy, expensive and tidy; visitors cannot rent ordinary cars and use buses, ferries, taxis and small electric vehicles instead. Pink-sand beaches and colonial St George's, a UNESCO site, are the draws.