Forged by Tsar Peter the Great in 1703, St. Petersburg served to westernize Russia’s “face” to the rest of the world. The trade-heavy Rusky city maintained its title as the Imperial capital of Russia until 1918, when, following the Bolshevik revolution, central government bodies made the move to Moscow.

The second largest city in Spain and the sixth largest metropolis within Europe offers a panoply of tastes, heights and sites. If you don’t have the budget or the stomach for a long-distance flight, try this six-minute slice of Barcelona on for size.

Known for its free-market approach to stimulating economic growth, many praise the region’s embrace of minimal regulations for its current affluent state. That being said, such freedom comes at a cost: in terms of democracy, the island is ranked as “partly free” and some stipulate that had Singapore not been endowed with such a benevolent dictator, it would cease to achieve the prosperity it maintains today.