Are you planning a New Year’s vacation? Top international travel places

With international border restrictions loosening and more foreign flights in the skies, double-vaccinated persons with itchy feet have been dusting off their passports and seeking tips for hassle-free travel abroad.

People are seeking places to rest and revitalize as the holiday season approaches, with Christmas and New Year just around the horizon.

Here are four such locales that promise to blow your mind.

Dubai

Dubai is a fantastic holiday destination for Indian travelers due to its endless shopping, exciting cuisine options, a plethora of entertainment, and, most importantly, direct flights with Emirates Airlines from several Indian towns.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) second-biggest city is obsessed with creating icons that are best defined with superlatives like “tallest,” “largest,” “first,” “only,” and so on. The Burj Khalifa Tower, the world’s tallest structure, is the greatest example of this, with guests arriving first to enjoy a breathtaking perspective of the metropolis before proceeding to the rest of the building.

Dubai is a shopaholic’s dream, with a plethora of shopping options ranging from cutting-edge retail complexes to historic souks and bargain hunting bazaars.

Dubai Mall, the world’s largest shopping mall, and the massive Mall of Emirates are the top runners among other retail malls. In these two regions, where retail therapy is complemented by exhilarating entertainment, all of the name brands that one could possibly come across have been gathered under one roof.

While Ski Dubai at the Mall of Emirates provides skiing, snowboarding, and other snow-filled activities, the Dubai Aquarium in the Dubai Mall attracts a large audience to observe an astounding diversity of marine life in front of its 50-meter-long glass tank.
For an Indian visitor to Dubai, a visit to the gold souk – the world’s largest gold market, which is claimed to house 10 tonnes of metal at any given moment – is a must.

Malta

Malta, located in the Mediterranean Sea between Europe’s Sicily and North Africa’s Tunisia, gained popularity among Indians after Bollywood actor Salman Khan described it as a “beautiful country” while filming his film “Bharat.”

This sun-drenched archipelago, comprised of three main inhabited islands, Gojo, Comino, and Malta, has a 7000-year history impacted by the presence of various invaders, from the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs, and Normans to Knights of St John in the 16th century, followed by the French and British.

Valletta, the current capital, and other tourist hotspots such as medieval Mdina, Rabat, the Three Cities of Vittoriosa, Senglea, and Cospicua, as well as the fishing town of Marsaxlokk, are all on Malta Island, with the smaller islands of Gozo and Comino just a short boat journey away.

Malta’s countryside still has a medieval feel to it. As a result, it’s not uncommon for visitors to mistake it for ancient Rome or Greece, or even 19th-century Marseilles or 1960s Beirut. As a result, the location has been featured in several blockbuster films, television dramas, and documentaries, ranging from the silent film ‘Sons of the Sea’ in 1925 to the recent film ‘Bharat.’ ‘Casino Royale,’ ‘Eye Witness,’ ‘Gladiator,’ ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ ‘Troy,’ ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ ‘Game of Thrones,’ and ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ are just a handful of the almost fifty titles in between.

Singapore

In close proximity to houses, Singapore has always been a favorite among Indian tourists. The presence of millions of Singaporeans of Indian ancestry may be the primary cause of this predilection.

This feeling is amplified in the city’s most culturally vibrant precinct, Little India, which is packed with saree stores, jewelry shops, Indian grocery and spice shops, temples, mosques, and hordes of desi eateries serving fish curry rice for Bengalis, biryani for Hyderabadis, rogan josh for Kashmiris, and idli, sambar, dosa, and filter coffee for South Indians.

For the Indians, the Mustafa Store, which is open 24 hours a day, is a shopper’s paradise with everything the imagination can imagine. When visiting some of the glitzy, large, and stylish shopping malls, the shopping experience is amplified.

Apart from shopping, there are a plethora of other things to do and see in Singapore, from strolling down Orchard Road, wandering through Chinatown and the Arab Quarter, and perusing the artistic collections at many of the city’s world-class museums, to hopping on one of the city’s bright yellow hop-on buses for a ride through lush tree-lined boulevards, flanked by manicured gardens and skyscrapers, and at times sharing space with well-preserved Visiting Sentosa Island, a doorway to pleasure and amusement for the entire family, is a highly recommended experience.

Bhutan

Indian citizens do not require a visa to visit Bhutan, a Himalayan country that has awe-inspiring natural beauty, a strong sense of spirituality, and countless smiling faces of friendly Bhutanese people, all of which combine to deserve its moniker of “Land of Happiness.” Discerning travelers from all over the world visit this little country in search of a piece of their unspoiled bliss.

There are many intriguing things to see, experience, and enjoy in the mountainous region. A voyage through Paro, Punakha, and Thimpu, Bhutan’s historic and current capitals, provides an excellent sample of everything the country has to offer.

These towns are filled with royal quarters, temples, monasteries, and religious monuments, and they depict a simple way of life centered on the practice of age-old customs and traditions.

Visiting the Tiger Nest Monastery near Paro, which is perched on a cliff roughly 3000 meters above sea level, is one of the most thrilling activities. Guru Rinpoche, known as the “Second Buddha” in India, founded this famed highland temple.