How many of our 50 destinations for 2015 did you manage? It's not too late to squeeze in another trip before Christmas...
Pristina, Kosovo
34 of 50
© incamerastock / Alamy
The nation of Kosovo—Europe’s newest—was born in 2008, and its capital, Pristina, is characterized by a free-spirited nightlife, a reborn enthusiasm that recalls 1990s Berlin, Belfast, and Prague, and an emerging cosmopolitanism unlike anything else in the Balkans. The city teems with restaurants serving everything from Mexican and Thai to Kosovo locavore, while new spots continue to open along Boulevards Bill Klinton and Tony Blair. A bustling café culture has locals claiming that Pristina makes the world’s best macchiato. The city’s first craft brewery, Sabaja, debuted in autumn 2013, serving smoked porter and hoppy pumpkin ales. Continue your night out at Miqt, a 2014 newcomer that has become a favorite of a progressive set who dance to New Order and the Smiths songs. Since the war, a slew of NGO-funded projects have begun to restore and enhance cultural sites like the modernist National Library, the Great Hamam, the Mother Teresa Cathedral, and the Ethnographic Museum, which began to offer free English-language tours in 2014. Beyond Pristina, tourism infrastructure is slowly recovering as funding from Switzerland and the HALO trust continue to remove land mines and as cultural restoration projects in villages, ski resorts, and sacred monasteries move ahead. —Adam H. Graham
