The most colorful places we saw

Chefchaouen sits in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, a small town famous for the powder-blue wash that covers its medina walls, doors and stairways. The cool mountain setting and consistent blue palette make it one of the country's most distinctive places to photograph.

Founded in 1471, Chefchaouen was long closed to outsiders and absorbed waves of Andalusian and Jewish refugees from Spain. The tradition of painting the medina blue is variously attributed to Jewish residents, to cooling the buildings, or to repelling insects; whatever its origin, the result is a town of narrow stepped lanes in every shade from sky to indigo, set against the green slopes of the Rif.

Venice is built across more than a hundred small islands in a shallow lagoon, with canals serving as streets and boats in place of cars. The historic center fans out from St. Mark's Square along the great S-curve of the Grand Canal, crossed by the marble Rialto Bridge.

The city's monumental heart is St. Mark's Square, dominated by the Byzantine domes and gold mosaics of St. Mark's Basilica, the Gothic Doge's Palace and the freestanding Campanile, whose top gives a panorama over the rooftops and lagoon. The Grand Canal winds past faded palazzos in Venetian Gothic and Renaissance styles, busiest with vaporetto and gondola traffic and best photographed from the Rialto and Accademia bridges.

Busan is South Korea's second city and largest port, a coastal metropolis spread between mountains and the sea on the country's southeastern tip. It is known for its beaches, its vast seafood market, and a brightly painted hillside village.

On a steep hillside above the harbor, the Gamcheon Culture Village is a maze of pastel houses stacked one above the next, originally built in the 1920s and 30s to house port and mountain workers, later filled with families displaced by the Korean War, and now a lively arts district threaded with murals, cafes and tiny galleries — the source of Busan's reputation as a colorful city. Down at sea level, Jagalchi, the largest seafood market in the country, sells and cooks the morning catch on the spot, and the Gwangan Bridge spans the bay, illuminated at night as a backdrop to the beach and skyline.

A preserved trading port glowing with silk lanterns along a riverside old town.

Hoi An was a major Southeast Asian trading port between the 15th and 19th centuries, and its remarkably intact old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The architecture blends Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and European influences in a compact, vehicle-free riverside core of wooden shophouses, assembly halls and a famous covered bridge. Much of it is painted a distinctive weathered yellow.