Mérida

Mérida sits at 1,625 metres in a narrow valley between two Andean ridges, the city's colonial streets fanning out from Plaza Bolívar while the peaks of the Sierra Nevada rise immediately to the south. It is Venezuela's most outdoor-focused city — the kind of place where paragliding helmets share shelf space with university textbooks.

The Universidad de Los Andes, founded in 1785, gives Mérida its energy: cheap food, late nights, good bookshops, and the particular intellectual restlessness of a town where almost everyone is studying something. The city's food scene has benefited accordingly.

The cable car (teleférico) that once climbed to 4,765 metres — the world's highest, by some measures — has been under restoration for years but remains a symbol of Mérida's ambitions. The trails it served are still walkable with a guide.