With opportunities for travel in the United States and to foreign capitals increasing in 2023, some travelers will be looking for new shopping and entertainment venues to visit. The Traveling American has visited some of the modern malls and shopping centers built around the globe in recent years as well as many traditional marketplaces in distant lands and historic American cities. Here are seven shopping places that are worth considering to enhance your vacation plans this year: 

 1. SINGAPORE'S SHOPPES AT MARINA BAY SANDS

Singapore has become an iconic location for world travelers and Asian residents looking for an upscale vacation destination. One aspect of the city’s appeal is The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, an 800,000 square foot, high end retail complex with impressive architectural features, 270 stores and restaurants, and an unhurried atmosphere. The shopping experience there is distinctive because the Shoppes include one of the largest collections of luxury and premium stores in one place anywhere in the world. International brands like Armani, Gucci and Jimmy Choo want a presence in the complex because of the many high spending tourists and casino customers visiting Singapore. There are 170 stores offering designer clothes for people, beauty and fragrance products, luxury jewelry and watches, premium children’s clothing and toys, and other specialty items. 

The architectural features of the four stories of The Shoppes create an atmosphere of modernity, wide open space, and calm. The Shoppes may be the only mall in the world with a canal in it which allows shoppers to take a sampan ride along one wing of the mall or enjoy the waterfront while walking around or relaxing in a café. Another part of the mall has a special skylight called the Rain Oculus which appears like a glass waterfall. The rest of the stores at The Shoppes focus on family goods, casual clothing, and dining options. The restaurants include fining dining establishments, outposts of celebrity chefs, and plenty of coffee shops and cafes. To make sure their customers are always comfortable, The Shoppes offer special services such as a currency exchange, personal shoppers, and a concierge to book restaurant reservations and entertainment tickets. Finally, the outstanding reputations of Singapore’s Changi Airport and Singapore Airlines along with the city’s safe and orderly streets make it difficult for luxury stores in other crowded Asian cities to compete.

For more information on The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, read the full article here.

2. BARCELONA’S LA RAMBLA BOULEVARD

Barcelona is one of Europe’s most popular destinations attracting an estimated twenty-seven million visitors each year. Architectural wonders like the unfinished La Sagrada Familia Basilica continue to fascinate people as do the city’s wide variety of cultural, historic and entertainment places. But the “calling card” for Barcelona remains the 1.2 kilometer long, pedestrian boulevard, known as La Rambla which is full of department stores, food markets, cafes, restaurants, malls, and monuments. 

La Rambla has no intersecting streets and features a tree lined pedestrian strip in the center that ranges from 36 to 80 feet width. This layout creates an attractive, lively, and crowded linear park for people to shop, walk, eat, and meet with friends. It was originally a mountain stream and drainage ditch during medieval times, but the area was filled in over the centuries as the city expanded. A walk along La Rambla can start on the waterfront where there is a separate mall and events center known as Maremagnum, at the nearby 200-foot-high monument to Christopher Columbus, or up at the top where a park known as Placa de Catalunya is a popular gathering place for friends to have lunch, meet, or frequent the surrounding cafes. 

In between these two ends are a jumble of different stores such as a branch of Europe’s largest department store company El Cortes Ingles, the Boqueria market featuring a wide range of produce, fruits, prepared foods and meats, the shops of local merchants, and restaurants and cafes serving hot and cold snacks to thousands of tourists, and some unusual museums. Sprinkled throughout the walkway are street performers who may play music or more likely pose as human statues of famous people and interact with the crowd. 

For more information on La Rambla, read the full article here.

3. PARIS’ GALERIES LAFAYETTE DEPARTMENT STORE

Shopping and Paris seem to go together because of France’s reputation as a trendsetter for fashion, food, and stylish living. That reputation exists because of the grandeur of Galeries Lafayette, a department store company with over fifty locations worldwide and a central location on Boulevard Haussmann. For over one hundred years, the store’s domed roof and wrought iron superstructure has loomed over the Opera District section of the city. The grand staircase, stained glass windows, and gold trim on the inside of this Art Noveau building, coupled with amenities such as a rooftop terrace and high fashion displays, continue to attract luxury shoppers and awe tourists. 

The products visible within the store are numerous and the merchandise is always changing. The company will set up a clothing display from a well-known brand such as Louis Vuitton and Channel in one corner and feature an up-and-coming designer’s fashions in a pop-up store in another, while also operating a secondhand section of the store where used designer clothes and accessories are sold. One of the most popular activities in the store is the weekly fashion show held on the fourth floor where professional models walk on a runway showing clothes on sale in the store to ticketed customers. To round out the experience of shopping at Galeries Lafayette, the store provides a variety of restaurants and cafes on the premises serving French, American, Asian, and Mediterranean cuisine. 

For more information on Galeries Lafayette, read the full article here.

4. SARASOTA’S ST ARMANDS CIRCLE

St. Armand’s Circle has been attracting locals and Florida tourists to the island of Lido Key located across the bay from Sarasota for over 90 years. The Circle offers a unique combination of outdoor shopping, quality food establishments, friendly proprietors, and parkland. It was designed by famous circus owner and local benefactor John Ringling in the 1920s. He created  a large traffic circle with buildings on the perimeter, a tree lined park and manicured gardens in the middle for relaxation, and four streets radiating outward in all directions. The outdoor ambiance was further enhanced by Ringling’s contribution of dozens of Italian sculptures and plaques honoring individuals enshrined in his Circus Hall of Fame. 

There are attractive and modern shops at the location today. These include over one hundred  stores selling boutique fashions, jewelry, home furnishings, art galleries and personal services. Alongside there are two dozen restaurants and cafes providing fine dining, snacks and light fare ranging from the prominent Columbia Restaurant known for its Cuban and Latin dishes to a trendy Tommy Bahamas restaurant and bar, to a French pastry shop. While located only a few thousand feet from the beautiful Lido Beach, the atmosphere at St. Armand is one where both beachgoers and shoppers can find what they want comfortably and conveniently throughout the year and take in some special events from time to time such as car shows, art festivals, and seasonal activities

For more information on Sarasota's St. Armand Circle, read the full article here.

5.ALBUQUERQUE'S OLD TOWN DISTRICT

The Old Town District of Albuquerque has several long blocks of relaxing shops with an architectural look, feel and individualized touch rarely found in glamorous malls and chic boutiques around the world. History comes alive in this area since the Old Town was founded in 1706 by a group of Spanish families who petitioned the governor in Mexico to name their settlement after a distant Duke in Europe. The town they created was built around a central square which exits today and contains a raised gazebo, benches, and shade trees, where public events, concerts by mariachi bands, and other performances entertain shoppers and residents. 

The principal shopping areas are Romero and San Felipe Streets which run east to west adjacent to the square. They have over one hundred specialty shops with a wide variety of goods and fine arts reflecting the combined traditions of the Spanish, Native American and Western peoples of the area. Whether you are interested in necklaces or other jewelry made of precious metals or stones such as the locally popular turquoise, cowboy boots and belts, or antique ceramics and Native American photographs, you can browse the wide selections available in Old Town and talk with the friendly and knowledgeable local people working in the stores. A selection of restaurants with southwest fare are close by. You can also supplement the shopping by visiting the interesting exhibits at four local museums which focus on the Natural History of the region, rattlesnakes, turquoise mining, and the history of the Rio Grande Valley. 

For more information on Old Town Albuquerque, read the full article here.

6. THE LUXURY MALLS OF DUBAI

For centuries, the ports of the Arabian Peninsula including Dubai have served as a trading center between nations to the east and west. The marketplaces of Dubai such as the spice souk, perfume souk, fabric souk and gold souk are still an important part of the city. But today, Dubai's image is more strongly associated with lavish places for shopping and entertainment like the Dubai Mall and the Mall of the Emirates. Both malls have stores with famous designer brands, flagship stores for electronic and computer companies, and leading retailers from all over the world. One visitor reported that virtually every American retailer and food chain she thought of had an outlet there. Forty million people visit the Mall of the Emirates each year and the Dubai Mall has been listed as the world's second largest shopping center attracting over eighty million people annually.

The distinctive feature of Dubai's malls is the key role that entertainment and hospitality play in their businesses. The older Mall of the Emirates caused a sensation by building a half mile long ski and sledding facility known as Ski Dubai in the mall along with a twenty-screen cinema, a fantasy attraction, a bowling alley, and plenty of restaurants. Leading hotel chains such as Kempinski, Novotel, Hilton and Sheraton have five-star facilities nearby to handle e the thousands of daily visitors. The newer Dubai Mall features its own attractions such as an ice rink, aquarium, electric go carts, movie theater, and a horror attraction and virtual reality park, to keep people busy when they are done visiting the 1300 retail outlets and two hundred food locations. Some people also consider the 80-foot-high shimmering waterfall at the Dubai Mall to be one of the city's leading attractions. 

For more information on the Dubai Malls, read the full article here.

7. ISTANBUL'S GRAND BAZAAR 

The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul is the granddaddy of shopping centers around the world because of its enormity and history. Since the days of the Eastern Roman Empire in the fourth century, caravans from the east and ships from ports on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean have journeyed there to trade with local merchants and other shippers. Sultan Mehmet the Great constructed the original buildings of the Grand Bazaar after his conquest of the city in 1461 to centralize and better supervise and tax these activities. Six centuries later, the Bazaar covers over eleven acres and houses 3500 shops under one roof by using arches to connect the buildings. 

The shops are grouped according to their products so one area of the bazaar may feature carpets, another jewelry, and another may sell leather goods. Those items as well as gold and silver, fabrics, clothes, souvenirs, and luxury items can be found in abundance. There is much less emphasis on food and entertainment in this older version of a shopping mall, but people still flock there for the experience of bargaining for what they want, seeing a wide variety of products, and enjoying the hospitality of the vendors. More than 250,000 people visit the Bazaar on some days.

For more information on the Grand Bazaar and how to approach it, see the full article here.