If you’re travelling to a new city and only have a couple of days to check out the best bits, it can be a little tricky to know where to begin. That’s where we come in.
Every year, Time Out curates a roundup of the world’s coolest neighbourhoods, this year calling on its worldwide network of travel writers and editors to get their opinion on the buzziest, vibiest and most fun pockets of their cities.
The list for 2024 includes 38 different neighbourhoods, from the historic streets of Budapest’s Palace District to the busy shopping hub of Orchard in Singapore. But, as ever, there’s always one neighbourhood that sticks out as the coolest on the block.
For 2024, the area that topped the ranks was Notre-Dame-Du-Mont, a rebellious, creative and laidback neighbourhood in the sixth arrondissement of Marseille. It used to be known as the artists’ district and that legacy remains today in the neighbourhood’s many galleries and murals. Check out our Notre-Dame-Du-Mont neighbourhood guide here.
‘Named after a church, this decidedly unholy area is made up of colourful cul-de-sacs, graffiti-covered alleyways, streets lined with plane trees and twisting staircases that lead down from Cours Julien,’ says Alicia Dorey, a Time Out Marseille writer. ‘Around the metro, new arrivals from Paris and beyond can be found sunning themselves on the terraces along Rue de Lodi, mingling with a diverse crowd of punks and their dogs, women in colourful robes, and salty old sailors sipping 8.6 beer.’
Notre-Dame-Du-Mont aside, Marseille is arguably one of the coolest cities in the world right now – no wonder so many of us flocked there this summer.
In second place on Time Out’s ranking was Mers Sultan, a concrete jungle in Casablanca, and in third place was Pererenan in Bali, which encapsulates the island’s easy-breezy charm with eclectic shops and cosy cafés.
To read more about the coolest neighbourhoods in the world, you can check out the full list here, and see where we named the coolest neighbourhood in 2023.
Did you see that Portugal could soon launch a new mega-cheap monthly rail pass?
Plus: These are the world’s best restaurants in 2024, according to TripAdvisor.
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