The Best Places in the United States

A strip-mall card shop in Scottsdale where the staff can tell you whether that rookie pull is worth grading and will handle the PSA submission paperwork so you don't have to. The hobby has gotten expensive and a little arcane since the '90s, and Valleywide seems to exist specifically to meet that confusion with a straight answer. Weekend afternoons draw collectors of every age, which is either heartwarming or proof that the hobby never really left.

A women's clothing boutique tucked into The Frederick, a small uptown retail complex, Vida Moulin stocks California boho pieces, think cotton cashmere tees and gingham maxi dresses, that manage to be relaxed without looking like they came off a fast-fashion conveyor belt. The prices don't require a moment of quiet reflection at the register either. Phoenix New Times named it Best Women's Clothing in 2025, which feels about right for a shop that regulars visit just to see what's new.

A volunteer-run distro shop stocking thousands of zines on every conceivable obsession, Wasted Ink is the kind of place where you go for one thing and leave an hour later having agreed to collaborate on someone else's publication. The shelves double as a small archive of zine history, and the staff can help you figure out how to start your own. Phoenix New Times named it the best place to buy a zine in 2025, which feels correct.

Sunrise over the Sonoran Desert looks different from a Robinson R66 at altitude, which is the whole argument for booking with this family-run helicopter tour company out of Scottsdale. Routes cover metro Phoenix, Sedona, and the Superstition Mountains, with mountaintop picnic flights for anyone who finds restaurants too horizontal. Pilots are seasoned and apparently good at talking first-timers off the ledge before liftoff does it for them.

A plastic-poo-flinging slingshot sits near a bar of beer-scented soap, which sits near cockroach-shaped toy cars, which is how you know you're in the right place. This Phoenix novelty and gag gift shop is a cheerfully unhinged bazaar of knickknacks nobody ordered but everyone quietly wants, from Magnetic Jesus Dress-Up kits to dragon merch to ass-shaped stress balls. The perfect stop when a normal card simply will not do.

Birding has quietly shed its retirement-hobby reputation, and Wild Birds Unlimited is where the newly converted come to figure out what to do next. The staff will match you to the right seed and feeder for what's actually flying around Scottsdale, talk you through attracting peach-faced lovebirds to your yard, and flag any local avian health alerts worth knowing. A specialty shop that takes the hobby seriously without making you feel like a tourist in your own backyard.

Somewhere between the white rhinos and the maned wolves, you may find yourself face to face with a capybara, which is a reasonable argument for coming. Wildlife World is a private zoo on the western edge of Phoenix, one of only two nationally accredited privately owned zoos in the country, with around 1,300 animals spread across naturalistic enclosures, no concrete-and-bars austerity here. The animals range from penguins to African wild dogs, and the place leans educational without being preachy about it.

Film cameras are having their moment, and Wilson Camera has been ready since the Eisenhower administration. This old-school camera shop in Scottsdale sells and services vintage gear and develops nearly every film format you can feed it. The new owner leaned hard into analog when everyone else went fully digital, so you can actually drop off your rolls here rather than mailing them to some lab in Brooklyn like everyone else apparently does.

An outdoor roller rink on colorful tiles in the heart of Wynwood, with a DJ running old-school hip-hop and Bad Bunny and a bar nearby for the non-skaters who came anyway. It runs Thursday through Sunday and costs under twenty bucks, which is a reasonable price for the combination of nostalgia and bruised dignity. Pack socks, or be prepared to hear about it.

Canyon Lake sits in the Superstition Wilderness, and Yak N Sup is how most people actually get on it, renting out kayaks and paddleboards by the day or longer from their Apache Junction outpost. Beyond self-guided rentals, the team runs guided tours that range from daytime paddles to full-moon and paranormal-themed excursions, which is a sentence you don't write every day. They also help organize lake cleanups, so the water stays worth paddling.

Four-dollar beers on Lincoln Road, which should be physically impossible. Zeke's is a cash-only sidewalk bar that has traded under a few names over the decades but never really changed: cheap cold beer, a bag of chips for a dollar, and a front-row seat to the full Miami Beach parade passing by. The hours shift, the tap selection is unpredictable, and none of that seems to bother anyone nursing a bottle in the sun.

The bucatini arrives spun tableside inside a wheel of parmigiana, which tells you immediately that this Arlington red-sauce Italian spot has more going on than the checkered-tablecloth classics. Chef Mike Cordero keeps inventing, so the menu shifts, but the instinct stays the same: familiar comfort food pushed somewhere unexpected. The room fills with people who came for spaghetti and meatballs and end up ordering whatever the server talks them into.

The lavender dining room is your first hint that Celebration by Rupa Vira is not playing by anyone else's rules. This modern Indian restaurant in Ashburn runs on contrast: crispy kale chaat with yogurt pearls and tamarind, tandoori salmon arriving in a pool of chile and mango with a cloud of foam on top. Desserts come with dry ice and gold leaf, because subtlety left the building. The self-trained chef earned a spot on Northern Virginia Magazine's 50 Best list, and the room makes a convincing case without needing the press.

Hazelnut pesto on pizza is either a bold move or a disaster, and the Vernick alums behind this casual pizza and pasta spot in University City have clearly decided it's the former. The pies get the headlines, but the pastas and meaty mains pull equal weight. Two Locals beer is on tap next door, the crowd skews young, and the whole thing has the easy energy of a neighborhood spot that hasn't yet been ruined by its own reputation.

The kitchen operates out of Copperworks Distilling in Kenmore, which means you order at a counter in a sprawling taproom full of kids and dogs, then sit down to charred cabbage with miso buttermilk and baby carrots cooked in beef fat with black garlic yogurt. The seasonal menu leans on produce from a nearby farm, and the team, veterans of the Seattle dining scene, lands dishes that feel genuinely original while nodding at comfort food. The kids' menu is nearly as long as the main one.

The water arrives with a tray of cucumbers, lime, and lemon so you can pick your infusion, which tells you something about how seriously this Korean steakhouse in Vienna takes its choices. A six-course prix fixe builds around American wagyu cuts grilled tableside, but nearly every element is yours to configure, from appetizers to noodles to the savory finish. The kind of place where the decisions feel like half the dinner.

The focaccia-stacked lamb burger keeps regulars coming back, but at this Sterling neighborhood restaurant, even the fritto misto and a bowl of rigatoni Bolognese feel like they got the same amount of thought. Housemade bread arrives with cultured butter, seasonal cocktails shift with the calendar, and the kitchen seems constitutionally unable to phone anything in. A place that treats a Tuesday dinner like it matters.

The tableside saganaki arrives in a burst of actual flames, which sets the tone for everything that follows. This is a proper Greek restaurant, the kind where white curtains billow, conversations run in several languages at once, and a server steers you toward an Assyrtiko without being asked. The wine list leans Greek and the dips arrive with warm pita still soft from the oven.

A dry-aged rib-eye on a tabletop grill is a good start, but Seoul Prime is doing considerably more than that. This Korean barbecue steakhouse in Falls Church layers fine-dining ambition onto the tableside format, with a kimchi vinaigrette on burrata and a croissant pressed in a waffle iron for dessert. The beef tours give the meal a shape; the à la carte menu lets you freelance. Dressy enough to feel like a night out, smoky enough to remind you it's still barbecue.

The dining room of an old country inn in the Virginia foothills, where the kitchen takes a locavore menu seriously enough that nobody's ordering a chicken-fried steak. Housemade gnocchi, herb-crusted rack of lamb, and a mango mousse that arrives looking like a art installation suggest the chef has somewhere to be. The drive out to Paris, VA is part of it, and the setting does a lot of the work before the food even arrives.

A Hong Kong-style all-day cafe where five-spice wings, barbecued unagi over scrambled eggs, Portuguese custard tarts, and clam chowder share a menu without anyone blinking. TingTing's, from the team behind EMei, is small, crowded, and BYO, which covers the essentials. The menu sprawls in the way those old Hong Kong cafes do, where Western comfort food and Cantonese staples occupy the same laminated page and somehow coexist peacefully.

Murals on the walls, A5 wagyu with foie gras on the plate: the contrast is kind of the point at this Arlington sushi spot. The menu runs toward the lavish end of the spectrum, with precision plating that makes you feel slightly guilty picking up your chopsticks. The ceviche with wasabi nori chips cuts through all that richness with real sharpness. Book ahead; the room fills fast and nobody's rushing out.

The polished metal trays arrive loaded with banchan, and the arrangement shifts every time, which is half the point. Baek ban is the format, a Korean rice-set meal with a main and a rotating cast of small dishes, and at this Chantilly spot the lineup might include cubed radish kimchi, sesame-glossed glass noodles, or a perilla-leaf omelet. The smoky-sweet bulgogi landed on the Washingtonian's favorite dishes list, so that one is worth keeping an eye out for.

The whole branzino is flown in from Greece, cured, air-dried for days, then grilled until the skin shatters, which tells you everything about the kitchen's priorities at this polished Pike & Rose restaurant. It reads like a classic American steakhouse, and you could easily miss the Greek thread running through it, which is exactly what makes that fish such a pleasantly disorienting moment. The owners also run Cava, which is quite the range.