Chihuahua

Chihuahua is Mexico's largest state and one of the continent's most extreme landscapes: the Barranca del Cobre—a system of six canyons that together is four times larger than the Grand Canyon—is the great geological epic of northern Mexico. Its walls reaching depths of up to 1,800 meters, traversed by the Urique River, are home to the Rarámuri or Tarahumara culture, one of the world's most resilient indigenous communities.

The Chepe train (Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacífico) is one of the most spectacular railway journeys on the planet: 673 kilometers between Los Mochis and Chihuahua, crossing 86 tunnels and 37 bridges in a descent from the 2,400-meter-high altiplano to sea level on the Sinaloa coast. The El Divisadero viewpoint, where the train stops for 15 minutes on the edge of the canyon, is one of the most dramatic moments of any train journey in the world.

The city of Chihuahua has a dense history: it was the scene of Miguel Hidalgo's execution in 1811 and served as Pancho Villa's base of operations during the Revolution. The museum dedicated to the guerrilla leader occupies the house where he was assassinated in 1923 and houses the Dodge he was driving at the moment of the ambush, complete with the original bullet marks.

Creel, the Rarámuri village in the heart of the sierra, and Paquimé—Casas Grandes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site—with its four-story adobe structures built 700 years ago by a mysterious culture that dominated trade between Mesoamerica and the southwestern United States, complete a state of epic proportions.