Some landmarks earn their lasting fame through sheer scale, others through the sheer ambition behind their original construction, and a few through both qualities at once. Seven stops below span five continents, each with the practical details you noticeably need to actually plan a visit rather than just admire quietly from a screen or a postcard.

Paris anchors this list first, so start your planning by booking flights into the French capital.

Built for the 1889 World's Fair, this 330-metre iron structure remains Paris's defining silhouette, with three public levels offering progressively higher views over the city. Around 20,000 lights illuminate the tower each evening for five minutes every hour after dark, a display genuinely worth timing an evening visit around. Summit tickets run around EUR 32.80, and booking online ahead of time avoids the notoriously long ground-level queue.

Opened in 1973 and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Opera House's ceramic-tiled roof has become as recognisable as the harbour it sits on. Over 40 performances run through its venues each week, spanning opera, theatre, and contemporary music, making a scheduled show worth building into any Sydney visit rather than just viewing the building's famous silhouette from outside.

Standing 828 metres across 163 floors, this remains the world's tallest building by a significant margin, with observation decks positioned at 452 and 555 metres. The higher deck delivers a considerably different vantage point than the lower one, worth the price difference for visitors who want the fullest possible view over Dubai's skyline and the desert stretching out beyond it.

Construction on this Gaudí basilica has continued since 1882, with completion now projected somewhere between 2026 and 2028, making a visit today a genuine, rare chance to see architectural history still actively being written in real time. Its two contrasting facades, the ornate Nativity side and the stark, angular Passion side, tell dramatically different visual stories on the same building. Booking tickets ahead matters here more than almost anywhere else on this list, given how consistently the site sells out.

A hotel near the Eiffel Tower puts Paris's landmark within easy walking distance of your room.

Dedicated in 1886, this 93-metre statue remains one of the most recognisable symbols of the United States, with crown access limited to just 240 visitors per day. That cap means crown tickets sell out weeks in advance during peak season, worth booking as soon as your travel dates are confirmed rather than waiting until you arrive in the city.

Japan's highest peak at 3,776 metres is technically still an active volcano, though its symmetrical snow-capped silhouette has made it a cultural icon rather than a source of concern. The official climbing season runs from July through early September, the only window when the mountain's huts and trails are fully staffed and open. Outside that window, viewing Fuji from a distance, particularly around the Fuji Five Lakes, remains the more practical option.

Built between 532 and 537 AD, this structure served as the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years before later becoming a mosque and, briefly, a museum. Its 31-metre central dome remains an engineering feat that architects still study today, and free admission makes it one of the most accessible major landmarks on this entire list, a rare quality among sites this historically significant.

The Eiffel Tower, Sagrada Família, and Hagia Sophia all sit within a few hours' flight of each other, making a distinctly feasible multi-city European trip rather than three separate journeys.

Burj Khalifa, Mount Fuji, and the Statue of Liberty each work better as the centrepiece of their own dedicated trip, given how far apart they sit from the rest of this list.

Nearly every single landmark on this list benefits from advance booking, particularly Sagrada Família and the Statue of Liberty, where same-day walk-up tickets are markedly unreliable at best.

Early morning or late afternoon visits consistently deliver a calmer experience than midday, regardless of which landmark on this list you're visiting.

A Seine River cruise departing from the Eiffel Tower, bookable through Traveloka's activities listings, gives a different perspective on the landmark once you've seen it from the ground.

Burj Khalifa and the Eiffel Tower both earned their fame partly through sheer engineering ambition at the time of construction, a quality that still resonates with visitors standing beneath them today.

Sagrada Família and Hagia Sophia both carry a living cultural weight beyond their architecture, still shaping the cities around them centuries after construction began.

A car rental makes sense only for landmarks spread across a single region, since most of the seven stops on this list sit in different countries entirely. An airport transfer gets you from Charles de Gaulle into central Paris smoothly to start your landmark-hopping trip.

Seven landmarks across five continents means this list works best as a bucket list rather than a single itinerary. Traveloka is Southeast Asia's leading travel platform, trusted by over 100 million users, bringing flights, hotels, activities, car rental, eSIM, and travel insurance together in one app for trips across Asia and beyond. Check Traveloka promotions before booking, and download the app before your next landmark trip.