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8correct to beat the crowd
This world travel trivia quiz has 197 free questions with answers and takes you from the Eiffel Tower and Machu Picchu to less-visited corners like Naypyidaw, Meroë and Palmyra. Along the way you will meet the oldest airline still flying under its own name, the busiest airport on earth, the longest railway line, and the island split between France and the Netherlands. It is written for anyone who loves planning the next trip as much as taking it, and it works just as well for a pub quiz travel round or a long-haul flight. Most questions are easy to medium, with a handful of harder ones on ancient trade routes and remote outposts to separate the frequent flyers from the armchair travellers. Every answer has been checked against a primary or encyclopaedic source, so you can trust the facts before you repeat them at the airport bar.
30 of 197 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Paris landmark was built as the centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair?
Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower went up in just over two years while artists and writers petitioned against it, calling it a 'hateful column of bolted sheet metal'; it has since become the symbol of the city.
Q 02Which US airport covers the largest area?
Denver International
Denver International, which replaced Stapleton in 1995, sits on about 53 square miles of prairie, twice the area of Manhattan, a site chosen to leave the airport plenty of room to grow.
Q 03Which country received the most international tourist arrivals in 2019?
France
France drew about 91 million foreign visitors in 2019, far more people than actually live there, and stayed ahead of Spain on about 84 million and the United States on about 79 million.
Q 04The ancient city of Machu Picchu is located in which country?
Peru
Peru's Machu Picchu was abandoned only about a century after the Inca built it, around the time of the Spanish conquest, and went largely unnoticed by the outside world until Hiram Bingham publicised it in 1911.
Q 05Which airline is Dubai's government-owned flag carrier?
Emirates
Emirates began flying in 1985 with just two aircraft, provided by Pakistan International Airlines, and grew into one of the world's biggest long-haul carriers.
Q 06Route 66 runs from Chicago to which city?
Santa Monica
Route 66's western terminus was extended from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica in 1936; the highway covered about 2,448 miles from Chicago across eight states.
Q 07What is the currency used in Japan?
Yen
Yen became Japan's currency in 1871, when the new Meiji government replaced a tangle of feudal coins and clan banknotes with one decimal system; the name simply means 'round', after the coins' shape.
Q 08Which UNESCO World Heritage Site is a massive sandstone temple complex in Cambodia?
Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat in Cambodia is the largest religious monument in the world. Originally built as a Hindu temple in the early 12th century, it gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple.
Q 09Which island nation in the Indian Ocean is famous for its overwater bungalows and coral reefs?
Maldives
The Maldives' islands rise only a metre or two above the sea, so in 2009 its president and cabinet held a meeting underwater in scuba gear to demand cuts in carbon emissions.
Q 10Who completed the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in 1927?
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris in 33.5 hours to claim the $25,000 Orteig Prize, on offer since 1919 for the first nonstop flight between the two cities.
Q 11Paella, Spain's best-known rice dish, was first cooked in which region?
Valencia
Valencia gave the world paella, named after the wide, shallow pan it is cooked in; the traditional local recipe uses chicken, rabbit and beans rather than seafood.
Q 12The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef system, is located off the coast of which country?
Australia
Australia's Great Barrier Reef is not one reef but nearly 3,000 separate ones, strung along about 2,300 km of the Queensland coast and large enough to be seen from space.
Q 13What is the IATA airport code for London Heathrow?
LHR
LHR is Heathrow's own code, taken from the airport's name; LON is a real code too, but it stands for the whole London area and also covers Gatwick, Stansted, City, Luton and Southend.
Q 21Which building was the tallest in the world in 2025?
Burj Khalifa
Burj Khalifa was called Burj Dubai until its opening night in January 2010, when the 828-metre tower was renamed after the ruler of Abu Dhabi, the neighbour that had just bailed Dubai out of its debt crisis.
Q 22Which African country is home to the Kushite pyramids of Meroë?
Sudan
Sudan was the heartland of Kush, whose kings came to rule their northern neighbour as pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty; they were buried under pyramids back home, and Meroë became their later capital.
Q 23Which Japanese dish is thinly sliced raw fish served on its own, without rice?
Sashimi
Sashimi is just the sliced raw fish; sushi is defined by its vinegared rice, so a sushi dish can hold cooked seafood or no fish at all.
Q 14Which ancient trade route connected China to the Mediterranean?
Silk Road
The Silk Road carried goods between China and the Mediterranean from the 2nd century BC, but nobody called it that then: the name was popularised in 1877 by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen.
Q 15Which liner's sinking led to the first international Safety of Life at Sea treaty?
Titanic
Titanic sailed with 20 lifeboats, room for about 1,178 people and far fewer than were aboard; the 1914 treaty that followed set lifeboat numbers and round-the-clock radio watches for passenger ships.
Q 16Rome's Colosseum was built over the drained lake of which emperor's palace, the Golden House?
Nero
Nero seized the heart of the city for his Golden House after the great fire of AD 64; the later emperor Vespasian drained its ornamental lake and put a public arena on the spot.
Q 17What is the official language of Brazil?
Portuguese
Portuguese arrived with Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed Brazil for Portugal in 1500; a 1494 treaty had already split the New World, giving Spain the lands to the west and Portugal those to the east.
Q 18Which country is home to Santorini, the volcanic island famous for its blue domes?
Greece
Greece's Santorini is the rim of a volcano that blew itself apart about 3,600 years ago, burying the Bronze Age town of Akrotiri in ash and leaving the flooded crater its villages now overlook.
Q 19Ferdinand Magellan's expedition was the first to do what, completing the journey in 1522?
Circumnavigate the globe
Magellan's expedition (1519-1522) was the first to circumnavigate the globe, though Magellan himself died in the Philippines in 1521. Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the voyage.
Q 20Which Southeast Asian country moved its capital from Yangon to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw?
Myanmar
Myanmar moved its government in November 2005 but only revealed the new capital's name on Armed Forces Day in March 2006; the planned city sits outside any state or region.
Q 24Which two bodies of water does the Suez Canal connect?
Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea
The Suez Canal joins the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea; since it opened in 1869, ships sailing between Europe and Asia have been spared the long voyage around Africa's Cape of Good Hope.
Q 25Which city is split between Europe and Asia by the Bosphorus Strait?
Istanbul
Istanbul's residents can cross continents on the daily commute, by ferry, by bridge or, since 2013, through a rail tunnel under the strait; about two-thirds of them live on the European side.
Q 26Which small European country is completely surrounded by Italy?
San Marino
San Marino sheltered Giuseppe Garibaldi and his retreating volunteers in 1849; when he later helped unite the peninsula, the mountain republic that had taken him in was left independent.
Q 27Which airport was the world's busiest by passenger traffic in 2023?
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta handled about 105 million passengers in 2023, topping the Airports Council International ranking it has led every year since 1998 except 2020, when Guangzhou Baiyun briefly overtook it.
Q 28Tromsø, a favourite base for seeing the Northern Lights, lies above the Arctic Circle in which country?
Norway
Norway's Tromsø sits more than 300 km north of the Arctic Circle, inside the auroral zone, so the lights can show from late August to early April; in summer the midnight sun never lets the sky go dark.
Q 29Which three-tower resort hotel, opened in 2010, is topped by a SkyPark with a 150-metre infinity pool?
Marina Bay Sands
Marina Bay Sands opened its SkyPark in June 2010 with a race in which teams of top rock climbers scaled the glass faces of the hotel towers; the 340-metre deck joins all three at the top.
Q 30Which country's passport stood alone atop the Henley Passport Index in July 2024?
Singapore
Singapore's passport gave visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to 195 destinations in July 2024, a year after it had overtaken Japan for first place in the ranking.