Bernard Gagnon
For many years, this ancient country was the Middle East’s great “what if?” — home to some of the planet’s oldest cities and most extraordinary archaeological treasures, yet effectively sealed off from mainstream tourism by civil war, sanctions, and security fears. But in 2026 travelers are beginning to return, cautiously and curiously, to a country still emerging from one of the 21st century’s defining conflicts. I hope to join them soon, because I was born in Damascus and haven´t been able to go back for nine years.
These days my country has a population of around 24 million people packed into an area somewhat smaller than Great Britain (or in the USA, about the size of North Dakota plus South Dakota). And civilization here stretches back astonishingly far. Ancient cities such as Ebla, Mari, and Ugarit flourished thousands of years before the Roman Empire existed, helping shape early trade, writing, and urban culture in the Fertile Crescent; Ugarit, on the Mediterranean coast, produced one of the world’s earliest known alphabets around 1400 BCE. Syria later became a crossroads of empires — Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mongol, and Ottoman — leaving behind layers of temples, souqs, mosques, churches, castles, and caravanserais that few countries can rival. Damascus itself claims to be the world’s oldest continuously inhabited capital, appearing in written records by roughly the 15th century BCE.
Modern Syria’s story, however, is impossible to separate from the Assad family dictatorship, which ruled for more than five decades since one time air force officer Hafez al-Assad took power in 1971 (after 23 years of French administration and several subsequent decades of unstable régimes) and his son Bashir al-Assad took over upon his father´s death in 2000. Protests led to a brutal civil war from 2011 to 2024, further complicated by the seizure of up to half of the country outside Damascus by the brutal ultra-funamentalist Islamic terrorist group Daesh (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Islamic State) from 2014 to around 2019. In December 2024 the régime finally collapsed dramatically after rebel forces swept into Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia. The current transitional government under rebel leader, now interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa has promised reconstruction, political reform, and a reopening to the world. A year and a half later, the atmosphere is still one of cautious optimism mixed with uncertainty: many Syrians speak openly and freely in ways that would once have been unthinkable, yet economic hardship, political tensions, and sporadic violence remain realities.
Despite all that, tourism is clearly reviving. Syrian officials say more than 3.5 million visitors entered in 2025, including expatriate Syrians, with foreign and Arab tourist arrivals up sharply over 2024. By comparison, before the civil war which began in 2011 there were nearly 11 million visitors annually (in 2010); toward the end of the decade the industry had collapsed almost completely.
Even so, Syria´s tourism is still not “normal.” Most visitors still travel on organized tours, and a number Western governments continue to advise against all travel because of terrorism risks, kidnapping concerns, and the fragile security environment. Damascus, however, now feels surprisingly lively and functional in many districts, with cafés full late into the evening and traffic jams once again clogging its streets. Travelers who go generally report feeling welcome and encountering little hostility.
Keep in mind, too, that English is unevenly spoken. Younger Syrians in Damascus, Aleppo, and tourism-related businesses often speak at least basic English, but outside major cities, Arabic dominates almost entirely. In addition, French survives among some older educated Syrians, a legacy of the French Mandate era. And travelers who know even a handful of Arabic phrases tend to receive enthusiastic reactions.
And Syrians are largely eager to talk. After years of isolation, many are curious about foreigners and deeply appreciative that visitors are returning. Hospitality remains central to Syrian society: invitations to tea, coffee, or even full meals are common, especially outside Damascus.
And then there is the food. Syrian cuisine may be the country’s greatest ambassador: richly spiced yet rarely fiery, deeply Levantine yet distinctly Syrian. Expect velvety hummus, smoky baba ghanoush, kibbeh, grilled lamb, pistachio-filled desserts, and some of the Middle East’s finest sweets. Aleppo in particular was once famous across the Arab world for its sophisticated cuisine, blending Ottoman, Armenian, and Arab influences.
So all that said, these are the top spots to visit in Syria:
Damascus
Now home to some 2.5 million people, this very much feels like one of the world’s great historic capitals, and while some areas were moderately to severely damaged by the fighting (including the outlying neighbourhood where I was born and grew up). The UNESCO World Heritage Old City — enclosed in part by ancient Roman walls and entered through gates such as Bab Sharqi and Bab Touma — is the core of one of the world´s oldest continuously occupied cities (dating back to the third millennium BCE). It´s still very atmospheric despite some scars of war, with narrow alleyways, hammams, jasmine-draped courtyards, and bustling souqs where coffee, spices, sweets, and textiles are sold much as they have been for centuries.
At its heart stands the magnificent Umayyad Mosque (top), founded in 705 under Caliph al-Walid I on the site of earlier Roman and Byzantine temples. One of Islam’s oldest and most important mosques, it´s famed for its vast courtyard, intricate mosaics, and the shrine traditionally associated with the Christian bible´s John the Baptist. Nearby, the elegant al-Azm Palace is an 18th-century Ottoman residence built in 1749 for governor Asʿad Pasha al-Azm, whose richly decorated rooms and courtyards now house a museum of Syrian arts and traditions. Then, dominating the northwestern edge of the Old City, the massive fortifications of the Citadel of Damascus date back to 1076 (It´s officially open, but access these days is inconsistent and visitors should not assume they'll be able to enter). Also well worth a visit is the Ottoman-era Al-Tekkiye al-Suleimaniye, a religious complex including mosque, a school, and caravanserai, featuring graceful domes and pencil minarets — designed by the great Ottoman architect Sinan in the 1550s.
And speaking of museums, The National Museum of Damascus contains some of Syria’s greatest archaeological treasures ranging back through 11 millennia, including finds from sites such as Mari, Palmyra (see below), and Ugarit (ditto), along with a reconstruction of the synagogue of Dura-Europos, in the country´s far east (the original was tragically destroyed in 2014 during the town´s occupation by Daesh).
Other remarkable stops in Damascus include Khan As'ad Pasha, an enormous 18th-century Ottoman caravansarai with soaring black-and-white stonework and domed ceilings that once hosted Silk Road merchants, and the Bimaristan al-Nuri, a beautifully preserved 12th-century hospital founded by Nur ad-Din and now housing a small Museum of Medicine and Science, focussing mostly on the medieval Islamic period.
Finally, it´s worth noting that despite everything the city has endured, there is still visible street life and a surprising semblance of normality in many districts. Cafés fill in the evenings, families stroll through Old Damascus, restaurants and sweet shops stay lively late into the night, and in areas such as Bab Touma and the Straight Street quarter you´ll find a modest nightlife scene with terrace cafés, music, and shisha lounges. Electricity shortages and economic hardship remain part of daily life, but visitors often remark on the resilience and warmth of Damascenes determined to preserve the rhythms of ordinary urban life.
Aleppo
About 5½ hours north by road, Syria's second city, with roughly 1.8 million residents, suffered catastrophic wartime destruction, but parts of its ancient core are slowly reviving. The atmosphere is resilient rather than polished: rubble may still stand beside restored cafés and reopened bakeries. The colossal medieval Citadel of Aleppo, whose present form dates largely to the Ayyubid Sultanate rebuilding of the early 13th century, dominates the skyline. Cracked by the 2023 earthquake, it has since reopened, though some sections remain closed and no food or water is sold inside. Below it, restored souqs and museums reveal both the city's grandeur and its trauma. Al-Madina Souq, once one of the region's largest covered markets, was badly burned in the fighting but is partly reopened, its alleys filled again with spices, silk, and laurel soap. The adjacent Great (Umayyad) Mosque, founded in 715 CE, lost its historic minaret and has also partially reopened. Nearby, the 17th-century Khan al-Wazir, an Ottoman caravanserai with an ornate stone facade, and the Bimaristan Arghun, a 14th-century hospital-turned-museum, add further layers of history. The National Museum of Aleppo, founded in 1931 and reopening in stages, holds artifacts spanning cuneiform tablets to early Islamic manuscripts, while the Christian/Armenian quarter of Jdeydeh, largely intact, now anchors the liveliest dining.
Lodging and dining infrastructure is real but thin. A few international-standard hotels, such as the Dedeman, Riga Palace, and Sheraton, are still in operation near the center, alongside small boutique guesthouses in restored courtyard homes, including Beit Al-Wali, Beit Salahieh, and Dar Zamaria — best booked directly given limited rooms. The Old City sits closest to the sights but still shows scaffolding, while Jdeydeh is more restored and walkable at night. Dining ranges from souq bakeries to Armenian and Aleppine restaurants known for local specialties such as kebabs and muhammara. Cash (in local Syrian pounds) is standard, with cards rarely accepted, and power/water can be intermittent.
Palmyra
Closer to Damascus — around 3½ hours northeast — this town of 50,000 is renowned for the adjacent UNESCO World Heritage ruins of Palmyra, the Roman-era caravan city built up largely between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, when it grew rich funneling trade between Rome and Persia. It symbolizes Syria's tragedy more powerfully than almost any other destination: ISIS seized the site twice between 2015 and 2017, holding it for roughly ten months in total, and used the time to dynamite the temples of Bel and Baalshamin as well as the Monumental Arch, and to behead the site's elderly head of antiquities when he refused to reveal hidden artifacts. Yet the surviving Great Colonnade, Roman theatre, and funerary towers remain hauntingly beautiful in the desert light, watched over by the 13th-century Mamluk fortress of Qalaat ibn Maan on a hilltop above, later reinforced and renamed for the 17th-century Druze emir Fakhr al-Din II.
Access has improved again in 2025–26, though the modern town offers only a handful of basic hotels and simple restaurants, checkpoints remain common on the road in, and the small site museum stays closed. Given that still thin infrastructure, most visitors — and tour operators — currently treat Palmyra as a long day trip from Damascus rather than an overnight stay.
Homs
To the west, some three hours from Damascus, this city of one million was once synonymous with the worst of the war, was in 2023 further devasted by an earthquake, and is now slowly rebuilding. Known in antiquity as Emesa, it rose to prominence in the 1st century BCE as capital of the Emesene dynasty, a Roman client kingdom built around the cult of the sun god Elagabal — whose priest-king later became the Roman emperor Elagabalus, and whose most famous native, Julia Domna, married emperor Septimius Severus. Homs became an early Christian center under Byzantium, then passed to Muslim rule after 636 CE, when the Great Mosque of al-Nuri — built in local black basalt over the old sun temple — became one of its landmarks. Another is the Khālid bin al-Walīd Mosque,which holds the tomb of the 7th-century general it's named for - who spearheaded the Islamic conquest of the Byzantine region now home to modern Syria - and remains the city's signature building. The Homs Museum of regional archaeological finds has resumed at least partial operations, and the old souks and Christian quarter are being patched up rather than fully restored. War damage is still visible throughout the Old City — arguably the real major landmark now.
Homs was never a tourist town and isn't one now, with limited hotels, basic local dining (with local specialities such askibbeh homsiyya and halawet al-jibn), and little visitor infrastructure. That's the draw — a far less curated look at postwar Syria than Damascus or Aleppo. Its main "sight" is arguably Krak des Chevaliers, roughly 45 minutes away, often called the world's finest Crusader castle. First fortified in 1031 by the Mirdasid emir with a Kurdish garrison, it passed to the Knights Hospitaller in 1142 and was rebuilt into its present concentric form over the following century, holding out until falling to the Mamluk sultan Baibars in 1271. There's no separate on-site museum — the castle itself, largely intact despite some war damage, is the exhibit in and of itself.
Latakia
On the Mediterranean coast, around 4 hours from Damascus and home to roughly 700,000 people, Latakia traces its roots to the Phoenician settlement of Ramitha, refounded as Laodicea in the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, who became the governor of Babylon and founded the post-Alexander the Seleucid Empire, which included present-day Syria, Iran, and other parts of Asia Minor (he named the city, by the way, for his mum). Traces of ancient Laodicea still surface amid the modern city: scattered Roman columns stand incongruously next to shops and apartment blocks, and the Tetraporticus — a monumental four-way triumphal arch built under Septimius Severus around 200 AD, when he made the city a tax-exempt "Metropolis" — remains one of the best-preserved Roman landmarks in Syria. For a fuller picture, the National Museum of Latakia occupies Khan al-Dukhan, a 16th-century Ottoman tobacco caravanserai, and holds Ugarit's cuneiform tablets alongside jewelry, coins, and Crusader-era chain mail; the collection has been closed to visitors since the war for safekeeping, though its atmospheric garden of column capitals and sarcophagi remains open.
Traces of ancient Laodicea still surface amid the modern city: scattered Roman columns stand incongruously next to shops and apartment blocks, and the Tetraporticus — a monumental four-way triumphal arch built under Septimius Severus around 200 AD, when he made the city a tax-exempt "Metropolis" — remains one of the best-preserved Roman landmarks in Syria. Latakia also has a quieter, older quarter around its historic souq, threaded with narrow lanes, Ottoman-era khans (inns), and houses of worship reflecting the city's mixed communities: the Greek Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas, whose crypt-like foundations date to a 6th-century Byzantine original (though what stands today was largely rebuilt after repeated earthquakes, with 17th- and 18th-century icons), and the al-Maghribi Mosque, built in 1835.
Long considered the Assad family's coastal stronghold, Latakia has a more relaxed, seaside atmosphere than inland Syria, and its beaches and once buzzing nightlife are drawing domestic tourists again. The main draw is Cote d'Azur, known locally as Blue Beach, about 15 minutes' drive north of downtown — a resort strip of clean sand and clear water that was historically the country's most cosmopolitan beach scene, with paddleboats, waterskiing, and a cluster of hotels; it remains the best-equipped option, though amenities are simpler than before the war. Closer to town, the corniche offers walkable, if more basic, city beaches. For hotels, the Cote d'Azur de Cham Resort and Grand Latakia Hotel are the established beachfront options with pools and sea views, while in the city center the Ugarit Tishreen and Riviera hotels are reasonable mid-range bases. Dining leans heavily on seafood — Abu Sayed and Abu Duraid are well-known seafood restaurants — alongside casual spots for grilled meats and mezze around Al-Ziraa square, where prices run lower than at the waterfront resorts.
Near the city, And a 20-minute drive north lie the ruins of Ugarit, a Bronze Age city-state that flourished from around 3000 to 1200 BC as a hub of trade between the Hittites, Egyptians, and the wider Mediterranean world — and where excavators uncovered one of the earliest known alphabets, along with royal palace remains and thousands of cuneiform tablets. Around 25 minutes south, the small town of Jableh is home to one of Syria's best-preserved Roman amphitheaters, seating some 7,000, plus a coastal mosque built over a Byzantine church that holds the tomb of the ascetic Sidi Ibrahim ibn Adham. And a little farther — 45 minutes away — the Citadel of Saladin is a UNESCO-listed fortress begun under the Byzantines, vastly expanded by the Crusaders, and captured by the eponyous great Muslim military leader in 1188.
Again, Syria in 2026 still does not make for easy tourism. It is emotionally complex, politically uncertain, and still undeniably risky. Yet for travelers drawn to history, human resilience, and the feeling of witnessing a country cautiously reopening to the world, few destinations are more compelling.
For more information, check out VisitSyria.fun.
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