The New York Times’ list of the “52 Places to Go in 2024″ includes a number of the usual suspects: Paris, Maui, Singapore, Geneva and the Caribbean.

But mixed in among those exotic locations is the Alabama state capital, listed by the Times as #28 of the 52 selected.

Montgomery is one of only eight U.S. locations to make the list, joining Baltimore, Md.; Craters of the Moon, National Monument & Preserve in Idaho; Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument in Arizona; Kansas City, Mo.; Pasadena, Calif.; Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota; and Flamingo, a part of the Everglades National Park in Florida.

According to the Times, Montgomery was chosen largely on the basis of its history and role in American civil rights. Here’s what the Times’ Elaine Glusac wrote:

“When it comes to conversations about race in America, few destinations are as engaged as Montgomery, the former capital of the Confederacy and the birthplace of the civil rights movement. In 2018, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice became the first site of its kind to address racial terror across America, represented by 800 suspended steel pillars, one for each county where a lynching was known to have taken place.

“This year, the Equal Justice Initiative, the nonprofit that opened the memorial, will debut a companion site: Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. On the banks of the Alabama River, the 17-acre park will exhibit works by Kehinde Wiley and Theaster Gates; artifacts, including dwellings relocated from a cotton plantation and a pen where enslaved people were held; and the 43-foot-tall National Monument to Freedom.

“Dedicated to the millions of enslaved Black people who were emancipated at the end of the Civil War, the steel-walled monument, which resembles an open book, will be engraved with more than 120,000 of their surnames.”

Montgomery was listed just ahead of Tasmania in Australia and just behind the Mingan Archipelago in Quebec, Canada.

The full list can be found here.