Baltimore
The Accidental Tourist is set mostly in the suburban fringes of Baltimore, where Macon and his family reside. However, through Macon's new relationship with Muriel, he must venture into her neighborhood, which is a poorer part of the city. Descriptions of the "murky alleys and stairwells full of rubbish," the "young men drinking out of brown paper bags," and the "middle-aged women arguing under a movie marquee" characterize the people of this locale and the scruffy charm hidden beneath what is a rough exterior.
Nighttime
Macon is getting accustomed to living in his house alone, without Sarah and Ethan. As a result, he often has trouble sleeping. At nighttime, he relishes looking out the window at the neighborhood and observing the "black branches scrawled on a purple night sky" as well as occasionally seeing another light of someone else who can't sleep. This light brings Macon comfort, imagining someone else "sitting up wide awake fending off his thoughts."
Top of the Building
Macon gets assigned to write about a restaurant in New York at the top of a very tall skyscraper, despite his queasiness when it comes to heights. The high elevation does not really hit him until he peers out one of the windows to see the "city spread like a glittering golden ocean, the streets tiny ribbons of light, the planet curving away at the edges, the sky a purple hollow extending to infinity." It is the incredible vastness of his view that unsettles Macon, making him consider his own smallness and triggering a wave of anxiety.
Dog-walking
Even while Macon is staying with Muriel, he continues his routine of walking his dog Edward every evening after supper. On one particularly cold night, when there are threats of a looming snowstorm, Macon takes out the dog anyway and marvels at the vibrant world around him: the "pearly and opaque" sky, the "muffled dark shapes" of buildings, and the shadow of Muriel from the window, appearing "as delicate and distinct as a silhouette cut from black paper."
