“Best in Travel 2016”
Lonely Planet, $14.99
If you’re wondering where to go in 2016, look no further than Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2016 for ideas and suggestions. The editors begin with a list of their choice of Top 10 countries. No. 1 on the list may surprise some people: Botswana. Why Botswana? Because it offers a unique destination of “desert and delta that draws an immense concentration of wildlife.” What’s more, the country, which celebrates its 50th year of independence, boasts an “enlightened” tourism industry as well as a robust economy that’s allowed it to become one of Africa’s most stable societies. The rest of the Top 10 include some standbys (Japan, the United States and Australia), as well as a few additional surprises (Palau, Latvia, Poland, Uruguay, Greenland and Fiji).
The guide also suggests the best 10 regions to visit in 2016, including Transylvania in Romania, West Iceland (a two-hour drive from Reykjavik), the Friuli wine regions of Italy and Germany’s Bavaria. Readers also may be surprised by Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities. At the top of the list is Kotor in Montenegro, which the editors describe as “a living, breathing town where locals catch up over strong coffee at pavement cafes on cobbled squares.” Quito in Ecuador also is on the list, as is another city that usually is under the radar: Manchester, reportedly the third most visited city in the United Kingdom (after London and Edinburgh). Also here is Nashville, Tenn., which has been chosen as one of seven American cities to begin the Google for Entrepreneurs’ Tech Hub Network “and has become a veritable petri dish for start-ups.”
Best-value cities, states, regions and countries include Estonia; Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in Vietnam; East Africa; New Mexico; Galicia in Spain; and Quebec City in Canada. Among the best new attractions set to open in 2016 is Mamma Mia! The Party, a “Mamma Mia!”-themed restaurant scheduled to open in a Stockholm amusement park in January. An interactive disco-dining experience, the restaurant is set in a Greek-style tavern “where diners tuck into souvlaki while a story unfolds around them.” Scheduled to open in the spring, Shanghai Disney Resort is Disney’s first in mainland China. It will feature the usual Disney attractions as well as a theater showing a Mandarin-language version of “The Lion King.”
Special anniversaries in 2016 include the Bard’s 400th birthday, the centenary of the Easter Rising in Dublin and the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“Wine Trails: Plan 52 Perfect Weekends in Wine Country”
Lonely Planet, $24.99
Lonely Planet presents 52 wine-tasting weekends, representing more than 300 wineries in 20 countries around the globe from Argentina to New Zealand. Many of the choices are familiar wine-producing countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Chile, South Africa, Australia and the United States, but there also are a few surprising choices. England, for example, is not known for its wines, and yet English white wine from the South Downs has been winning awards. And, according to the editors, the “singular taste” of the Tokaji-Tokaj wines of Hungary and Slovakia will lead visitors into “uncharted” winemaking and wine-sipping territory. Another surprise is the new wine route from Edirne to the Dardanelles in Turkey, which consists of a dozen vineyards that form the Thrace Wine Route, traversing four regions and covering approximately 250 miles.
Each entry consists of a brief profile of the region, followed by descriptions of representative wineries, as well as where to stay and dine and what to do.
Lonely Planet magazine
In November, Lonely Planet introduced the first issue of Lonely Planet, a new quarterly travel magazine that is designed with North American travelers in mind. Based in the Nashville area, the magazine can be found at retailers across the country for $5.99. The digital edition will be available for Kindle and Nook, on iTunes and Google Play at the same price. An introductory offer of a year’s subscription for $8 is available on the Lonely Planet website: www.lonelyplanet.com/usmagazine.
June Sawyers is a freelance reporter.
