Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List
Stuff reports:
After 40 years, the Lonely Planet has released a list of the top 500 places in the world to visit – and New Zealand is on there nine times.
The book called Ultimate Travelist defines a wish-list of the most thrilling, memorable and interesting places in the world – ranked in order of brilliance.
The longlist was compiled from all the highlights in every Lonely Planet guidebook over the years, before being whittled down to a shortlist, and then Lonely Planet members were asked to vote on their 20 top sights.
Results were weighted in favour of sights that received consistently high votes.
So where do New Zealand sites feature?
The places listed were:
My comments below:
- Fiordland National Park (at 17) – did Milford Track last March
- Abel Tasman National Park (35) – doing Abel Tasman Track next year
- Franz Josef & Fox Glacier (81) – not seen since I was a kid.
- Lake Wanaka (94) – kayaked it, boated it, walked it and helicoptered it!
- Stewart Island (125) – did Rakiura Track earlier this year
- Bay of Islands (130) – not been enough but in love with Russel
- Whakarewarewa (276) – that the Rotorua geothermal tourism spot. Been a long time ago
- Waitomo Caves (280) – never yet done!
- Te Papa Tongarewa (285) – there last week!
And the global list:
- Temples of Angkor, Cambodia – went with my parents a couple of years ago
- Great Barrier Reef, Australia – been a couple of times, once with a fellow blogger!
- Machu Picchu, Peru – did this last October
- Great Wall of China – went around a decade ago, as attending a UN meeting in China
- Taj Mahal, India – went before attending an ICANN meeting in Delhi
- Grand Canyon National Park, USA – went around in the bis US road trip two years ago
- Colosseum, Italy – saw around a decade again when in Rome
- Iguazú Falls, Brazil – Argentina – was scheduled to do last October, but had to leave for next Latin America trip
- Alhambra, Spain – on the to do list
- Aya Sofya, Turkey – saw in 2009
So have seen eight of the 10 global top ten, and eight out of nine NZ ones on the top 500. Fairly happy with that!