Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2018: The 10 most unlikely inclusions
Djibouti, Canberra and Lanzarote are your unexpected must-visit locations for 2018
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Your support makes all the difference.Belfast and its Causeway Coast may have caused a stir by being voted the best region in the world to visit in 2018 by Lonely Planet today; but that’s not the only surprise in the rankings.
Detroit, Canberra and Lanzarote are also surprise big hitters in the four lists, which cover top 10 countries, cities, regions and best value destinations.
The cities list is particularly surprising. Seville tops the rankings, followed by Detroit – whose controversial gentrification has seen hipsters migrate in huge numbers over the past few years – and then Canberra, the much-maligned capital of Australia, usually dismissed as boring.
The list continues with Hamburg, and Kaohsiung in Taiwan. Matera – a formerly destitute town of cave dwellings, or sassi, now popular with the Instagram crowd in Italy’s Basilicata region – is at number seven, and San Juan, the hurricane-hit capital of Puerto Rico at eight (Lonely Planet's partners CNN Travel have written about how they felt it important to keep on the list despite the damage). Oslo – again, often dismissed as dull and expensive– is at number 10.
Less of a shock is Tallinn, ranked the best value destination, followed by Lanzarote, Arizona and La Paz in Bolivia. The UK in its entirety comes in at number seven – helped by the plummeting pound.
As for the countries, Portugal - which has seen an astonishing explosion in popularity in 2017 - is only at number three, after Chile and South Korea. Djibouti - which has no direct flights from the UK, and was described by Bloomberg as "a forgotten sandlot of a country" - is a surprise entry at number four. Djibouti might also be off the list for ethical travellers - one person who recently visited told The Independent: “Given the abject poverty, chronic health provision and job shortages under which half the country's population subsists while the authorities reap billions in rent from Western bases, ethical tourists should browse for their luxury Red Sea scuba diving holiday with their eyes open.”
The full lists are:
Top 10 countries
Chile
South Korea
Portugal
Djibouti
New Zealand
Malta
Georgia
Mauritius
China
South Africa
Top 10 cities
Seville
Detroit
Canberra
Hamburg
Kaohsiung
Antwerp
Matera
San Juan
Guanajuato
Oslo
Top 10 best value
Tallinn
Lanzarote
Arizona
La Paz
Poland
Essaouira
UK
Baja California
Jacksonville
Hunan
Top 10 regions
Belfast and the Causeway Coast
Alaska
Julian Alps
Languedoc-Roussillon
Kii Peninsula
Aeolian Islands
Southern USA
Lahaul & Spiti
Bahia
Los Haitises National Park
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