Simon Calder: How Britain competes with the best

Far away, say 20,000 viewers of BBC 1's Holiday, is good. Of the 50 Places to See Before You Die, for which the programme's faithful have been voting online and by telephone, only half a dozen are in Europe. The highest-placed continental city is Venice, at 18; all the rest are in the bottom half of the table.

Big is better, judging from the appetite for scale that the voters showed in their selections. But British is second-best – or, more precisely, 51st-best, since not one UK destination features on the list.

But to redress the balance in favour of Britain's beleaguered tourism industry, try these easy-to-reach alternatives to the viewers' choices.

50 Bora Bora, French Polynesia. Instead, try Barra, Outer Hebrides – superb beaches, and, like Bora Bora, a long way from anywhere.

49 For Bali, Indonesia, try Isle of Skye. Same size, less sadness.

48 Abu Simbel, Egypt. The Elgin Marbles in the British Museum constitute another ancient wonder removed from the original site.

47 Angel Falls, Venezuela. Teddington Lock on the Thames shares some of the same DNA.

46 Matterhorn, Switzerland – try Scafell, Cumbria; big and beautiful are relative terms.

45 Terracotta Army, China. At the Battle of Waterloo tableau in London's National Army Museum, the British soldiers are not so ornate, but by God, they terrified the Duke of Wellington.

44 Iceland – want somewhere cool, remote and now accessible on Sundays? Try the Isle of Lewis.

43 Barbados – Isle of Rum, a fellow spirit.

42 Bangkok – go for Birmingham: lots of temples, a bit of sleaze, terrible traffic.

41 Sri Lanka is fine – but the Isle of Wight is also diamond-shaped, with good beaches and double-deck buses. And,as far as I know, Jimi Hendrix never played Sri Lanka.

40 La Digue, Seychelles – go for Tresco, Scillies, another upmarket and hard-to-reach island.

39 Singapore – London is another overcrowded, cosmopolitan city-state doing its best to eliminate traffic congestion. Singapore is winning, but London now has its own Raffles Hotel.

38 Dubai – Sheerness, Kent: an historic port of strategic importance, astride a creek.

37 Barcelona – try Wembley Stadium, which is even further from completion than Gaudi's Sagrada Familia.

36 San Francisco has two great bridges, as does the Firth of Forth at South Queensferry.

35 Rome, like the M25, has the property that all roads lead to it.

34 Luxor is all well and good, but Orkney is a near equal in terms of antiquity, if not scale.

33 The Galapagos may have inspired Darwin, but Norfolk has some interesting genetic phenomena, too.

32 The Masai Mara in Kenya has little to compare with Whipsnade Wild Animal Park in Buckinghamshire: elephant, zebra and rhino, and no malarial mosquitoes.

31 Rio – Bournemouth also has a superb beach, and the chance to learn Portuguese (at Bournemouth University).

30 Mount Everest is taller than Ben Nevis, but you don't need extreme fitness, three months and $20,000 to climb Britain's highest mountain.

29 Angkor Wat, Cambodia, is a contemporary of Durham Cathedral.

28 Alaska's nearest equivalent is Caithness – large, remote and offering a chance of seeing the Northern Lights in winter.

27 Paris – Blackpool may have a smaller tower, but it's got a bigger roller-coaster – and there is not a single Yates's Wine Lodge in Paris.

26 The Iguacu Falls are where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet; the Severn Bore is also wide, wet, impressive – and an international frontier, of sorts.

25 The North Island of New Zealand has much in common with Northern Ireland: great geology, welcoming people, dreadful drivers.

24 Hawaii and the Lake District are simply at different stages of volcanic development.

23 Yosemite National Park, California – the Half-Dome at sunset is spectacular, but so, too, is sunrise over the the largest expanse of heather moorland in England, in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park.

22 Hong Kong – Manchester also has great Cantonese food.

21 Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe – try instead the Victoria Embankment, London. You can't bungee-jump from Westminster Bridge into seething spray, but conversely the Zambezi river boasts not a single obelisk from Egypt.

20 Great Wall of China – yet you can walk Hadrian's Wall in only a couple of days.

19 The Maldives, like the Fens, are thinly populated and are soon to disappear if sea levels rise areas. The Maldives lacks place names like Twenty Pence Lane, Hundred Foot Drain and Six Mile Bottom. But don't try scuba-diving in the Fens.

18 Venice is fine, but unlike Little Venice in London you can't get there on a Zone 1-2 Travelcard – and the pizzas in London W9 are better.

17 Pyramids – squint at Silbury Hill in Wiltshire and you're on the outskirts of Cairo.

16 Petra in Jordan has plenty in common with Rotherham in South Yorkshire: no one wants to go to either much at the moment.

15 The Niagara Falls and the Hilton Hotel, Gatwick, are leading destinations for newly-weds.

14 Machu Picchu, Peru, and Bardsey Island, Wales, are difficult-to-reach sacred sites.

13 Chichenitza, Mexico, involves a long slog across the Yucatan. Instead, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, has a fair collection of Mexicana.

12 Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Dartmoor are both strange phenomena in the middle of nowhere.

11 Lake Louise – Loch Lomond is bonnier.

10 The Taj Mahal's namesake, a restaurant in Crawley, has fewer tourists and better food.

9 New York City – see old York. First we take the Minster, then we take Betty's Tea Rooms.

8 Sydney and Whitby – Cook was fond of both.

7 Las Vegas, Nevada, just takes ideas from ancient civilisations – we pinched real souvenirs and put them in the British Museum, London.

6 Golden Temple, Amritsar – the Ramgarhia Sikh Temple, Birmingham, is nearer and safer.

5 Cape Town meet Cape Wrath – a stunning location at the collision of two oceans (well, one ocean and the Minch, in the case of Cape Wrath).

4 South Island, New Zealand, shares with Yorkshire towns called Rotherham, Richmond and Wakefield. Yorkshire has no Franz Josef Glacier, or Shag Point, but conversely Harvey Nichols is nowhere on the South Island.

3 Walt Disney World, Florida – Alton Towers is equally difficult to reach without a car.

2 The Great Barrier Reef shares with the Reef, a bar at Waterloo station in London, the property that you can peer upon a swirl of motion as colourful creatures go about their business.

1 Grand Canyon, USA. Cheddar Gorge? Maybe there is some point in foreign travel after all.