NZ Scores 9 Spots on Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist
New Zealand Scores 9 Spots on Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist
Fiordland National Park Outranks Uluru on
List of 500 Best Places in the World;
Abel Tasman
National Park, Franz Josef & Fox Glacier and Lake Wanaka in
Top 100
Nine of the world’s all-time best places to visit are in New Zealand, according to leading global travel authority Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist, published today.
More than 40 years in the making, Ultimate Travelist is Lonely Planet’s first definitive wish-list of the 500 most thrilling, memorable and interesting places in the world – ranked in order of brilliance.
The nine NZ mega-sites and gems as ranked in Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist are Fiordland National Park (at #17, beating Australia’s #33-ranked Uluru), Abel Tasman National Park (#35), Franz Josef & Fox Glacier (#81), Lake Wanaka (#94), Stewart Island (#125), Bay of Islands (#130), Whakarewarewa (#276), Waitomo Caves (#280), and Te Papa Tongarewa (#285).
How did Lonely
Planet rank the 500 best places in the world?
The
longlist was compiled from all the highlights found in every
Lonely Planet guidebook over the years. Each attraction and
sight recommended by Lonely Planet authors was included,
before being whittled down to a shortlist. Everyone in the
Lonely Planet community was then asked to vote on their 20
top sights. The results were weighted in favour of sights
that received consistently high votes, leading to the 500
top-ranked places published in Lonely Planet’s Ultimate
Travelist.
The top 10 places in Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travelist are:
1. Temples of Angkor,
Cambodia: “Angkor isn’t just an interesting ruin –
it’s a spiritual epiphany in stone.”
2. Great Barrier
Reef, Australia: “This vital ecosystem enthrals all who
visit, with abundant bird life and countless tropical
islands and beaches.”
3. Machu Picchu, Peru: “No-one
really knows what happened here. Wander wide-eyed around the
mysterious mountain metropolis in a liberating knowledge
vacuum”
4. Great Wall of China: “A few rugged souls
trek the entire length of the wall, but even if you pick
just one section, you’ll be humbled by its aura of
indestructibility.”
5. Taj Mahal, India: “There’s
no other building in India that so perfectly encapsulates
the attitudes and atmosphere of its era.”
6. Grand
Canyon National Park, USA: “Come here to hike, to raft the
wild Colorado River, to spot condors, black bears and elk,
or simply to marvel.”
7. Colosseum, Italy: “Two
millennia on, the hold it exerts over anyone who steps foot
inside is as powerful as ever.”
8. Iguazú Falls,
Brazil - Argentina: “Big? These falls are mind-bogglingly
mighty: tourist boats that ply the foaming plunge pools
below look like matchsticks.”
9. Alhambra, Spain:
“Put simply, this is Spain’s most beautiful
monument.”
10. Aya Sofya, Turkey: “Like the beautiful
city in which it stands, Aya Sofya represents a unique
crossroads of continents and faiths.”
LONELY
PLANET’S ULTIMATE TRAVELIST
360pp, full colour, 270mm x
230mm, NZ
$36.99
www.lonelyplanet.com/ultimate-travel
ends