The North East 250 has made The Lonely Planet’s 500 unmissable global travel experiences.

Lonely Planet has ranked the top 500 unmissable global travel experiences helping to satisfy your wanderlust from the safety of an armchair.

According to leading global travel authority Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List, released today, 34 of the world’s best travel experiences can be found in the UK including NINE in Scotland; West Highland Way, Glen Coe, Loch Lomond, Skara Brae, Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, Scotland’s Northeast 250, Dundee Waterfront, Stirling Castle and Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum.

Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List is the 2nd edition of the travel powerhouse’s bestselling coffee table book.  It’s the definitive wish-list of the 500 most thrilling, memorable and interesting travel experiences in the world – ranked in order of brilliance.

“We’ve all got a list of places that we want to see for ourselves: places friends have enthused about, places we’ve read about, dreamed about.  This is our list,” says Lonely Planet.

“And this second edition contains over 200 new entries,” the publisher boasts, with 34 UK experiences featured, it makes the UK home to more of the world’s best experiences than any other country. According to Lonely Planet the experiences and destinations are “a mix of knock-out new openings, sights that have upped their game, or places more relevant to the way we travel now.”

“We also changed the way we calculated the list,” says Lonely Planet’s VP of Publishing Piers Pickard.  “For this edition we rewarded extra points to sights that are managing tourism sustainably.”

While there’s a decidedly alfresco flavour to Lonely Planet’s list, with almost half of the dream recommendations outdoors or wildlife experiences, reflecting the growing desire from travellers to experience the natural world. The UK provides a delicious mix of open-air experiences and cultural highlights, which is reflected in the recognition of so many of Scotland’s much loved cultural and scenic attractions all ranking so highly. New to the Ultimate List are The West Highland Way, which is the highest new entry for Scotland (No.172), Scotland’s Northeast 250 (No. 302), and Dundee Waterfront (No. 374)

The following brilliant UK travel experiences made the list:

No.	Experience	Country		No.	Experience	Country
40	Lake District	England		291	St Paul’s Cathedral	England
56	British Museum	England		302	Scotland’s Northeast 250	Scotland
82	Wales Coast Path	Wales		314	Christ Church, Oxford	England
102	Giant’s Causeway	Northern Ireland		340	Tate Modern	England
116	Jurassic Coast	England		349	Natural History Museum	England
153	Brecon Beacons	Wales		352	Hadrian’s Wall	England
161	Snowdowia	Wales		369	Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway	Wales
170	V&A Museum	England		374	Dundee’s waterfront	Scotland
172	West Highland Way	Scotland		390	Stirling Castle	Scotland
212	Glen Coe	Scotland		394	Royal Albert Dock	England
219	Seven Sisters Chalk Cliffs	England		296	St David’s Cathedral	Wales
224	Loch Lomond	Scotland		398	Titanic Belfast	Northern Ireland
227	Stonehenge	England		437	St Fagans National History Museum	Wales
238	Skara Brae	Scotland		443	York Minster	England
248	Edinburgh’s Royal Mile	Scotland		458	Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum	Scotland
267	Bath’s Roman Baths	England		462	Castle Howard	England
283	Tower of London	England		476	Portmeirion	Wales

The overall Top 10 travel experiences on Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List 2^nd ed are…

1. Petra, Jordan – channel your inner adventurer and explore the enigmatic “lost city”
2. The Galápagos Islands – see the islands that changed the course of science
3. Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Australia – take life lessons from the traditional owners of world’s most dramatic rock
4. Okavango Delta, Botswana – experience slow travel on the sprawling flooded ecosystem
5. Yellowstone National Park, USA – sniff out geysers and grizzlies in the world’s largest geothermal area
6. Lake Bled, Slovenia – emulate erstwhile pilgrims by journeying to the planet’s most photogenic lake
7. Iguazú Falls, Argentina-Brazil – marvel at the astounding power and furious force of this natural wonder
8. Temples of Angkor, Cambodia – find Hindu heaven at the sprawling monument to devotion
9. Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia – with clouds above and clouds below strike out on the salt of the earth
10. Annapurna Circuit, Nepal – take the classic Nepalese teahouse trek

A showcase of the Top 10 destinations featured on the list can be viewed at lonelyplanet.com/landing/ultimate-travel-list

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 travel experiences.   With hundreds of votes cast, we ended up with a score for each entry and a definitive ranked list of the top 500 places to see around the world. 

Did you take into account those places managing tourism sustainably?
During the scoring process Lonely Planet used this list: http://sustainabletop100.org/ and cross referenced the site or destination against it.  If it was recognised on that forum the nomination received bonus points.  Additionally, Lonely Planet maintains an in-house list of over-touristed places and sites and any places on that list had a minus percentage subtracted from their total.

 Lonely Planet’s VP of Print Publishing, Piers Pickard, said: “After seven months of staying at home, now’s the perfect time to start thinking about where and how to travel once normality returns. In putting together this book, we were excited by changes in both the ‘where’ and the ‘how’. We added 200 new entries into our list of the world’s Top 500. And we were both surprised and reassured by just how many of the Top 500 are working hard to create more sustainable visitor experiences.”

In addition, Lonely Planet will be giving users of its travel App Guides by Lonely Planet access to free destination content to over 100 locations featured on Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List.   Guides by Lonely Planet is available for download on iOS and Android.  More information can be found here – lonelyplanet.com/guides

 Lonely Planet’s Ultimate Travel List 2^nd Ed

October 2020 | £19.99

To purchase the book visit https://shop.lonelyplanet.com/products/ultimate-travel-list-2

For further information contact: Lonelyplanet@goshpr.co.uk

 

About Lonely Planet:

Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company and the world’s number one travel guidebook brand, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveller since 1973. Over the past four decades, we’ve printed over 145 million guidebooks and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travellers. You’ll also find our content on lonelyplanet.com, mobile, video, guidebooks in 14 languages and 13 international magazine editions, children’s books, lifestyle books, ebooks, and more. Visit us at lonelyplanet.com or join our social community of over 14 million travellers. Find us on Facebook (facebook.com/lonelyplanet), Twitter (@lonelyplanet), Instagram (instagram.com/lonelyplanet) and Pintrest (pinterest.com/lonelyplanet).