Yeoh Siew Hoon

The latest edition of Lonely Planet Bluelist: The Best in Travel 2008 - released this month - profiles the world’s best destinations, journeys and experiences for next year. Here, co-founder Tony Wheeler reflects on where he was in 2007, and what’s on his own Bluelist for 2008.
My annual Bluelist review is a chance to look back – what I have done and where I have been during the last year – and forward – what I hope to achieve in the next 12 months.

And perhaps a look sideways: what really interesting new travel possibilities have popped up? If travelling more sustainably is going to become an increasingly important part of our travel experience then walking is the very best way to travel. The carbon emissions are certainly lower than just about any other form of travel.

During the year I managed to fit in a couple of classic walks. There was the English Coast to Coast Walk, a two-week, 300km stroll up and down through the Lake District and then across the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales. We followed the Wainwright Way although at times, such as when the weather was truly English, we were inclined to call it ‘Wainwright’s Revenge’.

Another week was spent on a repeat visit to Australia’s most famous walk, the Overland Track in Tasmania. The Overland Track runs from Cradle Mountain more or less due south to Lake St Clair and includes numerous interesting side trips off the main route. I walked the track with a group of friends about 15 years ago, toting camping equipment and a whole week’s food supplies. This time Maureen and I and another couple did it the comfortable way, staying at the Cradle Huts where not only are your meals provided, they even include wine every night!

A highlight of the travel year was an entry in the Plymouth–Banjul Challenge, an eccentrically English event which requires competitors to nurse an elderly vehicle from England to Gambia in Africa via France, Spain, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. Our 18-year-old Mitsuibishi sailed through with no more trouble than a puncture in Morocco, although we did spend some time digging it out of the sand when we traversed a stretch of the Sahara. The key point in the competition is not how fast you get there, but what your vehicle fetches at the finish line. All finishers are auctioned off with the money going to Gambian charities. Our faithful Mitsu that cost just UK£350 in England fetched UK£700 in Banjul.

Africa seems to have featured in my itineraries regularly in recent years. At the beginning of 2005 I could only claim to have visited eight of Africa’s 50-odd countries. Today I’m up to 21. Tanzania is my most recent African discovery and my visit there included another place with a magical travel name: the island of Zanzibar. It makes a nice addition to other magical African names such as Marrakesh and Timbuktu. My Tanzania visit also included a magical climb: with a group of friends I made it to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, which at 5896m is Africa’s highest peak.

Every visit to Africa I’m reminded how remarkably easy and simple African travel tends to be. It’s not quite what you’d expect from a glance at the newspaper headlines, is it? Of course there are also plenty of places in Africa which do indeed present a real challenge. Of all the books on the Lonely Planet publishing list it’s our Africa guidebook which I regard as the real standard-setter when it comes to going a step or two further than anyone else. With every edition it’s inevitable there is a handful of countries we don’t cover, but never more than a handful.

For the current edition I was delighted when our intrepid French writer-researcher Jean-Bernard Carillet (I wrote a scuba-diving guide to Tahiti and French Polynesia with Jean- Bernard a few years ago) sent an exultant email to his editor: ‘Somaliland covered!’ He went on to claim that ‘Somaliland is no longer a “lost territory� for Lonely Planet’.

Apart from the Tasmania walk, my home country travels in Australia included a swim with the whale sharks off Ningaloo Reef near the small town of Exmouth in Western Australia. It was almost a homecoming because this was where Maureen and I arrived in Australia, on a yacht out of Bali, back in 1972. We wrote the first Lonely Planet guidebook a few months later. A visit to the spectacular Kakadu National Park with its beautiful waterfalls, stunning Aboriginal rock art, long list of bird life and king-size crocs was another highlight of our Australian travels.

And a long overdue one. The business side of my travel year included author tours in Britain, Canada, China, Italy, Southeast Asia and the USA, either for The Lonely Planet Story in its various guises (it’s titled Unlikely Destinations in the USA, Once While Travelling in Australia, and in Chinese I can’t even pronounce it) or for Bad Lands, my account of travels along George W Bush’s Axis of Evil.

Of course there were some great travel moments interspersed amongst the business, but the best would have to be when an Italian journalist offered to show me Rome in the most authentic manner, from the back of his Vespa motor scooter. A lazy weekend in Paris included a visit to the finest museum of the year, the new Musée de Quai Branly, with its fantastic collection of indigenous art just a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower.

Talking about the nine countries which feature in Bad Lands I often commented on the extraordinary friendliness and interest I encountered in that most staunchly Islamic nation Iran. Inevitably I would look out at my audience and see somebody nodding in agreement; they’d been there too, they’d had the same experience. Naturally my thoughts have been turning to other ‘bad lands’, the candidates to include if I get around to writing Bad Lands II. At the moment Syria, Israel-Palestine, Congo-Zaire, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Haiti top the list of contenders.

Other possibilities for next year? Well perhaps some of the unaccomplished tasks from previous years’ Bluelists will finally earn a tick over the next 12 months. After all, one day I have to ride the Trans-Siberian and get to Yemen, and not just make excuses.

Hot destinations 2008

Expand your horizons in the ahead and with these travel recommendations, which are included among Lonely Planet Bluelist’s wrap-up of 30 intriguing destinations for 2008.

Mozambique

You could be forgiven for confusing today’s Mozambique with that perpetually struggling southeastern African country where socialist murals once dominated cityscapes, and war, flooding and other calamities seemed to be permanent headline features. But things have changed fast. Although most of the world hasn’t yet caught on, Mozambique has quietly zoomed to the top of the charts as one of Africa’s hottest new destinations, with an alluring mix of stunning beaches, a rugged bush interior and a pulsating Afro-Latino vibe.

Bhutan

Bhutan, the ‘Land of the Thunder Dragon’, is without doubt one of the world’s most unusual countries. The last surviving great Himalayan kingdom has long turned its back on the rest of the world, favouring Buddhist compassion over Western capitalism and prioritising Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product. Yet change is afoot. In 2008 the country will not only crown a new king, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, but will also hold its first ever democratic elections and also celebrate the centenary of the founding of the monarchy. Workers have been preparing the site of Changlimithang in the capital Thimphu for lavish celebrations, which are expected to last throughout the year.

RAAN in Nicaragua

The vast and rather untamed Región Autónoma del Atlántico Norte (RAAN) offers the hardy traveller a fabulous and adventurous contrast to the alluring but well-trodden western areas of Nicaragua. With a large indigenous population and a frontier feel – the Contra War landmines have largely disappeared, but the Colombian coke smugglers are still active – it’s ripe ground for exploration, with great opportunities for off-the-beaten-track volunteering and ecotourism. This is part of La Mosquitía – the Mosquito Coast made famous by Paul Theroux and Harrison Ford, which takes its name from the Miskitos (although the biting insect also flourishes here) that live here, speaking their own tongue and living mostly from fishing and mining.

Papua New Guinea

In the 1930s the Leahy brothers walked into the PNG Highlands in search of gold. Instead they found the huge Waghi Valley and around 100,000 people who had no idea of the outside world – they thought the white-skinned prospectors were spirits of dead ancestors. While coastal people have had contact with missionaries and traders since the late 1800s, the Highlands did not really open up until the 1960s and ‘70s. Tribal warfare and cannibalism were rife throughout PNG until the 1930s, and even today parts of the Highlands remain virtually lawless and beset with tribal fighting. Very few travellers go to PNG as it’s an expensive and difficult place to get around. But this means that nothing is contrived for tourists and every experience is authentic – most people live much the way they have for thousands of years.

Bologna. Italy

You’ll need to leave your good intentions behind when you go to Bologna. Dubbed la rossa, la grassa, la dotta (the red, the fat, the wise), Italy’s culinary capital is a city where calories add to the finger-licking fun and food fads are something that happen elsewhere. Yet, Bologna is far from trapped in its traditions. Its pristine medieval centre might scream history but its large student population and active gay scene ensure Italy’s most cosmopolitan nightlife. And it’s this mix of slow food and bright lights, of laid-back lunches and bohemian nights that’s making Bologna one of Italy’s hottest short-break destinations. That, and the fact that it’s not Florence or Venice or Rome.

Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia’s most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com . Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at the cafe for travel insiders.

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