Best in Travel 2009
- 850 Trends, Destinations, Journeys & Experiences for the Year Ahead
(Lonely Planet) ISBN 978-1741792430 1741792436
Best in Travel 2009 inspires travelers and armchair travelers with stimulating vacation ideas for must-visit countries, regions and cities, places to see and things to do in 2009. The Lonely Planet guide book describes what's hot in travel, life-changing experiences, bizarre sights, best shopping, festivals and events.
For readers who want to impress others, Classic Travellers' Totems feature A Bragger's Guide to Going from One Extreme to The Other. Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2009 describes the Antarctic Circle in Antarctica, the highest seat of government in the world at La Paz, Bolivia, the lowest elevation in the world at the Dead Sea, the Tropic of Cancer in Hawaii, the Tropic of Capricorn in Alice Springs, the hottest place on earth in Libya and the International Date Line in Kiribati.
The world's weirdest plants (and where to see them) describes a living relic of the Jurassic era, Welwitschia mirabilis, in Namibia; Rafflesia arnoldii, the biggest flower in the world, in Indonesia and Malaysia; Titan arum (Amorphophalus titanum), an Indonesia flower, which smells like rotting meat; Rose of Jericho (Anastatica hierochuntica), a long-living desert survivor in the Middle East; Pitcher Plant (Nepenthes rajah), a meat-eating plant that consumes frogs in the Borneo Highlands; Living Stones (Lithops), rock-like plants in the Karoo Desert of South Africa and Namibia; Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in California, USA, the largest living thing (by volume) in the world; Wolffia globosa, the smallest plant on earth, eaten as a vegetable (khai-nam) in Thailand; Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum), a tasteless berry, which turns acidic food sweet, found in West Africa; and Squirting Cucumber (Ecballium agreste), a fruit that explodes when ripe, found in Greece, Malta and Turkey.
The Best Christmas Crackers chapter describes the top three Christmas events around the world: the reindeer race in Tromso, Norway, in February, the Santa Claus World Championships in Samnaun, Switzerland, on the first week in December, and the Gengenbach Advent Calendar in the Black Forest, Germany.
The 2009 travel planner lists 48 festivals, by month, in a calendar inside the back cover. Examples include the wild flower festival in Slovenia in May and At Chabysh, a Kyrgyzstan horse-riding festival in November.
Water is the main theme of Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2009, with 70 journeys and experiences involving water. Fabulous Ferries describes five boat journeys: The Inside Passage (Canada & Alaska), RMS St. Helena (South Atlantic), Down the Niger to Timbuktu (Mali), Lake Malawi (Africa) and Rio Paraguay (South America). Readers learn that the first inhabited island submerged by water due to rising sea levels is Lohachara, in the Indian Sundarbans. A chapter lists ocean animals and where to find them. For example, you can see manatees at the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, in Florida, between November and March. Another chapter lists unusual places to find water, such as the great man-made river project in Libya, with 4,000 kilometers of water pipes under the desert sand.
Anyone who reads Best in Travel 2009 will add a long list of places to see and things to do to their travel bucket list. If you think that you've been there and done that, then this 240-page Lonely Planet travel guide will motivate you to experience other cultures.
Tables and lists summarize worldwide information in easy-to-read sections. For example, in Lonely Planet's Top 10 Regions, the Laos Nam Ha National Protected Area section lists life-changing experiences, like staying overnight in an Akha mountain village and eating foe (hot rice-noodle soup with lettuce, chilies and fresh herbs).
Many colorful photos illustrate the places and activities in Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2009. Monochrome world maps pinpoint the locations of the destinations described.
Lonely Planet's staff and authors