Top ten places: See in your lifetime

Travellers have always made lists of the top destinations to be visited in the world and even armchair travellers dream of experiencing the most unique and exciting sites the planet has to offer.

Bruce Poon, the founder of adventure travel company GAP Adventures, shares his top ten tourist places to see in your lifetime.

Despite recent troubles and ongoing Chinese domination, the Tibetan capital of Lhasa is at the top of Bruce Poon's list.

He says the spirit of the people of Tibet is still palpable in the city, which was at one time the spiritual and cultural heart of Asia.

The Potala Palace sits looming over the city and Buddhist monks pass by on their daily routines, reminding visitors that this city carries the pulse of a nation in change.

Every Saturday morning, the world's largest craft market in the Ecuadorian town of Otavalo comes to life with a wash of vibrant colour as the local Indians come down from the hills to market their wares.

India's Taj Mahal is in third place as the greatest monument to love on earth remains an inspiring example of beautiful architecture, creating a powerful effect on visitors from all backgrounds.

The highest waterfalls in the world are also the most spectacular. Angel Falls in Venezuela are approached by river and the canoe journey makes a trip to view this spectacular natural wonder unforgettable.

Watch rhinos and baboons roaming free against a stunning backdrop of the setting African sun in the Ngorongoro Crater.

This lush wildlife playground in the middle of the dry desert of Tanzania offers a truly unspoilt experience African, putting it in fifth spot.

In Guatemala, the ruined city of Tikal was built by the Mayans and seems remarkably undisturbed in the middle of its tropical jungle setting.

"By imagining how the Mayans once ruled this area of the world, it is easy to transport yourself back to a time of ancient and savage civilisation," Mr Poon said.

The desire to get off the beaten tourist track promotes the sandy peninsula of Placencia in southern Belize in seventh place.

This hidden gem remains undiscovered by mainstream tourists aside from a few lost backpackers and it is possible to relax with local villagers in total anonymity.

More lost islands are located just off the coast, which can be easily reached.

Ecuador makes Mr Poon's list a second time with the Galapagos Islands at number eight. Bring what you know about Darwin's research on evolution to life as you explore these curious islands.

This is still quite a remote destination, encouraging relaxation, learning and inspiration in a virtually untouched place.

The magnificent ancient caves of Pak Ou in Laos are set high above the Mekong River some 25 km from Luang Prabang.

These caves have been a place of Buddhist worship and solitude for more than 600 years and more than 4,000 images of the Buddha have been placed inside them over that time.

Hong Kong: Chinese New Year Travel Peak

With the Chinese New Year Golden Week just around the corner, the Tourism Commission has coordinated with government departments and the tourism industry, and liaised with Mainland tourism authorities, to draw up measures to prepare for the arrival of Mainland visitors during the travel peak period.

These measures include enhancing the flow of visitors at boundary control points, stepping up promotion of "honest and quality tourism" and shop inspections to protect tourists' interests, and advising visitors to cross the boundary at Lo Wu, or Shenzhen Bay Port and Lok Ma Chau Spur Line check point.

Commissioner for Tourism Au King-chi said they would monitor the recent Mainland snowstorms' impact on inbound and outbound travelers, and offer assistance when necessary.

To ensure tourists' safety, the Travel Industry Council has issued notices relating to several outbound group tours destined for affected provinces. The China National Tourism Administration has advised visitors to avoid affected provinces. When making travel plans, even if the weather is improving visitors should realise transport links and infrastructure in affected areas may not be fully functioning and may cause delays.

Hong Kong and Guangdong have set up an emergency notification mechanism to handle unexpected events concerning travelers of both places effectively. The joint command centre set up by the Immigration Department and other departments will be activated to monitor the situation at land check points and take prompt and flexible action when necessary.

U.K.: A Great Tourist Destination

United Kingdom can be a best destination option for the vacation to any age group of people. This beautiful country has a constitutional monarchy comprising of four constituent countries. These countries are England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and collectively called United Kingdom.

London city is one of the major tourist attractions of the world and is a highest visited place in UK by tourist. In London (England) many famous tourist places like Alton Tower and Buckingham Palace are welcoming to the London visitors. Wales is another beautiful tourist destination in UK and traveling in Scotland is a wonderful experience to the tourist, because of its natural beauty and traditional approach. The large cities of UK like London, Edinburgh and Glasgow are famous for their cuisine, pubs, and traditional approach.

In all major cities of United Kingdom you can choose your accommodation according to your choice. These choice hotels are available in every city of the United Kingdom, with a variety of range. UK is fifth most powerful economy of the world and one of the major tourist destinations in world map therefore there is lots of good and cheap hotels are available according to your need and expenses. Inter city hotel, Maranton house hotel, Fraser Suites Glasgow- Scotland and many other good hotels are provide a best services to their customers.

There are various good cheap hotels in UK, which provides best facilities in lower prices. These cheap hotels are started their prices from 30 Euro to 40 Euro pre night. During the festival seasons like Christmas and New Year Four Star and Five Star hotels also offer various discounts in their services. So find a cheap hotel with best facilities is not a tough task in UK. UK is a place where you can find cheap hotels to Choice hotels easily.Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?UK---A-Great-Tourist-Destination&id=875213

Holiday Hotspots: going year 2008

Forget glitz, crowds and over-development: the key holiday destinations in 2008 will be those remote corners of the globe that offer comfort, solitude and authenticity, writes Mark Jones.

Once upon a time, writing an article of predictions such as this would have been a straightforward task. Name-check some big openings, whisk around the atlas with a style thermometer naming what's hot, where's cool, where has gone tepid and who's been frozen out.

No longer. Now you can't look forward in the travel business without grappling with the Big Issues: global warming, geo-politics, China, international security. Many of these issues came together at the Bali conference this month - and what a choice of venue that was. Only a few years ago, nowhere better symbolised the innocence of modern multicultural travel: a place where young Australians flocked to get drunk and rich Britons fled to chill out. Now Bali - sadder, wiser, bombed, more wary Bali - will become shorthand for nothing less than the battle to save the planet.

Greener travel: The great hope for 2008 is that tourism, like other global industries, can find a way to be both green and profitable. At present, niche operators such as hotelier Campbell Gray (One Aldwych and Carlisle Bay, among others) can safely target the sliver of wealthy travellers who really do prefer a single perfect apple in an earthenware bowl to a huge basket of waxy fruit wrapped in cellophane. Still, a decisive shift is taking place and any hotel-owner who thinks that going green means putting a little card in the bathroom asking you whether you want your towels washed has spectacularly missed the point.

The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) says that tourism accounts for 10 per cent of global GDP. International tourism will triple in next 20 years and international arrivals are expected to rise from 700 million to 1.6 billion by the year 2020. That's a lot of people on the move burning a lot of fuel. But no sane environmental campaigner can simply set up camp outside Heathrow and tell us to stop flying.

More WTO figures: tourism employs over 250 million people. It is the main money-earner for a third of developing nations and the primary source of foreign-exchange earnings for the majority of the 49 least developed countries. So by all means choose Norfolk rather than The Gambia for your summer holiday if it eases your worries about air miles. But be aware that a tourism drought in these countries will be just as devastating as any other kind.

Where you’ll be going: The indications are that we will be choosing our big holiday more thoughtfully, opting to keep it real and low-scale in Africa or Latin America. The success of Namibia and Botswana in limiting developments to a few high-quality lodges and responsible operators is encouraging others to follow suit. The coming year will be a landmark one in Zambia, where Abercrombie and Kent plans to open no fewer than seven new camps (four of them in 2008).

In Botswana, Colin Bell, the founder of Wilderness Safaris, has gone into partnership with Mark Read (the former head of WWF in South Africa) to create the Selinda Reserve (due to open in April). While in July, the celebrated Zambian guide Robin Pope is opening Pamulani in July, a new lodge on Lake Malawi, set inside a World Heritage Site.

South America will continue to supplant south-east Asia as the destination of choice for intrepid long-haulers and gap-yearlings. The Atacama Desert will get the boutique treatment with the new Tierra Atacama Hotel and Spa, while long-standing Latin American experts Cazenove+Loyd are beginning tailor-made hiking trips into the remote areas of the Torres Del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. They have also spotted that Machu Picchu is becoming overworn and are starting treks through remote Andean villages avoiding the tourist trail.

Even before regime change happens in Washington, the hawks are in flight. That makes the prospect of visiting Iran or Syria, say, much more palatable. In fact, as anyone who has travelled in those countries knows, it's hard to feel safer and less hassled anywhere in the world; and it will take huge increases in visitor numbers to make magical places like Isfahan, Persepolis, Palmyra and Aleppo feel crowded.source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/12/31/et-hotspots2008-131.xml

Tourism in Alberta

Alberta has been a tourist destination from the early days of the 20th Century, with attractions including national parks, historic sites, urban arts and cultural facilities, outdoor locales for skiing, hiking and camping, shopping locales such as West Edmonton Mall, outdoor festivals, professional athletic events, international sporting competitions such as the Commonwealth Games and Olympic Winter Games, as well as more eclectic attractions.

Edmonton (Alberta's capital city), Calgary, and the Canadian Rockies (Banff National Park and Jasper National Park) are the most popular destinations for visitors. West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton is the most visited attraction in the province. A million visitors each year attend Calgary’s world-famous Stampede, a celebration of Canada's own Wild West and the cattle ranching industry. Edmonton, known as Canada's Festival City, boasts a summer calendar of non-stop festivals, included the world-renowned Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival and the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.

Only an hour's drive from the Rocky Mountains, Calgary also makes a visit to tourist attractions such as Banff National Park something which can easily be done in a day. Calgary and Banff each host nearly 5 million tourists yearly, while Edmonton attracts 4.4 million visitors on an annual basis to the Alberta Capital Region. Jasper National Park is easily reached from Edmonton via the TransCanada Yellowhead Highway or on VIA Rail Canada.

Québec Aboriginal Tourism

Situé sur la pointe nord-est du continent nord-américain, le Québec occupe un immense territoire. Sa superficie de 1 667 926 km 2, représente trois fois la France, cinq fois le Japon, deux fois le Texas et sept fois le Royaume-Uni, ce qui en fait la plus grande province canadienne.

Son fleuve est bordé par le bouclier canadien au nord et par les Appalaches au sud. Ses vastes forêts comptent plus d'un million de lacs et des milliers de rivières. À mesure qu'on se déplace vers le nord, la végétation forestière composée de feuillus cède la place aux conifères dans la taïga, puis aux arbustes et aux lichens dans la toundra.

La ville de Québec, sa capitale, est perchée sur le cap Diamant d'où elle surplombe le fleuve Saint-Laurent. Berceau de la civilisation française en Amérique, seule ville fortifiée au nord du Mexique, elle figure sur la prestigieuse Liste du patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO depuis 1985.

Sa métropole, Montréal, est la deuxième ville francophone du monde. Elle possède aussi le plus grand port intérieur du globe. Son architecture allie modernité nord-américaine et charme européen. Cosmopolite, elle possède sa Petite Italie, son quartier latin, son quartier chinois et son Village gai. BONJOUR QUEBEC.

Québec is primarily a French society thanks to its language and its culture. In 1974, the National Assembly (Québec's parliament) proclaimed French to be the official language of Québec .

The population is 83% francophone, while 11% of Québecers speak English in the home and 6% another language, i.e. Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Vietnamese or Portuguese.

More than 40% of Québec's population is bilingual, i.e. speaks French and English. In Montréal, where this percentage is 64%, a full 16% of the population also knows a third language.

Located at the north-eastern tip of the North American continent, Québec covers an immense territory. Its 1,667,926-km 2 (643,990-sq. mi.) surface is equivalent to three times the size of France, five times the size of Japan, twice the size of Texas and seven times the size of the United Kingdom, making it Canada's largest province .

Québec's majestic St. Lawrence River is bordered by the Canadian Shield to the north and the Appalachian mountains to the south. Its vast forests shelter more than a million lakes and rivers. Further north, the deciduous forest makes way for the coniferous forest of the taiga, followed by the shrubs and lichens of the tundra.

Québec City, the province's capital, is perched atop Cap Diamant, from where it overlooks the St. Lawrence. The cradle of French civilization in North America and the only fortified city north of Mexico, Québec City has been on UNESCO's prestigious World Heritage List since 1985.

The province's metropolis, Montréal, is the second-biggest French-speaking city in the world and boasts the largest inland port on the planet. Its architecture combines North American modernity with European charm. Extremely cosmopolitan, it has its own Little Italy, Latin Quarter, Chinatown and Gay Village.

The Kootenay Rockies

Welcome to the Kootenay Rockies, British Columbia’s unique, mountain oriented vacation region, situated in the southeastern corner of the province.

The region includes five different, spectacular mountain ranges, including the Canadian Rockies, that create breathtaking mountain and river valleys each with their own character and each offering an incredible variety of unequalled recreational and getaway opportunities.

Visitors to the Kootenay Rockies region will truly experience the mountains of Canada – not just view the peaks from a distance. Vacations include clean, natural, uncrowded outdoor activities and experiences that reflect the lifestyle, the culture and the community of Canada’s West. Come discover why we are known as ‘British Columbia’s Mountain Playground’.