There’s a great feature over at Conde Naste Traveler’s Concierge.com covering their readers’ top destinations in a variety of categories. If you’re trying to come up with a shortlist of places to add to your RTW itinerary, this would be a great place for some inspiration.
If you’re booking a traditional RTW ticket, you’ll be in and out of major cities. Of course you probably don’t want to spend all of your time in big cities, but hitting some of the best the world has to offer is a highlight of any trip around the world. They rank them by region, but here are some of the top cities by region:
In the United States, the old favorites San Francisco and New York top the list.
If you’re heading through Africa or the Middle East, Cape Town and Damascus are the two favorites.
Bangkok and Hong Kong are the top two in Asia, while Buenos Aires and Vancouver top the list of all the Americas.
Florence and Rome top a Europhile’s dream list, while the popular Aussie destinations of Sydney and Melbourne top the Pacific Rim.
Those would be some great cities to add to a RTW itinerary for sure.
For the RTW traveler, though, the most useful section is the airline rankings. Nothing is worse than booking a flight and finding out from a fellow traveler or reading on a forum that it’s a deathtrap with miniature seats.
The best international carrier turns out to be Singapore Airlines, followed by Emirates.
Of course these come from readers, so you might not agree with everything. But opinions from fellow travelers are some of the best, and it’s great to have as much information as possible before making any decisions.
The rest of the categories are for hotels and resorts, which are more for the Conde Naste type of traveler than the shoestring adventurer. If you’re searching for inspiration for a decadent stop-off, or just want to see what’s out there at all budgets, by all means check it out.
There is one final category that might interest someone planning an RTW trip: the Top Islands category. Like the other categories they are divided up by region, so they don’t list the supposedly best island in the world. There are some obvious choices, which find their way onto many dream itineraries: The Maldives, Bali, Bermuda, St. John, Mykonos, Capri, Maui, and Kauai are all some of the higher ranked islands.
Any one of them would be a satisfying stop for sure.
So head over to concierge.com and check out their readers choice awards, and you’re bound to see something that sparks your interest. I’m not lucky enough to have been to every destination on their lists, but since it comes from seasoned travelers, it’s bound to be worth considering.