KEY POINTS:
Readers of an international travel magazine have voted New Zealand as their favourite worldwide destination.
But if travel is supposed to be one big party, you should have been on a flight to Rio in time to plunge into the electrifying exuberance of Carnival. Venice has been voted the third-best city in the world by readers of Britain's Wanderlust.
The usual choices of Paris, Florence and New York are conspicuous by their absence from this category. The readers have again voted hard-to-find-and-harder-to-pronounce Luang Prabang, Laos (the "r" is silent) as the world's top metropolis.
Madagascar, Bhutan and Tibet have nudged Ecuador, the Cook Islands and Guatemala out of the top 10 countries.
New Zealand, though, remains the perennial winner of the "where would you like to be most of all?" question.
Yet between the Festival in the Desert in Mali and the Pushkar Camel Fair in Rajasthan, Wanderlust readers find time to watch plenty of television.
Tribe retained its title as top programme, with Michael Palin's New Europe second. Palin also earned second place in the travel writer award, just behind Bill Bryson.
Online, the rail website Seat61.com is again the favourite, but voters do not appear to be booking much travel online with the three giant UK airlines - British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair do not feature among the best airlines.
Singapore is the best long-haul carrier, while Air Berlin is best low-cost airline. But Edinburgh emerges as the most feted location. The Scottish capital makes the top 10 for UK airport, displaces New York as 10th favourite city worldwide, and makes the Festivals category twice.
- INDEPENDENT
