Time magazine's World's Greatest Places skips out New Zealand

Out of Africa: Visitors to Karen Blixen's Giraffe Manor must be prepared for unexpected guests, even on the first floor. Photo / Supplied, Safari Collection, facebook.com

New Zealand has failed to make the cut on Time Magazine's World's Greatest Places list 2018.

On the list of 100 destinations sorted into the this year's top tips for travellers looking to Visit, Stay Eat and Drink, not one was located in Aotearoa.

Of 34 wonders that Time calls this year's "must visit" list includes the remote Senegalese town of Sinthian makes the cut for its Thread multi-use community facility. The village which is "more than seven hours from the nearest major airport in Dakar" is home to architect Toshiko Mori's state of the art cultural centre which was built using local materials and techniques such as mud brick and bamboo.

Denmark gets two places on the list – for the Tivoli pleasure gardens and the helical Experimentarium museum – and china three spots for attractions including Tianjin Binhai Library; a remarkable feat for a country with such a tight grasp on the flow of information, though the magazine admits the building holds "more fiction than books" with a collection made mostly of printed aluminum plates making the place look fuller. While the library intends to grow its collection, 363,000 square foot super-construction currently holds fewer books than Auckland's Central Library. Still the eye-catching design by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV merits a visit on Time Magazine's list.

More fiction than books: Tianjin Binhai library, China. Photo / Getty Images

Yet Aotearoa is notably absent from the man made attractions and natural wonders.

Idaho's Dark Sky reserve makes the list as the 12 such area to be designated as a "light pollution free" area ideal for stargazing. Though New Zealand's own Makenzie Dark Sky Reserve near Mount Cook missed out on the limelight.

Time magazine said that its evaluation was based on the factors of "quality, originality, innovation, sustainability and influence."

The first of what will be an annual list was compiled by Time editors and correspondents around the world, resulting in a list from six continents and 48 countries "highlighting everything from a Texas water park that empowers kids with disabilities to a Maldives resort that's building an undersea abode to a library in Tianjin, China".

Skeleton Coast: Nambibia's Shipwreck Lodge. Photo / Supplied, Natural Selection

Notable inclusions on the "To Stay" list included the Stamba Hotel in a soviet-era Tiblisi publishing house and artificial vessels of Shipwreck Lodge on Namibia's Skeleton Coast.

The "To Eat & Drink" also slaked a craving for parts unknown with inclusions such as the Faroe Island's Koks – which is possibly the world's most remotely placed Michelin Starred restaurant.

Faroese fare: Chef Poul Andrias Ziska, left, at Koks. Photo / Supplied, facebook.com, Koks

The full list can be read at time.com/collection/worlds-greatest-places-2018