What's your top 5 and dream 2?

[Happy Dude]

3. The island with the Komodo dragons (Flores?)

They're on Komodo too.

My Top 5:
1. Pakistan (particularly the north and west)
2. Rome
3. St Petersburg
4. Greece
5. Vietnam

I'm in the process of preparing a 6 month trip during which I'll be slashing my bucket list (trans-sib, Cuba, Libya, NYC, Tibet, Kashgar). Here's the best of the rest:

1. Overland from Cape Town to Cairo (with Uganda Gorilla trip)
2. Golfing through Scotland (been, but next time with clubs in tow)
3. Somewhere to see the northern lights (possible to do this Dec)
4. Galapagos Islands
5. Silk route

 

[drron]

Top 5:
LA - nice blend of shopping and glam
Soho, NYC - high end boho, some interesting sunnies boutiques
Prada flagship, Milan - heaven on earth
Paris - an ode to fashion (though would be much better without the French )
Hong Kong - simply electric, the place to get dreadfully hungover repeatedly, and home to my fave W in the world

Dream 2:
Copenhagen - looks really trendy
Any W Hotel I've yet to set foot in (they're expanding too quickly!!)

So maybe you should get yourself to Switzerland quickly and see them all-

Hotel design innovations unveiled at Design Miami/Basel in Switzerland
Works by the winners of the2010 W Hotels Designers of the Future Award are on display at Design Miami/Basel in Switzerland. The exhibition showcases the works of up-and-coming creatives Beta Tank, rAndom International, Graham Hudson and Zigelbaum & Coelho, selected for the innovative use of materials and design processes in their commissioned works. A total of 32 galleries are hosted at the exhibition, which is in its fifth year.

 

[GDSman]

These are great lists....really gets the juices going...

Top 5 in no particular order:

The Loire Valley - beautiful, great food, wine, culture
South Island NZ - Wow, stunning
Buenos Aires - stimulating, fun, like how I remember when I visited Amsterdam as a teenager
Kenya - lucky enough to live there as a kid
Jordan - ditto

2 dreams:
Cuba
Antartica

 

[Bob]

Top 5

South America – just about anywhere… (take the Inca trail to Machu Picchu; laze on a ferry up the Amazon river; eat piranha, tapir and guinea pig; climb Mt Cotopaxi; experience the majesty of Iguassu & Angel Falls; gaze south from Tierra del Fuego; scare flamingos on the altiplano; be enthralled by Carnival in Rio; contemplate the meaning of death on Easter Island; burn a violin to stay warm on the top of the Andes…)

Nepal (explore Kathmandu, trek at high altitude, discover your limits, marvel at the rhododendron forests, contemplate Mt Everest and wonder “what if”)

Italy (be captivated by Florence and Venice)

Australia (explore the Dig Tree all by yourself, stop in the middle of the outback at night and read silent stars, fly across Lake Eyre, go helicopter mustering for scrub bulls)

Canada (watch ice roads melt into the lakes, discover what -40 C is really like, dodge bears on the golf course and wolves in the camp)

perchance to Dream…
Northern lights
[FONT=&quot]Space flight

[/FONT]

 

[Bundy Bear]

[FONT=&quot]My top 5 that I have traveled to plus my dream 2 that I have yet to visit?

Top 5
1) London, I love all the history.
2) Northland, New Zealand, the area north of Auckland up to the cape.
3) Sydney, Sydney Harbour and Opera House.

The above places I could live there, the next 2 locations I have chosen because of the natural beauty.

4) Great Barrier Reef
5) Grand Canyon

Dream 2
1) Egypt
2) Great Wall of China.
[/FONT]

 

[Cocitus23]

To Mr k_sheep,

Here are two ways to get to see Kerguelen Island for FREE, and avoid that nasty $40,000 cost you have mentioned.

1. Using the generosity of the Australian anf French tax-payers. Get into a little yacht all alone, sail out into the middle of the South Indian Ocean at about 35 degrees South, and let off distress beacons. The Australian government will lease a Qantas Airbus and come to find you and look after you until the French government sends a vessel from Reunion to pick you up and take you to Kerguelen where you will be accommodated until you can be shipped back to civilization. This system has been proven within the last month.

2. In comfort with Qantas, capitalising on the surprising quirks of Great Circle routes. I have had the pleasure of seeing Kerguelen this way on a couple of occasions, albeit from 35,000 feet. What's more, I did not miss a sip of my free champagne while doing so. Take QF063, SYD - JNB. For those of us accustomed to looking at two dimensional maps, the route it takes is quite surprising - down the NSW south coast, out across Bass Strait and Tasmania, and further south to the coast of Antarctica, then gradually north, right over the top of Kerguelen, then Durban and finally Johannesburg. Actually, the view of the island is really spectacular - jagged peaks and mighty glaciers. When you read the entry in Wikipedia on Kerguelen, you might decide that 35,000 feet is quite close enough.

Happy travelling,
Cocitus 23

 

[AdamR]

Mr k_sheep has some ancestors who were born aboard a ship from south africa (they were well off track!), off the coast of Keurgulen. So he thought he should do a pilgrimage back there. Of course, he had no idea where it was or how to get there. So one empty day I sat there and figured out what was there and how to get there, and presented the results to him. The BNE-PER - mauritius - reunion flights aren't too bad. The 6 week research ship sounds worse. The helicopter from the ship to the island which occurs once every couple of weeks due to the awful weather sounds horrible. The >$40k cost is insane. But hey, he wants to go there! The place where the insects don't have wings because of the winds. Paradise

Add to all that a pop culture name of 'Desolation Island' thanks to Patrick O'Brian.

 

[maureeng]

Top 5 visited

1. Bora Bora
2. Aspen Colorado
3. Arlberg - Austria
4. St Moritz / Zeermat Switzerland
5. Western Samoa

Next 2
1. Reunion, Seychells and Mauritius (Planned Feb 2011)
2. Cancun Mexico ( May 2012)

Dream 3

1.Antartic or Alaska
2. Russia
3. African Safari

I got a bit carried away

 

[codash1099]

In no particular order:

Salzburg Austria
Canadian Rockies
Edinburgh
Basel
Paris

all for reasons nicely stated elsewhere

Dreaming of:
Rome
Every other place I haven't been to

 

[munitalP]

Top 5 visited...

1. Harbin China - wow factor 10/10 (Winter)
2. Wanaka NZ - just a lovely place (Winter)
3. Great Barrier Island NZ - Remote, rugged and unspoilt nature (Summer)
4. Linz Austria - Old, historic, people (Winter)
5. Stockholm - History, scenic, museums (Winter)

Dreams...

1. The causeway at KSC during the next (last) shuttle launch
2. Jayawijaya Mountain glacier - Freeport PNG (before it disappears)

munitalP

 

[Keith009]

So maybe you should get yourself to Switzerland quickly and see them all-

Very different from experiencing the real ones... Then again I have no intention of ever going back to Barcelona, W or no W, so hmmm.

 

[mosanator]

Amen to Berlin, was debating between that or HK for one of my 5s. Great party town, and German food is yummy (as are the Germans )! The shopping isn't as amazing but getting there.....

Also by medhead-
Berlin, Check point charlie - I actually went through check point charlie when it was still in use in 1978. I was all of 7 so my memory is a bit hazy, remember the mirrors being wheeled under the car.

Yeah I was thinking (West) Berlin too. I think it was better with The Wall. I was there before it was taken down (1988) and then a few years after (1992). I thought the "grey" of East Berlin seemed to have spread into the West. The contrast before was amazing to a Westerner and saddening for those on the wrong side.
Checkpoint Charlie was a nervous highlight, and the train trip thru the corridor of East Germany was interesting to say the least.

I may have to go back soon and see if the "colour" from the West has prevailed in the end.

 

[medhead]

Yeah I was thinking (West) Berlin too. I think it was better with The Wall. I was there before it was taken down (1988) and then a few years after (1992). I thought the "grey" of East Berlin seemed to have spread into the West. The contrast before was amazing to a Westerner and saddening for those on the wrong side.
Checkpoint Charlie was a nervous highlight, and the train trip thru the corridor of East Germany was interesting to say the least.

I may have to go back soon and see if the "colour" from the West has prevailed in the end.

West berlin was amazing in my limited recall. We were, at that stage camping in a van. We stayed in a caravan park that was right next to the wall. And it had stairs up the side of the wall from the caravan park. I clearly remember dad going up to look and mum saying things like you'll get shot. I also got to have a look over, just a big walled off paddock with a control tower like thing half way along the diagonally opposite wall (we looked from sort of on the corner). I'm pretty sure we had to drive to west berlin, being in a campervan.

Hopefully, I might get back next march or april.

 

[ellen10]

I visited Berlin in 1982. I remember driving from Poland through a kind of corridored highway where we couldn't see any of the East German countryside.

Once in West Berlin we too were camped beside the wall. At nightime we could hear dogs barking and machine gun fire. At nightime I remember seeing all the brilliant neon lights of West Berlin and looking across to East Berlin and seeing grey darkness.

We went through checkpoint Charlie it took our bus 2 hours to be checked through and we were limited to where we could go in East Berlin. I found it quite surreal with the two cities side-by-side but so different. It was quite an experience and I would like to go back, because so much has changed.

 

[kamchatsky]

My top 5:

1. Moorea, French Polynesia (by a country mile)
2. Brugge, Belgium/Tallinn, Estonia (cannot split them)
3. Kansai Region (Osaka/Kyoto/Nara), Japan
4. New York, USA
5. Yosemite National Park, USA

Other mentions:
South Island, NZ

Dream a few:
1. Far East Russia
2. Jerusalem
3. The "stans" (ie central Asia)

Having said all that, Australia is still the best place to live, esp Sydney.