Lonely Planet''s Ultimate Travel: Our List of the 500 Best Places to See... Ranked

Simply put, I own over a hundred travel books and this is my favorite. Its sets out 500 destinations, many which you have heard of and many which you have not. Dozens of beautiful photographs of most but not all of the destinations. Its a great idea book and helps create the travel bucket list. No book is perfect and this one has its faults. First, there are no photos for many (one fourth?) of the destinations. No photo for Number Four - The Great Wall of China. Really? And many other missing photos. Second, how can you compile a list of the 500 best places in the world to visit and not include Bali? Third, and this is quibbling, the cover does not do this book justice. I think a few photos would have been better. Still, its a worthy book for travelers and arm chair travelers alike. I gave a copy to friends who have been to more than 100 countries and to friends who have been to 10. All loved it. Highly recommended.

Beautiful book with wonderful illustrations and descriptions. It's in order of rank of places to visit rather than by country in case you were wondering, but you can easily just use the index to find each country's top tourist spots. For the price this book is more than worth it! I was surprised a full color, 300+ page book was so cheap! Great as a coffee table book and/or to satisfy (or fuel) your wanderlust! I wouldn't use this as a ride or die guide, but more like a catalog to decide which country or city you might delve into to visit. The listed areas are pretty "mainstream" but I suppose that's rightfully so, since there's a reason these locations are such popular tourisy destinations. Also, it's more of a peave home kind of book since it is really big and heavy. If you want to get a world travel guide to bring on your trips, I recommend the "Best things in life are free" book (also by lonelyplanet). Overall really worth the price and I recommend to anyone looking for some travel inspiration!

A measure of my like for this book is the fact that I promptly purchased a new copy when my original fell off a table and separated from the spine. You can debate the order of the rankings, and even the inclusion or exclusion of certain sites, but there's no denying that it presents a legitimate list of places worth visiting in your lifetime, assuming you can get to them (hey Iran). Stunning color photography of some of the sites reach out to you from the pages, and the index does a fantastic job of allowing you to search by name, country, or city to zero in on locations. On trips to Germany, Iceland, and Asia, we viewed the suggested list of sites by country and organized our trips around visiting some or all of the suggested sites. If there's a knock on the book it's that obviously opinions will differ on the 500 best places to see, and the information provided on each site is somewhat limited, but otherwise, a fantastic book for anyone bitten by the travel bug.

It is a really cool book filled with fun sites to see! I used gold star stickers to mark the ones I have already been to and loved browsing through the pages and pictures. There are easy to read descriptions as well with fun details about the places. my one frustration was the book's cover. i ordered a new copy but the spine and cover corners had some folds as well as tears. the copy definitely did not look new despite the shrink wrap. it was a bit disappointing, but it is still a beautiful book and i am excited to continue my travels and check off more places!

I'm an avid traveler, and I love to see the world's big sites. I love ancient wonders especially. I honestly bought this book after a trip to Peru because I honestly didn't know where I wanted to go next. I had made it to so many of my top global destinations, that I didn't know what else to focus on. Enter Ultimate Travel. This book has given me great ideas of where to go, what top global destinations are near each other. The photos are inspiring, and I find the few sentences about each destination very helpful. They tell you just what you need to know. I've booked my next trip, inspired by a two page spread in this book. I have left the book out on my coffee table, open to my next travel destination and many friends have picked it up, flipped through it and started daydreaming themselves. This book will have you searching for a flight tomorrow.

I've traveled to 28 countries and cumulatively spent 25 months of the last 10 years abroad. My family and friends consider me well-traveled and frequently ask for advice about where they should travel. I have places I remember fondly and can recommend, but travel is so personal, and what is amazing for one person can be lackluster for another. Also, I've been a lot of places, but I haven't actually been EVERYWHERE.So now, when I rattle off recommendations, I also recommend this book. I personally use this book to discover lesser known gems in countries I plan trips to. But it is also useful for novice travelers to discover what the world offers. I purchased a copy of this book for my younger brother who graduated college and wanted to go on a longer term travel adventure but didn't know where he should go. He pored over the book and discovered many places he had never heard of and was able to piece together a rough itinerary.It's also just a wonderful coffee table book: beautiful photography and a great conversation starter.