South Australia Scores in Lonely Planet's Best for 2017

South Australia Scores in Lonely Planet's Best for 2017

Global travel authority Lonely Planet has chosen South Australia as one of the world's Top 10 Regions for next year in Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2017, released this evening.

Best in Travel 2017 is Lonely Planet's 12th annual agenda-setting collection of the world's hottest trends, destinations and experiences for the year ahead. The best-selling, inspirational travel yearbook highlights the top 10 countries, cities, regions and best value destinations that Lonely Planet's experts recommend travellers experience in 2017.

South Australia is ranked fifth on the book's list of Top 10 Regions 2017.

'Its climate may be hot, but South Australia offers the coolest mix of brilliant wine country, abundant produce festivals, stark and stunning tracts of picturesque Aussie outback and crowd-free beaches that could make even the Bahamas jealous," writes Lonely Planet's Chris Zeiher. 'The Queen Mary 2 is putting South Australia on her travel list in 2017, choosing to dock not only in its artistic capital, Adelaide, but also taking in the rustic charms of Kangaroo Island. South Australia is a delicious feast suitable to anyone's taste."

Lonely Planet's Top 10 Regions 2017 are:
1. Choquequirao, Peru
2. Taranaki, New Zealand
3. The Azores, Portugal
4. North Wales, UK
5. South Australia
6. Aysén, Chile
7. The Tuamotus, French Polynesia
8. Coastal Georgia, USA
9. Perak, Malaysia
10. The Skellig Ring, Ireland.

Lonely Planet has teamed up with Snapchat to create an exclusive Best in Travel 2017 live story, where users can submit their snaps from the top 5 regions. For the first time, Snapchat users in South Australia can share their experiences of the Best in Travel 2017-winning region with the rest of the globe.

Australian destinations and attractions are also featured on a number of the book's other top lists for 2017, including:

Best Value Destinations
9) Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria: 'The Bellarine Peninsula has been a destination of choice for Melburnians looking for a laid-back (read: sleepy) escape from the city for generations. But now this part of Victoria has some tasty-looking attractions to go with its timeless beaches and historic towns like Queenscliff and Portarlington. Jack Rabbit Vineyard and Flying Brick Cider Co are two of the newer destinations attracting attention, along with a rail trail for cycling, rock pooling, snorkelling and surfing."

Best Places to Stay

4) Sal Salis, Western Australia: 'Sleeping in wilderness tents, built on individual wooden platforms nestled among sand dunes, metres from pristine Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, is about as quintessentially Oz as it gets. Guests swim, snorkel or kayak at Australia's -other' dramatic reef – famous for humpback whales, whale sharks, dolphins, turtles and manta rays – and dine on bush-inspired meals 1300km north of the closest capital city, Perth."

Family Adventure Destinations
7) Southwestern Australia: 'Do your kids have their heads in the clouds? Treat them to a 600m-long treetop walk in the Valley of the Giants. Or do they prefer to go underground? Check out the fascinating caves in the Margaret River region. Is wildlife their thing? Go whale watching in Geographe Bay. Beach combing? Bike riding? Tree climbing? You've guessed it…"

Top Five Travel Trend: Micro-Distilleries
Four Pillars, Healesville, Victoria: 'This sophisticated small distillery, spearheading the micro-distillery explosion in Australia, sits in the heart of Victorian wine country and offers a delicious alternative to the abundance of cellar doors in the surrounding Yarra Valley. Four Pillars is dedicated to crafting gin using native Australian botanicals such as lemon myrtle and Tasmanian pepperberry."

Top Five Travel Trend: The World is Your Office - 10 of the Best Workspaces Worldwide
Kindred Studios, Melbourne, Victoria: 'Not just a workspace but also has studios, a bar and yoga classes."

Top Five Travel Trend: Bikepacking
Munda Biddi Trail, Western Australia: 'An unparalleled off-road odyssey that cuts a serpentine route across 1000km of stunning hinterland from Mundaring on Perth's outskirts right down to Albany."

Lonely Planet's writers and experts spend time on the road in almost every destination on the planet, and each year they report which destinations are set to take off, offering travellers the best experience available. The destinations selected for Best in Travel meet specific criteria. It could be that something special is going on in the year ahead, or there's been recent development and a lot of buzz about the place; that it offers travellers new things to see or do; or that the Lonely Planet team of experts thinks it's been overlooked and underrated and suggests travellers visit before the crowds do.

Other Best in Travel 2017 highlights include:
The Top 10 Countries to visit in 2017: Canada, Colombia, Finland, Dominica, Nepal, Bermuda, Mongolia, Oman, Myanmar, and Ethiopia.
The Top 10 Cities to visit in 2017: Bordeaux, France; Cape Town, South Africa; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Mérida, Mexico; Ohrid, Macedonia; Pistoia, Italy; Seoul, South Korea; Lisbon, Portugal; Moscow, Russia; and Portland, OR, USA.

Deciding what to include in Lonely Planet's Best in Travel annual selection is a considered process involving the whole of Lonely Planet's community: from its writers and editors all the way to its online family of bloggers and tweeters. Each year, they come up with hundreds of places that are not to be missed. These are then whittled down by a panel of in-house travel experts who shortlist in line with criteria such as topicality, excitement and wow-factor.

www.lonelyplanet.com/best-in-travel features all of the Best in Travel 2017 destinations and additional advice on visiting them. Each of the number one destinations features an interview with Lonely Planet's experts on why 2017 is the year to visit. Travellers can also enter a My Best in Travel competition to win a trip for two to the number one country, Canada, and a host of Samsung's latest mobile technology from Best in Travel's sponsor Samsung Electronics.

Travel media company Lonely Planet is the world's leading guidebook publisher, providing inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveller since 1973. Over the past four decades, Lonely Planet has cultivated a dedicated traveller community and printed more than 139 million books across 14 different languages to most destinations on the planet. The Lonely Planet ecosystem also includes digital and mobile apps, a comprehensive ebook portfolio, 12 international magazines and an award-winning website. Visit us at lonelyplanet.com, and join us on Facebook (facebook.com/lonelyplanet), Twitter (@lonelyplanet and #lp) and Instagram (instagram.com/lonelyplanet).
South Australia Scores in Lonely Planet's Best for 2017
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