Chile has been named in Lonely Planet’s just-published Best In Travel 2018 book as the No1 country to visit in 2018, followed by South Korea, Portugal and the obscure Djibouti.
Lonely Planet’s picks are based on recommendations from travelers that are culled by an in-house panel of experts who look for “topicality, novelty and wow-factor” among places to go.
The book of the world’s largest travel guide book publisher, also picks out the coastal city of Valparaiso as a big plus point for Chile, with its ‘art-filled streets, bohemian cafes and romance-inducing promenades’.
The country also boasts the wilds of Patagonia in the south and the Atacama desert in the north where ‘there’s been a big bang in astrotourism, with new stargazing hotels and geektastic tours to groundbreaking observatories’.
Thanks to new non-stop flights from both London and Melbourne, it’s never been easier to catch a plane, raise a glass of pisco sour and toast the celebration.