1,000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE
THE NEW FULL-COLOR SECOND EDITION
by PATRICIA SCHULTZ
Workman Publishing, New York
An Important Note to Readers
Though every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the information contained in this book, it may change at any time for many reasons, including market forces, political and economic conditions, and weather. Readers should be sure to call or e-mail ahead for confirmation of information when making any travel plans. The author, editors, and publisher shall not be responsible for any travel conditions experienced by readers resulting from changes in information provided in this book. If you discover any out-of-date or incorrect information in the book, we would appreciate it if you would let us know via our website, www.1000places.com.
Copyright © 2011 by Patricia Schultz
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
1,000 Places to See Before You Die is a registered trademark of Patricia Schultz and Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
1,000 … Before You Die is a registered trademark of Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
eISBN 9780761168713
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Better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.
—ASIAN PROVERB
DEDICATION
To Nick, whose big heart and light-up-the-room personality make every trip a joy.
To my sister Roz, her husband Ed, and their children Star, Corey, and Brittany—they are the reason that home is always on my short list of favorite places in the world.
And to our wonderful parents, who always fostered my insatiable love of travel.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank the gods of karma who long ago nudged me into the orbit of Peter and Carolan Workman, who have loved and nurtured this book every bit as much as I. If the outreach and response to the original edition have exceeded all our expectations, it is because I stand on the shoulders of these giants. Those who think I’ve had my hands full these last few years while revising the book—well, they should see my heart. My deepest thanks to the Workmans and the Workman Publishing team. They have become my family and friends.
This collaborative makeover of 1,000 Places was spearheaded by my editrix extraordinaire, Margot Herrera, who by now has a number of these 1,000 tomes under her belt. Yet she approaches each one with a fresh eye and an inexhaustible reservoir of enthusiasm and patience: When I grow up I want to have her unflappable outlook and optimist’s soul. Her new right hand, Heather Schwedel, took 5 minutes to settle in and roll up her sleeves—and then became the poster child for steadfast, earnest, and reliable assistance that helped us make this volume better. I am also grateful to editor-in-chief Suzie Bolotin, for championing the book and giving Margot and Heather the support they needed.
The publicity team of Oleg Lyubner and Selina Meere have jumped through hoops to make sure the book is on everyone’s lips, while Bob Miller, Savannah Ashour, Andrea Fleck-Nisbet, David Schiller (who wears many invaluable hats), and Marissa Hussey helped oversee the exciting expansion into the realm of apps and the electronic world. Jessica Weiner created marketing partnerships that ensure the excitement will keep on giving.
My gratitude to Kristina Peterson, who made sure the original 1,000 Places was reborn in 25 translations—whether I am in a bookstore in Istanbul or in Rio, I thrill to see my book being enjoyed by travelers around the world. And much appreciation to licensing manager Pat Upton, who made many good things come to pass, as well as to special sales goddess Jenny Mandel and her associate Emily Krasner.
Kudos to Janet Vicario for her beautiful art direction and to talented and indefatigable designers Orlando Adiao (who has a bottomless well of patience and good cheer) and Lidija Tomas. Also to photo editor Anne Kerman and her able staff, who surmounted the Herculean challenge of hand-picking the images needed to make this new-and-improved color version as intoxicating and irresistible as possible.
Production editor Carol White combed through every pass with eagle eyes and total commitment; copy editor Judit Bodnar sharpened the manuscript with fact-checking and clarifying questions, plus made sense of the spellings of curious names in countless languages; and managing editor Peggy Gannon created the all-important schedules (and then made sure we stuck to them).
Thanks to Barbara Peragine for working typesetting miracles, to Doug Wolff for overseeing the printing of the book, and to freelance editor Hilary Sterne, whose involvement in almost every phase was invaluable. My gratitude to Adam Greene, who graciously gave over his restaurant Snack Taverna for a photo shoot.
An especially sincere and heartfelt thank-you to travel veterans and friends Caren Banks, Anitra Brown, Bill McCrae, and Elizabeth Ragagli for embracing the project as if it were their own and being available and supportive from beginning to end. To Alison D’Amato, Giema Tsakuginow, and Charlene Lamberis: Thanks for helping me create a research archive and organize my life. And all my love to Nick Stringas for—among countless other things—keeping me from coming unglued.
The team of road warriors whose expertise I was able to call upon for destinations from Alaska to Zimbabwe comprise a remarkable group of individuals—bright, knowledgeable, cultured, and fun—proving that kindred adventurers always find each other in life: Brett Atkinson (New Zealand, Southeast Asia, and the Czech Republic), Greg Bloom (Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine), Rodney Bolt (the Netherlands), Stephen Brewer (Greece and Italy), Mark Chestnut (Brazil and Chile), Paul Clammer (Haiti), Beth Connelly (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), Laura Del Rosso (Mexico), Christine Del Sol (Mexico), David Else (the U.K.), Andrew Evans (Antarctica, South Georgia, the Falkland Islands, and Greenland), Stephen Fallon (London, Paris, Eastern Europe, and Turkey), John Fischer (Hawaii), Andrew Forbes and Colin Hinshelwood (Indonesia), Bob Friel (the Caribbean), Bill Goodwin (South Pacific Islands), Michael Grosberg (the Philippines and Myanmar), Patricia Harris and David Lyons (Portugal and Spain), Lynn Hazelwood (New York City), Jen Johnston (the U.S.A.), Brian Johnstone (Australia and China), David Kaufman (Israel and the Middle East), Michael Kohn (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan), Michael Luongo (Argentina and much of South America), Antony Mason (Belgium), Michael McDermott and Jenny Shannon Harkins (Ireland), Nancy McKeon (Washington, D.C.), Sally McLaren (Kyoto), Leif Pettersen (Romania), Simon Richmond (Japan and Malaysia), Regis St. Louis (Australia, the Baltics, Iceland, Russia, Finland, and Brazil), AnneLise Sorensen (Scandinavia), David Stanley (the South Pacific), Aaron Starmer (for lots of miscellaneous fact-checking and research around the world), Mimi Tompkins (France and way beyond), and Neil Wilson (Georgia, Malta).
And to everyone I’ve ever met along the way who made a difference.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE WORLD REVISITED
HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED
EUROPE
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
ENGLAND
SCOTLAND
/>
WALES
IRELAND
NORTHERN IRELAND
WESTERN EUROPE
AUSTRIA
BELGIUM
FRANCE
GERMANY
GREECE
CYPRUS
ITALY
LUXEMBOURG
MALTA
MONACO
NETHERLANDS
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
SWITZERLAND
EASTERN EUROPE
CROATIA
CZECH REPUBLIC
ESTONIA
GEORGIA
HUNGARY
LATVIA
LITHUANIA
MONTENEGRO
POLAND
ROMANIA
RUSSIA
SLOVAKIA
SLOVENIA
UKRAINE
SCANDINAVIA
DENMARK
FAROE ISLANDS
GREENLAND
FINLAND
ICELAND
NORWAY
SWEDEN
AFRICA
NORTH AFRICA
EGYPT
MOROCCO
TUNISIA
WEST AFRICA
GHANA
MALI
EAST AFRICA AND SOUTHERN AFRICA
BOTSWANA
ETHIOPIA
KENYA
MALAWI
MOZAMBIQUE
NAMIBIA
SOUTH AFRICA
TANZANIA
UGANDA
ZAMBIA
ZIMBABWE
ISLANDS OF THE INDIAN OCEAN
MADAGASCAR
THE MALDIVE ISLANDS
MAURITIUS
SEYCHELLES
THE MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY
JORDAN
LEBANON
OMAN
QATAR
SAUDI ARABIA
SYRIA
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
YEMEN
ASIA
EAST ASIA
CHINA
TAIWAN
JAPAN
MONGOLIA
SOUTH KOREA
SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA
BHUTAN
INDIA
IRAN
KYRGYZSTAN
NEPAL
SRI LANKA
TAJIKISTAN
TURKEY
TURKMENISTAN
UZBEKISTAN
SOUTHEAST ASIA
CAMBODIA
INDONESIA
LAOS
MALAYSIA
MYANMAR
PHILIPPINES
SINGAPORE
THAILAND
VIETNAM
AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
THE PACIFIC ISLANDS
COOK ISLANDS
FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA
FIJI
FRENCH POLYNESIA
PALAU
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
SAMOA
TONGA
VANUATU
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND CANADA
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CANADA
LATIN AMERICA
MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA
MEXICO
BELIZE
COSTA RICA
GUATEMALA
HONDURAS
NICARAGUA
PANAMA
SOUTH AMERICA AND ANTARCTICA
ARGENTINA
FALKLAND ISLANDS
BOLIVIA
BRAZIL
CHILE
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR
PERU
URUGUAY
VENEZUELA
ANTARCTICA
SOUTH GEORGIA ISLAND
THE CARIBBEAN, THE BAHAMAS, AND BERMUDA
ANGUILLA
ANTIGUA
THE BAHAMAS
BARBADOS
BERMUDA
BONAIRE
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
CAYMAN ISLANDS
CUBA
CURAÇAO
DOMINICA
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
GRENADA
GUADELOUPE
HAITI
JAMAICA
MARTINIQUE
PUERTO RICO
SABA
ST. BARTHÉLEMY
ST. KITTS AND NEVIS
ST. LUCIA
ST. MARTIN
ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
TURKS AND CAICOS
U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS
GENERAL INDEX
INTRODUCTION
The World Revisited
As I write this introduction, my nieces are in Iceland. I imagine them enjoying a hot soak in the Blue Lagoon under the midnight sun, driving through a vast, empty countryside of stark, otherworldly beauty—slowing down to let wild horses cross the two-lane road and stopping to order lunch from menus in a language they cannot pronounce. They are sending me e-mails (the postcards of today) and posting Facebook updates (how things have changed!), and I can feel their excitement and their sense of wonder. They will return home exhilarated, having felt firsthand how travel opens up your whole world while nurturing a newfound appreciation for everything you’ve left behind. There really is no downside to travel, save a little jet lag and a dented bank account. A small price to pay for a million-dollar experience.
Wanderlust—I like to think of it as wan-derlove—has always coursed through my veins. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I never felt an hour spent in the seat of an airplane (or bus, tuk-tuk, car, or bullet train) was an hour wasted. As a toddler I realized that a whole big world awaited every time our family locked the front door and piled into the station wagon for the Jersey shore (yes, that one, but before its reputation was compromised). Playing Risk on the living room floor introduced me to places with names like Madagascar and Siam. It wasn’t the game’s promise of world domination that enticed me, but the far reaches of a planet so big and exotic and rich with romance that it felt like make-believe to me.
My first true “aha!” moment happened when I was 15 and my parents agreed to let me visit a high school friend who lived with her family in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. I was too naïve at the time to grasp the importance of the beautiful and historically rich “City of Firsts.” (As the first colonial outpost in the Americas, Santo Domingo was the site of the first street, the first cathedral, the first fortress.) But there was no escaping the impact of my personal firsts: my first total immersion in a foreign language and culture, my first brush with salsa and merengue (their vibrant sound was everywhere), my first taste of avocados from the backyard tree, my first guitar lesson. My love and fascination for all things Latino was born during that formative and enlightening stay. I didn’t return to Santo Domingo until this past year, more than 40 years later: It was like running into your first love, with all the dormant memories rushing back. Like me, the city had grown and changed and was almost unrecognizable. But it reminded me of how I had arrived—a wide-eyed innocent abroad—and left with a jolted curiosity that has been stuck in high gear ever since. As Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick, I had “an everlasting itch for things remote.”
It is rare that I return to a place where I have already been: There are simply too many places I haven’t yet seen. When asked what my favorite trip was, I used to think it was the most recent, the one still the most vivid in my memory. But now I realize it is my next one. I always have a next one—or four—lined up before my suitcase is unpacked. I have been my own best customer, embracing the carpe-diem see-it-now spirit of 1,000 Places, and have spent the years since the book’s initial release in 2003 gathering more places to fill the pages of this edition. I’m sure I’ll upset a lot of people who found the first list overwhelming. Now here I am, with a revision that I consider an entirely new book. There are 200-some brand-new entries, including 28 countries new to this edition. Some of
these nations had simply not been on my radar before (Ghana, Nicaragua, South Korea); others were still reeling from the early days of independence from the Soviet Union (Estonia, Ukraine, Slovakia) when I was writing the original book. At that point, they were poorly equipped to welcome tourism, but today they guarantee visits that are a revelation. And then there are the many destinations that space requirements forced me to leave out of the original book in countries already well represented—I half-jokingly said I would save them for a sequel. Well, here they are: the Mani Peninsula in Greece, Chile’s lake district, India’s Golden Temple of Amritsar, the stuck-in-time Pleasantville Shaker Village in Kentucky, and the Mendoza wine country in Argentina, among others.
Arriving at this revision’s final list of places was even more exciting and terrifying than with the original book—I mean, how many more opportunities was I going to have to get my Life List straight? To have carte blanche to compile an eclectic and all-encompassing list of far-flung gems like the man-made wonder of Petra and the overwhelming natural beauty of Patagonia, together with hedonistic beauties such as Brazil’s Trancoso and the inimitable Seychelles island of La Digue? Well, that was a challenge for sure, but a whole lot of fun as well. I followed my heart and my gut, aiming for a glorious compilation of places both grand and humble, iconic and unsung. Drawing from a lifetime of wandering, I had nurtured an internal meter along the way that set off an alert when I was approaching something of particular beauty and awe—sometimes heart-stopping in its impact (think of thundering Victoria Falls of Zambia and Zimbabwe or the remarkable Military Tattoo in the shadow of Edinburgh’s Castle), other times quietly and timelessly standing apart from the ordinary and waiting for our attention (the desolate and windblown Aran Islands off Ireland’s west coast or a sunset sail through the Mekong Delta before it empties into the South China Sea).
But this list is much more than just my visceral response to the planet and its wonders. The amount of research I do before each trip would surprise those who think that when you book your ticket, your work is done. I read everything I can get my hands on, and have never met a guidebook I didn’t like: There is always some tidbit or trivia that catches my fancy, and I enjoy the sense of excitement in the author’s words when sharing a discovery or secret—I hope you will hear the same in mine.
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