Lonely Planet's Ultimate Travelist: The 500 Best Places on the Planet...Ranked

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Lonely Planet says: Look down at two billion years of geologic time and you’ll see why the mile-deep, 277-mile-long phenomenon is nature’s cathedral. Watching shaggy bison warming up by a thermal pool, catching sight of a grizzly bear across a meadow, or visiting in winter to glimpse wolf prints in the snow - all are quintessential Yellowstone experiences. Ecotourism is central to everything on the 17 islands of the Galápagos National Park - the airport is made from mostly recycled materials and runs on wind and solar power, and each municipality has a strict sustainability plan.

And so they should - Angkor Wat, the most famous of Angkor's sites, is a representation of Mt Meru, center of the universe and abode of Hindu gods. Even though there's actually only eight, the soft limestone rocks still attract two million visitors a year. We've all got a list of places that we want to see for ourselves: places friends have enthused about, places we've read about, dreamed about.But generations later, after the city was abandoned, it was known only to the Bedouin who made the caves their home. book has been years in the making and brings together the most compelling places in the world according to our team,” Lonely Planet’s Editorial Director Tom Hall says. And so the top 20 list finds Tasmania’s Museum of Modern and Old Art and Fez’s Medina rubbing shoulders with travel titans such as the Grand Canyon and the Taj Mahal. The rotten-egg whiff taunts your nostrils; your ears are assaulted by a vulgarity of belches, burps and farts. Fiordland National Park (New Zealand) — Carved by ancient glaciers and riven by towering cliffs that feature countless waterfalls, Fiordland makes the list despite, no doubt, stiff competition from New Zealand's dozen other national parks.

The islands are famed, of course, as the place where Charles Darwin developed his ideas on evolution by natural selection.Beyond Angkor Wat are more than 1000 temples and shrines, including Ta Prohm, its towers gripped by the jungle, and Bayon with its giant stone faces.