Top 10 Lists
Serious travelers™ love lists! So do we; who doesn’t? It keeps conversations short and focuses attention. Check, check…done that, done that…
Through the years, we have assembled our own collection (100 so far!) of Best of or Top 10 travel lists. Yes, we know they are all purely subjective—aren’t they all? They are created in both the spirit of fun and for sharing our travel war stories with fellow travelers…the good, the bad and ugly. They do change and evolve over time—as all good travel stories do, right!?
Enjoy them. Debate them. Your comments are of course welcome…and we are sure there will be some.
Have a list you want us to add? Please let us know at gsh [@] globalscavengerhunt (dot) com. Thanks!
(Last updated – 11 May 2020)
100 Fun, Interesting, Debatable, Silly Top Ten Travel Lists:
Top Ten Memorable Sunrises:
Top Ten Memorable Sunsets:
The Ten Travel Commandments:
Ten Best Travel Tunes:
12 Traveler Personality Types:
Ten Things Missing in 21st Century Travel:
Ten Best Global Cuisines:
Ten Worst Global Cuisines:
Ten Wonderful Train Stations:
Ten Great Places to Sleep:
Ten Wonderful Medium Sized Cities:
Ten Ideas of Travel Paradise:
The Ten Best Travel Movies:
Top Ten Reasons to Travel:
Ten Things We Love about Traveling:
Phrases We Hate to Hear When Traveling:
The 10 Worst Travel Clichés:
A Bakers Dozen of Wonders To See In South American:
Top Ten Eating Out Rules:
Top Ten Mass Transit Systems:
Our Top Ten Favorite Local Transport Options:
The Top Ten Watering Holes (Okay, Twentyish!):
Ten Unusual Things to See Traveling the World:
A Few Either/Or Choices:
Dante’s Nine Rings of Travel Hell (circa 2015):
Our Top Ten Favorite Streets:
The Ten Worst Flights To Take:
The World’s Ten Must See Aquariums:
Ten Views Worth the Trip:
Our Top Ten Travel Pet Peeves:
Our Favorite Travel Books (Contemporary Edition):
Our Favorite Travel Books (The Classics):
The Top Ten Missing Wonders of the World:
A Few of Our Favorite Mosques:
Top Ten Shopping Areas:
Top Ten Travel Truisms:
Top Ten Travel Rip-Offs:
Top Ten Missing Natural Wonders of The World:
Ten Of Our Favorite Global Boat Rides:
Top Ten Great Big Cities:
Ten Places Too Cute for their own Good:
Top Indian Subcontinent Must-See Sites:
The Top Museums of the World:
Favorite Online Museums:
Top Ten Entertainment Venues:
Top Ten Sporting Must-See’s:
The Ten Best Things to do in Winter:
The Top Japanese Must-See Sites:
Great Pilgrimages:
The Seven Deadly Sins of Travelers:
Our Favorite Bridges:
Our Favorite Burial Sites:
Our Favorite Skiing Areas:
Our Favorite Windsurfing Spots:
Top Ten Port’s-o-Call:
Top Chinese Must-See Sites:
Top Ten Reasons For Traveling:
Some of the Most Memorable Sights:
A Beginners Bucket List:
Our Favorite Ruins:
Our Ten Favorite Wine Regions:
Ten Great International Train Rides:
Ten Great International Drives:
Ten Great International Walks:
Our Favorite Global Villages:
Ten Amazing International Dive Spots:
Top International Beaches:
Ten Gorgeous Global Gardens:
Some of Our Favorite International Things:
The World’s Best Water Falls:
Ten Things Still to do on My Livings List (aka Bucket List):
Top Ten Travel Related Indicators:
Our Favorite North American Festivals:
Top Sub-Saharan African Natural Wonders:
Our Favorite Global People Watching Places:
The Worst Tourist Ghettos:
Top Ten Public Squares:
Our Ten Favorite Places (So far…):
Our Favorite Beers of the World:
The Ten Worst Travel Scams:
Our Favorite Rock n’ Roll Destinations:
Top Ten Political Shrines:
Top Ten Public Statues:
Top Ten Amazing Fountains:
Our Favorite Global Festivals:
The World’s Ten Best Climate Destinations:
The 10 Best Ever Travel-Friendly Inventions:
The World’s Top 10 Favorite Global Dishes:
The 10 Worst Cities in the World:
Ten Destinations we are Loving to Death:
The Top Ten Worst Global Tourist Traps:
Ten Terrible Recent World Heritage Losses:
Ten Notorious Cultural Faux Pas:
Ten Reasons Cruises Suck:
The Ten Most Overrated Destinations:
The Ten Most Corrupt Destinations (That Travelers Actually Visit):
Ten Thrilling/Scary Borders to Cross:
Top Ten WTF!? Unnatural Wonders Of The World:
The Things Serious Travelers™ Know:
____
Memorable Sunrises:
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Bagan Plains, Myanmar
Everglades National Park, Florida, USA
Grand Canyon, North Rim, USA
Guilin, China
Ipanema Beach, Rio, Brazil
Machu Picchu, Peru
Masada National Park, Israel
Pokhara-Anaupara range, Nepal
Sunsplash Music Festival Montego Bay, Jamaica
Canima Lagoon, La Gran Sabana, Venezuela
Ubud’s Terraced Rice Paddies, Bali, Indonesia
Wailia Volcano, Maui, USA
Top Ten Memorable Sunsets:
Africa House Bar, Zanzibar
Canima Lagoon, Venezuela
Mekong River, Luang Prabang, Laos
Midnight Sun, Iceland
Monument Valley, Utah, USA
Negril Beach, Jamaica
Pacific Coast Highway, Late-Summer, Malibu, California, USA
Malecón, Havana, Cuba
Santorini, Greece
Thunder Bay, Ontario
The Ten Travel Commandments:
1) Thou shall leave thy expectations at home;
2) If thy cannot carry it—thy shalt not take it;
3) Be it that every destination be worth at least one visit—if only to know that
thy shall never wish to return to it;
4) Thee most interesting people you shall meet will be those trying to get at your
money, but remember that most of them are not trying to rip you off;
5) Thou shall seek out the transition zones, the places in between: borders,
sunrise/sunset, weather changes, nature, juxtapositions of old versus new,
morning and end of day routines, rituals, festivals, shore lines, etc., etc.;
6) Thou shall try new things all the time…even if only once;
7) Thou shall slow down and smell the divinity of the roses;
8) Thou shalt be curious, ask questions, listen, be humble and learn;
9) Thou shalt walk whenever thy can, mingle with the masses by taking public
transportation;
10) Thou shall not pack thy fear and cynicism about your brothers and sisters of the world…be open and be gracious.
Ten Best Travel Tunes:
“Big World” Joe Jackson
“Homeward Bound” Simon & Garfunkel
“I’ve Been Everywhere” Johnny Cash
“Running on Empty” Jackson Browne
“1,000 Miles” Dwight Yoakam
“Leaving on a Jet Plane” Peter, Paul & Mary
“Ramble On” Led Zeppelin
“Midnight Rider” The Allman Brothers Band
“Tangled Up in Blue” Bob Dylan
“On the Road Again” Willie Nelson
12 Traveler Personality Types:
Trophy Travelers
Escorted Tour Travelers
Special Interest Travelers
Adventurer Travelers
Self-Indulgent Travelers
Independent Package Travelers
Contrarian Travelers
Urban Sophisticate Travelers
Great Outdoors Travelers
Beach Bum Travelers
Foodie Travelers
Cheapskate Travelers
Ten Worst Global Cuisines:
Dutch
Israeli
Philippines
Mongolian
Korean
English
Hungarian
Russian
Ethopian
Chinese (I know, they made both lists?!)
Ten Wonderful Train Stations:
Chhatrapati Shivaji (Victoria Terminus), Mumbai
Grand Central Station, New York
Osaka Station, Japan
Antwerp Central, Belgium
Gare Du Nord, Paris
Union Station, Washington DC
Amsterdam Central, Netherlands
Gare do Oriente, Lisbon
St. Pancras, London
Milano Centrale, Italy
Ten Great Places to Sleep:
Under the stars the desert
On a tropical island beach
The Bangkok Oriental
Next to someone you love
Next to someone you want to love
With your kid in a tent
On a moored sailboat in harbor
On a night train
At a great big city hotel
Next to a campfire hiking
Ten Wonderful Medium Sized Cities:
Cuzco, Peru
Kyoto, Japan
Santa Fe, USA
Florence, Italy
Prague, Czech
Burges, Belgium
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Porto, Portugal
La Palma, Spain
Mendoza, Argentina
Ten Ideas of Travel Paradise:
The Amalfi Coast
The Greek Islands
Up-country Bali
The Dalmatian Coast
Malibu
Whistler/Blackcomb Mountain
Paris in the spring
A cross country drive
A week at a lake front cottage
Open ended traveling
The Ten Best Travel Movies:
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Around the World in 80 Day (1956)
Indiana Jones (1981)
Seven Years in Tibet (1997)
Sheltering Sky (1990)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Until the End of the World (1991)
Out of Africa (1985)
Endless Summer (1966)
Airplane (1980)
Top Ten Reasons to Travel:
The food
The smells
The sunsets
The smiles
The art
The serendipity
The adventure
Never ending learning
Challenging yourself
Getting away from it all…
Ten Things We Love about Traveling:
• lack of daily routine and being on a come-what-may travel schedule;
• out of comfort zone and default operating position;
• variety: new sights, new food, new cultures, new people;
• constant learning & always questioning your assumptions;
• feeling alive and in the moment and re-introducing yourself
to your five best friends—your senses!
• feeling the breeze on a boat traveling some exotic river;
• hearing my footsteps echo in a medieval cathedral;
• smelling the exotic spices walking through an ancient souk;
• hearing the clink of cocktail glasses and silverware in Venice;
• arriving with anticipation in a new destination;
• willingly getting up to watch the sunrise…in Bagan, among other beguiling destinations.
The Ten Best Travel Movies:
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Around the World in 80 Day (1956)
Indiana Jones (1981)
Seven Years in Tibet (1997)
Sheltering Sky (1990)
The Man Who Would Be King (1975)
Until the End of the World (1991)
Out of Africa (1985)
Endless Summer (1966)
Airplane (1980)
Top Ten Reasons to Travel:
The food
The smells
The sunsets
The smiles
The art
The serendipity
The adventure
Never ending learning
Challenging yourself
Getting away from it all…
Ten Things We Love about Traveling:
• lack of daily routine and being on a come-what-may travel schedule;
• out of comfort zone and default operating position;
• variety: new sights, new food, new cultures, new people;
• constant learning & always questioning your assumptions;
• feeling alive and in the moment and re-introducing yourself
to your five best friends—your senses!
• feeling the breeze on a boat traveling some exotic river;
• hearing my footsteps echo in a medieval cathedral;
• smelling the exotic spices walking through an ancient souk;
• hearing the clink of cocktail glasses and silverware in Venice;
• arriving with anticipation in a new destination;
• willingly getting up to watch the sunrise…in Bagan, among other beguiling destinations.
Phrases We Hate to Hear When Traveling:
“…it’s just a mechanical delay!”
”…trust me…”
“…please get into the back seat of the police car!”
“…please follow me for a secondary search!”
“…sorry, we have no record of your reservation!”
“…that’s it, no more luggage left!”
“…your passport is gone!”
“…your flight has been canceled!”
“…that was the last plane out tonight!”
“…all the ATM’s are out.”
“…your card has been declined, do you have another one?”
“…please fasten your seat belts, we’re in for a few bumps. Flight attendants, please be seated.”
The 10 Worst Travel Clichés:
The French are rude.
Been there, done that, what’s next?
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
It is a land of contrasts.
Discerning travelers know…
It is off-the-beaten track.
There is something for everyone here.
Home is where the heart is.
No matter where you go—there you are.
When in Rome…
A Bakers Dozen of Wonders To See In South American:
Andes Mountains
Angel Falls (Venezuela)
Colca Canyon (Peru)
Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)
Atacama Desert (Chile & Peru)
Iguassu/Iguazu Falls (Argentina & Brazil)
Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia)
Pantanal (Brazil)
Amazon Delta
Torres del Paine (Chile)
La Grand Sabana (Venezuela)
Lake Titicaca (Peru & Bolivia)
Tierra del Fuego (Argentina)
Top Ten Eating Out Rules:
Never order fish on a Monday.
If you can’t see the water, don’t eat the fish.
Never eat at an establishment with a dirty washroom.
Forget the buffets, but if you do…scan it first.
If you don’t recognize what you’re eating, wait until after it’s finished to ask what it is!
Don’t eat the Guinee pig.
Make sure the pork is cooked.
Eat a busy place, not an empty place
Avoid set tourist menus.
Don’t eat where you sleep.
Top Ten Mass Transit Systems:
Amsterdam’s bikes
Barcelona’s Metro
Hong Kong-Kowloon Star Ferry
London’s Underground
Los Angeles Freeways
Moscow’s Metro
Paris’s Metro
San Francisco’s Cable Cars & Street Cars
Venice’s Vaporetti boats
Swiss Highway Tunnels
Our Top Ten Favorite Local Transport Options:
Felucca in Egypt
Bullet Trains in Japan
Long-tail boats in Bangkok
Biking in Amsterdam & Copenhagen
Uber in New York
BC Ferries
Savannah’s St Charles Ave Street Cars
Ambassador cabs in Delhi
Manila jeepneys
Hong Kong-Macau hydrofoils
The Top Ten Watering Holes (Okay, Twentyish!):
Africa House, Zanzibar
Bird House Bar, Anchorage, Alaska
Bloody Mary’s, Bora Bora
Cafe Commercial, Madrid, Spain
Cafe Hungria, Budapest, Hungary
Cafe Kazze, Tel Aviv, Israel
Cafe Santa, Deia, Mallorca, Spain
Caribou Club, Aspen, Colorado, USA,
Chaya Venice, Santa Monica, USA
Dragon Room, Pink Adobe, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
FCCC, Phnom Penh
Harry’s Bar, Venice, Italy
King’s Head, Islington, London, England
Kipling Bar at Strand Hotel, Yangon, Myanmar
La Gritta, Portofino, Italy
Long Bar, Raffles, Singapore
Million Dollar Bar, Jackson, Wyoming, USA
Sheraton, Telluride, Colorado, USA
Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland
The Truck, Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan
Tito’s on Baga Beach, Goa, India
Widder Bar in Widder Hotel, Zurich, Switzerland
Ten Unusual Things to See Traveling the World:
Dongchuan, Red Land in China
Glass Beach, Fort Bragg – California
The crystal blue waters of Levanzo, Sicily
Kawachi Fuji Gardens, Japan
Any great animal migration
Sunflower fields of France
The Northern Lights
Banaue Rice Terraces, Philippines
Monument Valley at sunrise or sunset
Snow ghosts
A Few Either/Or Choices:
JFK or EWR? (JFK)
Florida or Hawaii? (Hawaii)
Rome or Florence? (Florence)
LA or SF? (SF)
Paris or London? (Paris)
ATL or O’Hare? (ATL)
10 day trip or three 4-day trips? (10 day trips)
Louvre Musee or Musee O’rsay? (O’rsay)
Europe or Asia? (Asia)
Vienna or Berlin? (Vienna)
Croatia or Cinque de Terre? (Croatia)
Panama or Mexico? (Panama)
Hong Kong or Singapore? (HGK)
De Gaulle or Heathrow for connections? (De Gaulle)
Window or Aisle? (Window)
Turkey or Greece? (Turkey)
Prague or Budapest? (Budapest)
Australia or New Zealand? (NZ)
Beijing or Shanghai? (Beijing)
Dubai or Las Vegas? (Vegas…easier to get to and you can kiss in public!)
Bangkok or Singapore? (Bangkok)
Bali or Phuket? (Bali)
France or Italy? (Italy)
Amsterdam or Copenhagen? (Copenhagen)
7-day cruise or 7-day resort? (Resort)
Disneyland or Disney World? (Save your money & stay home)
Buenos Aries or Rio di Janeiro? (Rio)
Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat? (Machu Picchu)
Tanzania or Zambia? (Zambia)
Uganda or Angola? (Angola)
China or Vietnam? (Vietnam)
Nepal or Tibet? (Nepal)
Dubai or Qatar? (Dubai)
…we could go on.
Dante’s Nine Rings of Travel Hell (circa 2015):
1. The Post 9/11 travel motto: hurry up and wait!
2. A la carte Airline pricing that literally nickel and dimes you to death!
3. Spoiled, “Don’t you know who I am?” travelers…you know who they are!
4. The general state of US domestic flying…it went from bad to worse!
5. My secret fear of running out of reading material on the plane or during delays.
6. Being charged for spending my money by banks…ATM usage fees, currency conversion penalties and international transaction fees oh my!
7. Renting a hotel room for a day and not being able to stay for a full day—which by the way is 24-hours!
8. Paying anyone for Wi-Fi.
9. Boarding planes…folks, last rows first please…like filling a glass—you can’t start at the top and go down!
Our Top Ten Favorite Streets:
Fifth Avenue, New York
Champs-Elysees, Paris
Avenida de Mao, Buenos Aires
Bourbon Street, New Orleans
Avinguda de Gaudi, Barcelona
The Bund, Shanghai
Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem
Long Acre, London
Khao an Road, Bangkok
Sesame Street (Just checking if you’re reading this!)
The Ten Worst Flights To Take:
TLV-EWR
MUM-EWR
JNB-ATL
JFK-HKG
LAX-SYD
SYD-DFW
AUH-LAX
JED-LAX
NBO-AMS
LOS-DXB
The World’s Ten Must See Aquariums:
Monterey Bay Aquarium, California
Shanghai Ocean Aquarium, China
National Aquarium, Baltimore
L’Oceanografic, Valencia, Spain
Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, Japan
Georgia Aquarium, Atlanta
Sea Life Busan Aquarium, South Korea
Genoa Aquarium, Italy
Two Oceans Aquarium, South Africa
Vancouver Aquarium, Canada
Ten Views Worth the Trip:
Belfry Tower, Bruges, Belgium
Campanile over St, Mark’s Square, Venice, Italy
City Walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia
CN Tower, Toronto, Canada
Corcovado & Sugarloaf, Rio, Brazil
Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Empire State Building, Manhattan, USA
La Torre Latinoamericana, Mexico City
Phou Si Temple, Laung Prabang, Laos
Sydney Harbor Bridge, Australia
Our Top Ten Travel Pet Peeves:
Talkative American travelers!
When airlines never tell the truth about flight delays?
The many too lines for Third World flight departures!
Scandalous inflight conditions: no legroom, bad food, poor service, bad air, advertising as entertainment.
Lack of consistency for carry-on luggage rules.
Lack of mass transit into downtown areas.
The German’s (ROT) ritual of towels (They save the best beach sites at 5 am).
Being woken up by maid service at 8:00AM.
Airline advertising flight prices (one-way based on round-trip purchase…kind of like giving you the price of one shoe!)
Our Favorite Travel Books (Contemporary Edition):
“Jaguars Ripped My Flesh” by Tim Cahill
“Video Night in Kathmandu” & “The Global Soul” by Pico Iyer
“Holidays In Hell” by P.J. O’Rourke
“Sacred Roads” by Nicholas Shrady
“In The Footsteps of Alexander The Great” by Michael Wood
“A Blind Date With The World” by William D. Chalmers
“Incidents of Travel in Yucatan” by John Llody Stephens
“The Art of Pilgrimage” by Phil Cousineau
“Journey Without Maps” by Graham Greene
“Bad Trips” Edited by Keath Fraser
“A Movable Feast” by Ernst Hemmingway
“The Sheltering Sky” by Paul Bowles
“Innocents Abroad” by Mark Twain
“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” by Lord Byron
“On The Road” by Jack Kerouac
“The Seven Pillars of Wisdom” by T.E. Lawrence
Our Favorite Travel Books (The Classics):
“Around the World in Eighty Days” by Jules Verne
“The Travels” by Marco Polo
“Travels” by Inb Battuta
“Castaways” by Alvar Nunez Cabera de Vaca
“Mutiny on the Bounty” by William Bligh
“Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile” by John H. Speke
“Journals” by Meriwether Lewis & William Clark
“Journals” by James Cook
“Through The Dark Continent” by Henry M. Stanley
“The Voyage of the Beagle” by Charles Darwin
“Principal Navigations” by Richard Hakluyt
The Top Ten Missing Wonders of the World:
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Chichén Itzá, Mexico
Bagan Plains, Myanmar
Borobudur, Java, Indonesia
Forbidden City, Beijing, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
Portola, Lhasa, Tibet
Terra Cotta Army, Xi’an, China
Tikal, Guatemala
A Few of Our Favorite Mosques:
Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, Iran
Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, Spain
Koutoubia Mosque, Morocco
Blue Mosque, Istanbul
Ayasofia, Istanbul
Ibn Tulun, Egypt
Blue Mosque, Cairo, Egypt
Hassan II Mosque, Morocco
Ubudiah Mosque, Malaysia
Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque, Malaysia
Jama Masjid, Delhi, India
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi
Masjid Sultan Qaaboos, Oman
Top Ten Shopping Areas:
Amsterdam side streets, Holland
Damnoen Saduak’s Floating Market, Bangkok, Thailand
Barkhor Bazaar-Jokhang, Lhasa, Tibet
Cairo Bazaar, Egypt
Kurfurstendamm, Berlin, Germany
Venice Beach, Venice California, USA
Pisca Market, Peru
Via Condotti, Rome, Italy
Thamel, Katmandu, Nepal
Toledo Street, Naples, Italy
Ginza Shopping District, Tokyo, Japan
Witches Market, La Paz, Bolivia
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