Travel experiences for 2010

'Best of' lists — By Bob Riel on January 4, 2010 at 7:30 am

Welcome to a new year (and a new decade)! If you’re looking for not only a travel destination but also a travel experience for 2010, then this article from Lonely Planet is a good place to begin. It gives you nine great things to do in 2010, from Olympics to eclipses. Here is an excerpt:

Total eclipse from Easter Island – Sunday 11 July … will see a total eclipse of the sun, visible from a corridor that traverses the southern Pacific Ocean. About half-way through, it’ll cross over one of the world’s most extraordinary and isolated places, Easter Island. This will be the best possible place to observe the eclipse, with the darkened sun lingering above the northwestern horizon. It’s hard to beat the combination of a shadowed sun, a Polynesian island, and 887 ancient monumental statues.

Vancouver Winter Olympics, Canada – From 12th to 28th February, the Winter Olympics will be doing their chilly thing in Vancouver, while the slopes of Whistler, 120km north, will host the skiing and sledging events. This icy extravaganza encompasses an incredible 86 sports, including the obvious (skiing, ice hockey and figure skating), and the obscure (curling, anyone?). Be there, if only to see how they’ll try to top the Beijing Olympics opening celebrations.

Pushkar Camel Fair, India- As the morning light sharpens, the scene near Pushkar, a tiny pilgrimage town in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, comes into focus. Hundreds of camels and their owners’ camps fill the desert scrub. One of India’s most spectacular festivals (18th to 21st November, 2010), the camel fair began as a sideshow of the Katrik Purnima, before becoming an attraction in its own right. The noise is remarkable, an unearthly chorus of camel snorts, fairground rides, people and distorted sound systems. Colour and chaos prevail: camels, horses, tribal people, tourists and film crews all play their parts in creating the scene. Plus, if you’re in the market for a camel, this is where to head.

Check out the full story for six other ideas.