This week: Have you heard? Our Best in Travel 2025 list is live!

Whenever I visit a destination on Lonely Planet's Best in Travel list, I am overcome with deep pride. Our team has spent many months (and flights, train rides, hikes, etc) researching, writing, photographing, capturing and editing video footage - you name it - to make sure we get this list right. We want you to feel our same passion for traveling and learning about the world in 2025.

Here's an example: I just got back from a trip with my mom (girls' trip!) to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina's Lowcountry, which is one of our top US destinations to visit in 2025. We strolled up and down the beaches, watching the tide go in and out, cycled under canopies of Spanish moss, savored oysters that had been caught that very morning and, most importantly, witnessed the season's very last sea turtle hatchlings crawling to the sea. It's extraordinary moments like this that I think, "I get it. Thanks, Lonely Planet!"

Best in Travel, like any Lonely Planet guidebook, is a labor of love. I hope you can feel the love for these places as much as I do.

Ann Douglas Lott

Editor

Less famous than its neighbors Thailand and Vietnam, Laos can sometimes sink into obscurity along the Southeast Asia backpacking trail. Don't let it. Here's how to make the most of your visit.

Guide to Laos

Genoa is more than an entry point to the Italian Riviera. Try its delicious specialties: pànera coffee, Corochinato liqueur and (of course) pesto. Here's where to go on your food tour of the city.

How to eat your way across Genoa

Scoop up an 18th-century French town and plop it down in the middle of coastal Tamil Nadu, India, and voilà: you have Puducherry (formerly Pondicherry). Go for the French food and architecture; stay for the temples, ashrams, galleries and more.

A first-time guide to Puducherry

In addition to its Alpine adventures and numerous beer festivals, we may have to declare Bavaria to be not only the castle capital of Germany, but of the whole of Europe. See for yourself!

You can visit all of these castles

Saily is an affordable, user-friendly and sustainable eSIM service that provides a stable, fast and secure internet connection when you're traveling the world. As Lonely Planet's recommended eSIM service, use code LP5 to receive 5% off your Saily mobile data plan when traveling to Best in Travel destinations and beyond.*

Fiji's archipelago of more than 330 islands enchants visitors with white-gold beaches, ultramarine oceans, technicolor coral reefs and lush rainforests, with happiness and good cheer at its heart.

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Photography by: Rintaro Kanemoto for Lonely Planet, Zummolo/Getty Images, Gabriela Bhaskar for Lonely Planet, Aleh Varanishcha/Getty Images, Saily.

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