Bath makes National Geographic Traveller's Best of the World 2023 list

Bath has made National Geographic Traveller (UK)'s annual list of 35 inspiring destinations, unveiled in London today. 

The list was revealed by the magazine as travel continues to make a roaring return, to help individuals get a jump on planning for the year ahead in the renewed travel landscape. 

For 2023, National Geographic’s Best of the World list is themed around travel destinations and experiences that leverage the benefits of tourism to strengthen their local communities and environments, both natural and built.  

The list for the year ahead celebrates destinations and travel experiences that illuminate our beautiful world and the diversity of communities and people within it, grouped by category: Family, Adventure, Culture and Nature.  

New this year, however, is a Community category, designed to be inclusive of healing and heritage journeys, community-led conservation efforts, ways for travellers to give back, and locations doing groundbreaking work in eco-tourism, sustainability and inclusive travel. The goal is to spotlight destinations where people make places better for locals, the environment and visitors, and to showcase homegrown, rooted, locally relevant and engaged places to visit. 

Pat Riddell, editor of National Geographic Traveller (UK), says: “The annual list reflects the travel landscape as we see it for the 12 months ahead. With options on your doorstep, a short hop across to Europe or much further afield, this year’s 35 destinations offer insight into a vast array of experiences available for visitors from far and wide."

"From a UNESCO visitor centre in Bath and the role citizen science is playing in conservation in Tanzania to the reopened Trans-Bhutan Trail connecting communities across the Himalayan country, Best of the World highlights some of the most exciting and exceptional experiences around the planet in 2023.” 

The list was created, researched, reported and written in collaboration with National Geographic Traveller’s international editorial teams, which serve millions of readers through their magazines and websites in more than a dozen offices around the world.

National Geographic Traveller (UK)’s Best of the World 2023 list is an extended version of National Geographic’s list of the same name with 25 entries, and includes an additional 10 entries for a UK audience. The list will be published in the December 2022 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK), on newsstands from 3 November. 

The Best of the World 2023 list is available online now at nationalgeographic.co.uk/best-of-the-world, where readers will be transported to each destination through spectacular photography and reporting.