Where to fly in 2018

My year-end story for CNBC was a look forward at places to go in 2018. Here’s a slightly different version of that story.

A great year-end tradition is sitting down with a map and a glass of wine and reviewing the places you have been in the past year and setting out a wish list for where to go when the calendar resets.

The possibilities of where to go next can seem endless – and expensive – but travel experts have loads of suggested destinations and plenty of tips to get you started on next year’s journeys.

  Winning historic US Main Streets

 Eleven cities and towns around the United States are sharing more than $1.5 million in preservation grant funds recently awarded by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to preserve unique features of downtown districts large and small.

Head to Casa Grande, AZ to see how the vintage neon sign park is coming along; how renovation is progressing on the historic Formosa Cafe (once a haunt of Hollywood celebrities and organized crime figures) along Route 66 in West Hollywood, CA; and if the recently reopened 1913 Woodward Theater in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood has reconstructed the building’s historic marquee. See the full list of Main Street winners here.

Party in Paris

 During 2018, Paris will host the 10th edition of the Gay Games in August and the iconic Ryder Cup gold tournament in September. March brings the opening of Lafayette Anticipations, a public gathering place in the heart of the Marais that will present a wide variety of events and works of contemporary art, design and fashion. And L’Atelier des Lumières, an immersive digital museum of fine art located in a former iron foundry, is set to open in April with work by major artists projected on the facility’s 26-foot-high walls.

(Takashi Murakami, Kelin’s Pot A, courtesy The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth)

Frolic in Fort Worth

Visitors to Fort Worth get an authentic taste of the Old West twice daily, when Texas cowhands drive a herd of Texas longhorns down Exchange Avenue in in the Stockyards National Historic District. For a taste of Texas-made whiskey and bourbon, visitors can now head to southeast Fort Worth, which is home to Firestone & Robertson Distilling Co.’s new Whiskey Ranch complex. The 112-acre “whiskey wonderland,” thought to be the largest whiskey distillery west of the Mississippi, also has a tavern and a historic 18-hole golf course on site.

In the city’s cultural district, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth will host a Takashi Murakami retrospective titled “The Octopus Eats Its Own Leg,” from June 10 through September 16. The exhibition will feature 50 works by Murakami, who is known for his collaborations with pop icon Kanye West and fashion house Louis Vuitton.

Celebrate the Erie Canal

In New York State, a multi-year celebration marking the bicentennial of the construction of the Erie Canal is underway in cities, towns and villages throughout the Canal corridor, which includes major cities such as Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany.

To celebrate the bicentennial of the completion of the Erie Canal, as well as the 150th anniversary of glassmaking coming to the city of Corning, in May 2018 the Corning Museum of Glass will launch GlassBarge, a canal barge outfitted with glassmaking equipment. The floating glass studio will make a four-month journey from Brooklyn to Buffalo, traveling north on the Hudson River and then westward on the Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo, making stops in towns and cities along the way to offer free glassblowing demonstrations.

New York’s Finger Lakes region, which reaches from Rochester to Syracuse, has also expanded its Craft Your Adventure Beverage Trail  to include 29 different stops for craft beer, hard ciders and spirits throughout the region.

Be wowed in World Record spots

World’s Tallest Outdoor Rock Climbing Wall_ courtesy Whitney Peak Hotel

 A 19 percent year-over-year increase in domestic bookings suggests to American Express Travel that in 2018 many Americans will be seeking adventures and unique experiences close to home.

That includes visits to World Record hot spots in the U.S. such as the World’s Tallest Outdoor Rock-Climbing Wall in Reno, NV; Bowling Green, KY’s Mammoth Cave National Park, which is home to the world’s longest known cave system; the World’s Largest Living Tree – a giant sequoia named General Sherman – in California’s Sequoia National Park; and the volcanic-formed Crater Lake, OR which, at 1,943 feet, is America’s deepest lake.

Lots more options – and lots more lists

Overview of Paine River and snow-capped Paine Massif in Chile. Photo by Matt Munro.

The editors at a variety of travel sites and publications share extensive lists of hot destinations and editors’ top picks each year. National Geographic offers lots of “Why Go Now” reasons to visit far-flung cities ranging from Harar, Ethiopia and Tbilisi, Georgia to Oaxaca, Mexico and Sydney, Australia in 2018.

And for their Best in Travel 2018 suggestions, the editors at Lonely Planet have put together multiple lists, including the Top 10 Countries, with Chile, South Korea and Portugal at the top the list, and their Top 10 Cities, topped by Seville, Spain and Detroit, Michigan, which is bouncing back after years of decline.

 

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