Lonely Planet’s Winter from your Window competition, where we encouraged our followers to submit pictures of what they could see from their windows via our Facebook page, closed recently. We have had a great response, with a total of 411 pictures submitted between the 16th and 31st of January. The standard of the competition was so high, we have had to mull it over for several days – some members of the judging panel even consulted with their pillows before reaching a conclusion… Some of you interpreted “taking a picture from your window” loosely, so we got some entries from people sending pictures from hotel windows, car windows, gas platform windows (!) – even some from people who live in houses with no windows! We wanted to show you a selection of some of the best submissions, so check out the following 20 – they are listed in no particular order. We will be picking  the winner and runner ups shortly from amongst them (watch this space and our Facebook page for updates): 1. The sun is rising outside my window in Chur, in the middle of the Swiss alps – Marco L. 2. Sunrise close to North Pole, Copenhagen – Amit O. 3. January light in Oslo, Norway – Audun Bakke A. 4. A Winter Sunset in Wales – Laura H. 5. Does it count if I don’t have any walls, therefore, no windows? View from my lovely beach hut, Koh Phayam, Thailand – Erin M. 6. City in the sky – Yiu Lee M. 7. The first snow of the season falling over Belgrade, Serbia, on a misty afternoon in January – Maria A. 8. Winter in Lithuania. View from my window at home – Darius A. 9. Misurina frozen lake, Italian dolomites (Veneto) – Federica G. 10. Winter in British Columbia from my desk… – Jo B. 11. The fantastic view that i have from my window in Lac Leman, Vaud Swtizerland – Hin Kwan F. 12. The view from my window in Bolungarvík, the northernmost village in the Westfjords of Iceland – Gústaf G. 13. Cambodian Winter at Serendipity Beach. A monsoonal storm passes over the Sihanoukville coastline as lightning strikes the islands of Koh Russei and Koh Praeus – Anthony F. 14. At the Troll C platform in the North Sea – Kare L. 15. This is what I see from my office…lots of plane trails, lots people comming or leaving BCN…and I find myself wondering which will be my next destination! – Ignacio A. 16. There is something about this view spot from my window in Abu Halifa, Kuwait. Perhaps, the dramatic sunset during winter here. I can write poems and songs with endless words from this composition – Vergel B. 17. South of Germany, “Schwäbische Alb” – Katharina F. 18. This was taken during work in my office in Vilnius (Lithuania) – about a week ago. It made me realize, that some of the clouds are made in our city by people themselves… – Eglė S. 19. Magical Northern lights show! and just out of my window :) It was taken on the night of 22.January in Aurland, Norway. So powerful it was that even down in the west part of Norway could it be seen – Fabiola S. 20. Chilly winds, and usually cloudy. Today, finally, I could capture the January sun in my window’s reflection, less than an hour before sunset – Peter D. Which one is your favourite?

Thanks for entering Lonely Planet’s Travel Adventures competition. Here’s some important stuff you should know. Who’s running the show? The promoter is Lonely Planet Publications Pty Limited (ABN 36 005 607 983) of 90 Maribyrnong Street, Footscray, Victoria 3011 Australia.  Our friends at Nokia at Nokia House,  Keilalahdentie, 02150, Espoo, Finland are our promotional partner. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. You understand that you are providing your information to Lonely Planet, and not to Facebook. Information about the prizes and how to enter, and Facebook’s Terms of Use, form part of these conditions of entry. By entering the promotion, these conditions of entry apply to your entry. Any changes to these conditions of entry will be published on the Lonely Planet website at www.lonelyplanet.com, so you should check these conditions of entry regularly. Can I play? You must be aged 13 years or older at the time of the promotion, in order to be eligible to enter.  If you are under 18 years of age at the time of the promotion, you have to get permission from your parents or legal guardian to enter, and we will need to verify this if you are selected winner.  The laws in some places don’t allow Lonely Planet to run this promotion, in which case the promotion and these conditions of entry are void in those places.  Also, you cannot enter this promotion if: you are a resident of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Myanmar/Burma, Syria and any other U.S. sanctioned country; or you (or your immediate families or housemates) are employed by Lonely Planet, Nokia or their subsidiaries and affiliated companies. How do I play? To enter, go to the ‘Photo Contest – Travel Adventures’ competition tab on Lonely Planet’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/lonelyplanet), complete the entry form and submit a picture of the most adventurous thing you have done in your travels, together with a brief (200 characters or less) caption to provide any context. You don’t have to buy anything to enter.  You can enter between 10am GMT on 1st February to 10am GMT on 29th February. Your entry is received at the time Lonely Planet receives it.  If your dog eats your entry, it’s not Lonely Planet’s fault.  If your entry gets lost in cyberspace or doesn’t arrive for any other reason, that’s not Lonely Planet’s fault either.  Lonely Planet might have to extend the dates of the promotion, but only if it’s totally unavoidable, and we’ll let you know if we do. How do you pick the winner? Rather than consulting tea leaves, the winner’s will be selected by a panel of 3 judges, including an independent judge. Two judges will review all eligible entries, and will select a shortlist of 20 entries from which the third (independent) judge will then select the entry that best encapsulates the feeling of adventure. This unenviable task will happen in a small, dark room at 201 Wood Lane, London during the first week of March (or at an undisclosed location otherwise determined as required by Lonely Planet). The judges’ decision is final (so there!) and no correspondence will be entered into, even if you think that sucks. Lady luck has nothing to do with this promotion. Lonely Planet can cancel or modify the promotion if there are compelling technical or administrative reasons which we cannot control.  If that happens, Lonely Planet will pick a winner from all eligible entries received at that time. What can I win? First prize consists of 1 Nokia Lumia 800 phone (provided by Nokia – approximate retail value £399.99).  Note that only the phone is provided – a SIM card is not included. There are also 5 runner-up prizes of 1 copy of any Lonely Planet guide of your choice (excluding pictorials) (provided by Lonely Planet – approximate retail value £14.99). The total prize value is approximately £474.94.  These prize values are accurate at the start of the promotion. If you do win … You can’t exchange the prize for cash, or ask us to give it to someone else (not that you’d want to!).  We will use reasonable efforts to award the prize as described, but, if due to unforeseen circumstances we are unable to do that, we’ll substitute it either for cash or another prize of comparable value, but we’ll decide which. You’ll be responsible for all taxes, insurance, connection fees, data charges, and any other expenses, fees and costs connected with that prize that are not included in the prize description. You are responsible for your use of the prize, including complying with any applicable terms and conditions of use.  Of course, if you win a prize, you’ll be good and comply with all relevant laws, rules and regulations. How do I find out if I won? We’ll give the winners the good news by email and their names will be published on the Lonely Planet website within 2 days after selection.  If you’re riddled with curiosity, send us a stamped, self‑addressed envelope (including the name of the promotion) to us within 3 months of the date of selection of the winner, and we’ll write back and tell you who won. Lonely Planet will do its best to find the winner.  But if we can’t, or if the winner hasn’t accepted the prize by May 31st, 2012 the next best entry will be declared the winner. What happens to my entry? You agree that all of your entry is your own work. On submission, your entry becomes the property of Lonely Planet, and you give Lonely Planet a worldwide, irrevocable licence to reproduce, publish, adapt, communicate and broadcast all or part of it for the purposes of the Travel Adventures competition. You also consent to us editing, re-using, storing, reproducing and communicating your entry in any medium.  Generally, we will attribute you as the author where possible, but in some circumstances, we may decide not to. Lonely Planet will only use the personal information contained in your entry to conduct the promotion and award the prize (but if you’ve told Lonely Planet that you want to receive stuff from us and/or our promotional partners, we’ll use your personal information for that too). If you win a prize, Lonely Planet can use your name and photograph for future marketing purposes unless you tell us not to.  We will keep your personal information in accordance with Lonely Planet’s privacy policy at http://www.lonelyplanet.com/legal/privacy-policy Good luck!

The Oxford English Dictionary contains over 600,000 unique words – surely enough to describe any situation, one would think. But as any traveler knows, the world has a way of confronting us with sights and experiences that can leave even the smartest among us at a loss for words. Sometimes we’re limited by our vocabularies, but often the word we need to describe what we’ve seen and done simply doesn’t exist…yet. Thankfully, languages can evolve and grow to meet our needs, so here are 30 highly useful brand-new travel words and phrases to liven up your next postcard or travelogue: afterglobe n. The warm, fuzzy feeling one gets after a long immensely satisfying trip. autobanhmi n. A Vietnamese sandwich eaten while driving at high speed. automobilogic n. The state of mind unique to road trips that convinces travelers that gummi bears and fried onion rings count as a daily serving of fruits and vegetables. Studies indicate that this may lead to automobesity. bangclock n. The amount of time a weary traveler can tolerate the sounds of sexual intercourse through thin hotel walls before pounding angrily on the wall. below see level prep. When you’re seated directly below the drop-down movie screen on an airplane and the other screens are all too far away to view comfortably. bratpacker n. Someone who believes they have a revolutionary system for packing luggage and insists on explaining it to anyone who will listen. carbungle n. Embarrassment caused by trying and failing to start, find reverse, or otherwise operate an unfamiliar automobile in a foreign country and having to ask someone for help. comeuppants n. When an obnoxious person loses their luggage and has no change of clothes. crankophone n. Someone who tries to make themselves understood in a foreign country simply by speaking louder in their own tongue. egotourism n. An approach to travel that purports to serve the local culture, environment, or further personal growth, but in reality only artificially inflates a traveler’s sense of self importance. farflunk v. Intending to take long trips but completely failing to make them happen. fearenheit n. Panic felt by Americans when attempting to comprehend temperatures in other countries. filibluster v. To cause pointless delay by creating a scene in the airport security line to prove some point about personal privacy rights that no one behind you cares about. frankophile n. A traveler obsessed with accumulating passport stamps. frequent liar program n. Travelers who will say anything to receive upgrades on flights or hotel rooms, free meals, etc. fungalavant v. To travel the world spreading athlete’s foot from one hostel shower to the next. gap fear n. Wanting to take a year off to travel, but being too chicken and going straight to university instead. globetrots n. Traveler’s diarrhea from one or more countries on a round the world trip. grabbagger n. A traveler that clings like a barnacle to the baggage carousel and won’t budge until their bag appears. ingesticulate v. To point and mime to order food when you don’t know the local language. lavatorpor n. Taking far too long in the airplane toilet. meddle detector n. One skilled at predetermining who will hold up the line unnecessarily at a security checkpoint. overhead din n. The disturbance caused by people trying to shove too-large bags into too-small compartments. peripathetic adj. Miserable due to a lack of upcoming travel plans. rack rate n. A discount on a hotel room for having a large bust. saggamuffin n. What passes for a pastry in an airplane breakfast. trambunctious adj. Overly excited by riding trains, funiculars, and other forms of public transport. trapscallion n. A talkative stranger with foul-breath in a situation where escape isn’t possible. (Synonym: palitosis.) tuk-tuk-tuck n. The maneuver required to wedge a large tourist into a small motorized tricycle. xorse’s ass n. Someone who has just returned from their first trip to Mexico and has decided to pronounce it “Meh-hee-co” to sound cultured. Can you help add to the travel lexicon? Suggest your own in the comments below. [Many thanks to Jennye Garibaldi and Candace Driskell for contributions to this glossary.] Looking for somewhere in the world to try out your newly expanded vocabulary? Lonely Planet’s 1000 Ultimate Sights is packed with travel ideas guaranteed to inspire new words.

Have you ever found yourself slogging up the side of a mountain, silently wishing you had known how to shed a few pounds from that backpack before starting out? Or perhaps you once wound up at a posh English country house for the weekend, but didn’t know the correct etiquette for pouring and passing the port after dinner? To travel is to ask questions of the world around you. Confronting the unknown is one of the reasons we do it, right? The questions that exercise travellers’ minds embrace everything from the general (what colour are the buses in Africa?) to the specific (is that my Timbuktu bus disappearing over the horizon!). They might arise in the planning phase long before a trip begins, or pop into your head while you wait for that flight, or become a matter of urgency as you bump down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. From time to time all of us wish we had an all-embracing almanac, a book that could tell us everything, stowed within easy reach. Well, Lonely Planet wants to give you that book of…everything. But to do so we need to hear the unsolved riddles of your life as a traveller. Which nagging questions have set your mind aflame while you were out on the road? What brain teasers have robbed you of sleep in a foreign land? Perhaps you want to know how to make the perfect Singapore sling, or find the preferred technique for wrestling an alligator while knee deep in a billabong, or maybe you’d just like to understand how the hotel trouser press works. It might be a titbit of trivia or a matter of life and death, but no matter how big or small your quest for knowledge, Lonely Planet wants to hear about it. But what if you have all the answers? Well, we’d love to hear from you, too, so we can help pass on that know-how and expertise to others. So if you have a question about how to do something travel-related, or know a way to do something that you’re willing to share, please email infographics@lonelyplanet.com.au

The USA’s least-visited state, North Dakota raised eyebrows recently, with a ‘flirty’ tourism ad ‘aimed at Canadians’ that suggested Fargo nightlife could lead to ‘legendary’ status in amorous matters del noche. The shot, one of 10 new ads, showed three women stopping on a Fargo sidewalk to chat with two guys — drinking beer! — with the caption: ‘Drinks, dinner, decisions. Arrive a guest. Leave a legend.’ Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, know-what-I-mean? After some viewers found it ‘sickening,’ North Dakota Tourism took down the ad from its Facebook account — but savvy collectors can still find it in the North Dakota 2012 visitors guide. Though the effect of tourism slogans remains questionable — and 15 of 50 states go without slogans altogether — I thought it was worth taking a look at the five most-suggestive state tourism slogans. 1. Mississippi: ‘Find your true south’ Indeed. Putting the X back in Biloxi, are we? 2. Nebraska: ‘Possibilities… endless’ Whether you go to Valentine or not. 3. Maine: ‘There’s more to Maine’ The ‘more’ is underlined on Maine’s site. Subtlety gets you nowhere in the northeastern tip of the US. 4. North Dakota: ‘Legendary’ We will never think of ‘legend,’ or North Dakota, the same way again. 5. Virginia: ‘Virginia is for lovers’ The state slogan since 1969, it now feels more PG than the others. Honorable mentions: Massachusetts (‘It’s all here’), Connecticut (‘Connecticut’) and Indiana (‘Restart your engines’).

A couple years ago, before attending a powerhouse travel conference – complete with PowerPoint, flowcharts, the whole deal – I made a t-shirt. A plain blue tee, with white block letters that read ‘TRAVEL IS FUN.’ I wore it as a gentle reminder. Yes, travel may transform and educate and benefit places we go (and make people money, of course). But that’s not really why we do it. We travel, mostly, just because it’s fun. Because it makes us happy. Of course there are no guarantees. In Happy, Lonely Planet’s new book on smile-inducing customs from cultures around the world, Maureen Wheeler writes, ‘Traveling to find happiness is probably always doomed to failure.’ It comes when you forget yourself and immerse yourself wherever you go. I agree. Yet, I couldn’t help but try to steer people into the path of oncoming happiness with a few tips I’ve learned over the years: 1. Say ‘yes’ as much as you can. Always delay a plan, or skip a museum entirely, to take up a local invite. It’s almost always better. I’ve had tons of offers inconvenient to my schedule that ended up delivering more memorable experiences. A day with a beekeeper in Siberia, a pick-up soccer game with kids outside the Hue citadel in Vietnam, a homestay during Diwali in the Punjab, a ‘potato on a stick’ demo in rural Oklahoma, coffee with the former Prime Minister of Bulgaria at a Dunkin’ Donuts. On my first day in the Middle East a decade ago, jet-lagged and without local currency, I headed straight from the Dubai airport to Muscat, Oman by bus. I was feeling a bit out of my element until I accepted an invite for a curry at a stop from a giant robed man with a gray beard and a Jedi vibe. I started to hesitate when he ordered ‘Eat!,’ he said with a wave you couldn’t refuse, then added Yoda-like, ‘What name they call you?’ And all was good. 2. Talk to be people, ask stuff. You can do a lot more than you might think, and be interested in stuff you didn’t think you cared about. Just ask. I’ve stopped at grain elevators and gotten personal tours by asking, collaborated on a ‘Chester Arthur sandwich’ with an Armenian-American sandwich-maker, trained with Mounties, became a colonial reenactor, and found out why South Dakota highways are pink (the quartzite). Just by asking. I’m not really into fossils. But once at a small roadside dinosaur museum in the Great Plains, I asked if the curator was around. Surprised by the request, he took me on a breezy tour of his favorite fossils, ones he had dug up himself. I won’t see fossils quite the same way again. 3. Try making lemonade out of delays. Sometimes a bump in the road can be a good thing. To write this post I drafted a list of 100 happy travel moments, and more than a handful centered around a broken-down car or a delay – like when I discovered the Montego Bay, Jamaica airport had one-cent video games during a 10-hour delay. More recently, I drove a ’72 Moskvitch around Bulgarian Black Sea coast. It was wonderful hunting out isolated beaches and talking with amused locals at gas stations, but the best came after I destroyed the clutch between two villages. After a helpless hour, I got a push to a mechanic with matching pirate earrings. He rushed to buy me beer, drove to nearby Burgas for a part, fixed it for almost nothing and meanwhile let me ride an old Soviet motorcycle (straight into a bush). ‘No steering – bad bike,’ he explained afterward. I drove away feeling better than I had the whole trip. 4. Get creative with views. Wherever I go somewhere, I try to start with a view. I always climb the towers (I love the Monument, Christopher Wren’s Great Fire Memorial in London) or find lower vantage points (the wee ped walkway on New York City’s Pulaski Bridge between Queens and Brooklyn is underrated). You can find them in surprising places too. Updating Lonely Planet’s USA book a decade ago, I learned that flatlands have mountain-top views without the altitude sickness. Kansas, for example, isn’t pancake flat (Florida is closer to pancake-flat actually), but rolls gently atop what once where prehistoric seafloors. The horizon out of one window on the interstate looked dozens of miles away, but just a mile or two out the other. I detoured towards it. And found myself on the crest of a swelling plain – with huge views. And I was alone. 5. Stop. Ever notice how you can’t find a parking place circling blocks in a car, but once watching from a sidewalk you find them open up – and open up? That’s sort of my travel rule: slow travel (by bike or foot) is more rewarding than fast travel (by bus or car), and ‘stop travel’ – just stopping and looking for a while – is best. You’ll learn more about a place in 30 minutes of staring than in a museum. My favorite ‘stop’ destination is Saigon, a city that thrives in sit-and-stare culture. It’s a messy non-stop place, best understood from a cafe stool — particularly the jury-rigged one set up each day on a cracked sidewalk — where you sit, sip ice coffee and stare at a weaving mania of street vendors and motorbikes passing by. I love Saigon. Part of stopping means looking for a spot first. Once in Hanoi, I saw a dozen locals pointing on the edge of Hoan Kiem Lake, I went then managed to see the city’s elusive, mythical turtle surface. A local friend told me, ‘I’ve lived here nearly 40 years and never saw it.’ I was happy for my luck. I just hope it brings luck. ————————————————- See how 55 world customs and celebrations manage to get a smile out of life with Lonely Planet’s new book Happy.

So it begins! Some say, a nutty few anyway, that doomsday is coming December 21, 2012, when the Mayan Long Count calendar clicks to a close. Well, look on the bright side: that gives us about 12 more months of travel. We better make them count. So, to help prioritize how to make a big bang out of the potentially last year of travel, we thought we’d up the ante by issuing eight travel challenges for the coming year: 1. Read a travelogue Everyone loves travel, but relatively few dip into the rich genre of travel lit (and, yes, it goes well beyond Eat, Pray, Love). The top travel challenge for 2012: read at least one travel lit book. For something new, we came up with this list of our favorite new books from 2011; or opt for a classic like Paul Theroux’s global train journey The Great Railway Bazaar, Tony Horwitz’s Civil War-reenactor road trip Confederates in the Attic or Bruce Chatwin’s unique nomadic adventures from In Patagonia. That’s only the beginning. 2. Up the action The most common New Year’s resolutions are losing weight and exercising more. Travel can help. In 2012, regardless of your physique, consider upping the ante in action. Walk part of the Appalachian Trail in the eastern US or take in some of Coastal Wales’ new 1377km trail (finished in May). Or just bike. It’s fun getting around a city that takes biking seriously (eg Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Montreal, Portland) or go for longer-haul trips (like Taiwan’s expanded island-circling trails; or a three-day loop of falls, wineries and War of 1812 sites around Canada’s Greater Niagara Circle Route, where B&Bs will forward your luggage). 3. Make your own attraction One of the great travel lessons is not allowing ‘official attractions’ to govern a trip, and always save room to ‘make’ your own attractions too. On my first Lonely Planet research trip, a decade ago, I stopped a Kansas grain elevator and simply asked for a tour. A large Texan ex-pat in a golden jumpsuit and Terminator sunglasses happily obliged, offering a unique perspective of a ‘skyscraper of the plains.’ Generally anywhere you go, if you show an interest in peoples’ lives, they’ll open up doors not advertised in travel brochures. That is, if you ask. 4. Close your eyes for 30 minutes There are pluses and minuses to technology in travel (a topic we continue to debate ourselves), but I think we could all stand to slow way down, every now and then at least, to better absorb our surroundings when on the road. And maybe even close our eyes. Sonic Wonders is an interesting website devoted to how travel can sound, while Tony Giles, a blind traveler/author, told me last year that closing your eyes can ‘let your other senses kick in’. Try it – even in a place that’s familiar to you. You might be surprised what you find. 5. Make a travel video Right now, professional film people and amateurs are butting their heads over what ‘travel videos’ should look like. The old guard employs TV/film philosophy (and budgets), while bloggers and travelers throw together their own hand-held creations for much less, sometimes winning with their personality and quaint shaky glory. With video cameras in nearly every mobile phone, and software like Apple’s iMovie making video editing accessible to all, why not experiment on your next trip? Start with something small, something you know you’ll talk about when you get back. For example, if you don’t want to wait in the Eiffel Tower lines, but love views – compile 10-second shots of your three favorite Paris views with some simple post-trip voiceover, and put out a useful, simple 30-second video and pop it onto YouTube. People will want to see that. 6. Be a home tourist Quick show of hands: how many of you have ever stayed in a hotel or B&B in your hometown? Try it once this year (particularly if you leave some vacation days unused). Imagine yourself as a weekend visitor in your hometown, visit the tourist information center, splurge on a meal, see that museum only kids go to on 3rd-grade field trips, and see some theater. Even if only for one night. If you’re going to live in a place, you ought to see it from the other point of view. And you’re almost certainly to see something you hadn’t before. 7. Be your own Olympian All eyes are on London for this summer’s Olympics, but there are ways to compete that require little to no athletic prowess. For the Best in Travel 2012 book this year, I came up with ’10 Ways to be a Champion.’ Finland and Britain seem to have the most, including Finland’s wife-carrying contest in July and Scotland’s stone skipping championship in September. If that’s too challenging, Canada-based Rock Paper Scissors Society (RPS) holds its event in late summer (tentatively scheduled for Banff). Skill tip, per the RPS: Beginners tend to repeat matched signs. 8. Rediscover forgotten history Somewhere near you lies a place you probably only dimly recall from history classes gone by. If all you can remember about the War of 1812 is that it happened sometime around 1812, it’s time to dust off those study notes and go experience history in person. Unless you’re Canadian, no one pays much attention to the war of 1812, a stalemate war that included the burning of the White House, the penning of the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ and a glorious, apparently needless victory for a feisty future US president (Andrew Jackson) just as the two-and-a-half-year war ended. Canada has been pumping millions into its festivities for the war’s 200th anniversary (beginning June 18), while New York State, for example, is offering mere $3000 grants if you want to 1812 it up. You can bike to some sites from Niagara Falls (see #2 above), or pop by the Brits’ last advance into the US at Plattsburgh, New York, or see Baltimore’s Fort McHenry (events planned for September 7-9), over which a certain banner spangled in stars flew in 1814. Or, hey, just watch The Buccaneer (1958), a War of 1812 movie with pirates. Find your own War of 1812, go out and experience some history for yourself before – well – before we’re history too. Happy New Year! Looking for more inspiration on what to do and where to go in 2012? Flip through our editors’ and authors’ picks on Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2012. Best in Travel 2012 also available on the iBookstore.

If you had the chance to see and experience anything you wanted, where would you go? It’s the kind of question that friends like to ask each other around the campfire…or on Facebook. And it’s a question Lonely Planet wants to ask you – for the chance to actually make it come true. Lonely Planet and Bing Travel are teaming up to become your Dream Trip travel agents. Just tell us what you’d do if you had fifteen days, an open ticket and cash in your pocket. Would you hop on the Trans-Siberian Railway in Beijing and get off in Moscow? Would you visit all the places where they worship cats? Would you chase music festivals? Would you see how many iconic sights you could photograph in 2 weeks? Options are endless, so to help out, we’ve put together a few lists of dream trips for fanatics of food, the outdoors, music, movies and art. Or you could of course just close your eyes, point to any destination on a map and work the rest out from there. Sometimes planning a dream is half the fun. Sigh. How to win (the bit you want to know): On December 29, for 1 day only at bing.com/holiday, you can enter sweepstakes to win a customized $30,000 dream journey from Lonely Planet. Competition details: This competition is only open to US citizens. The winner will receive a 14 consecutive nights/15 consecutive days trip to a destination of the winner’s choice (including up to 4 stops), to a value of US$30,000. Lonely Planet will work with the winner to devise a custom itinerary, based on the winner’s interests.

In the January edition of Lonely Planet Magazine UK we wrongly suggested that Iceland Express had ceased flying – this was wholly inaccurate and Iceland Express continue to operate daily flights from London Gatwick to Reykjavík. We are happy to correct our error and apologise for our mistake.

It’s the end of the year, so here are some of the top rated travel literature books we’ve reviewed in 2011. If either you’re after some inspiration for your travels in 2012 or a gift for a friend or family member with wanderlust, you’re sure to find something of interest below. Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler Reviewed by Ben Handicott Country Driving is a look at modern China through the eyes of a journalist fluent in the language and with a keen understanding of Chinese culture. The title is more than nominal with Peter Hessler traversing large parts of the countryside, but if you want to learn a great deal about all facets of China, the country and its people, then this is your book. Read the full review here. Along the Enchanted Way by William Blacker Reviewed by Will Gourlay ‘Enchanting’ isn’t a word usually associated with Romania. Think ‘Romania’ and most people will conjure images of Communist-era architecture in Bucharest or hair-raising tales of Dracula. However, in Along the Enchanted Way, William Blacker’s account of years spent living in Romania paints an altogether different – and unexpected – picture of this little-known country. Read the full review here. Lost on Earth by Steve Crombie Reviewed by Steve Waters In Lost on Earth, young Aussie Crombie  plans to ride his single-cylinder Honda 650cc motorcycle from Ushuaia at the southern tip of South America’s Tierra Del Fuego, toPrudhoe Bay, Alaska; the Pan American Highway’s unofficial endpoint well north of the Arctic Circle. This cracking tale of sheer determination should be mandatory reading for any young, would-be adventurer. (Disclaimer: Steve Crombie has worked for Lonely Planet.) Read the full review here. Travels: Collected Writings by Paul Bowles Reviewed by Trent Holden While Paul Bowles may not have the celebrity status of some of his contemporaries, namely the holy trinity of Beat writers (Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac), his contribution to 20th-century literature was arguably just as significant. He’s remembered as one of the literary beacons of his time, not only because of his stellar body of work (including the masterpiece The Sheltering Sky). This is essential reading for not only all Bowles fans, but anyone interested in travel writing – as few have truly lived the life he has, immersed deep within the culture and blessed with the ability to articulate life as he saw it. Read the full review here. Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple Reviewed by Elizabeth Shannon Nine Lives is not really a travel book.  This is not the tale of a bemused foreigner fumbling through an exotic landscape, but rather the result of William Dalrymple’s long familiarity with India:  nine stories of religious practitioners navigating both the innate certitudes and contradictions of their own faiths and how India’s rapid development has affected these traditions and people’s roles in them. Read the full review here. In Tasmania by Nicholas Shakespeare Reviewed by Kirsten Rawlings In Nicholas Shakespeare’s eyes, Tasmania is a secret and rarely visited place, ‘a byword for remoteness’. His comprehensive biography In Tasmania paints this outpost as a magnet for the lost, a place to be renewed or be forgotten. From the burgeoning towns of Launceston and Hobart, to the fertile northeast and the windy and bleak west coast, Shakespeare reveals the hardships and inspirations of its inhabitants over the centuries, suffusing each corner with history and beauty. Read the full review here. Halfway House to Heaven by Bill Colegrave Reviewed by Steve Waters I must admit to a certain amount of jealously when I first encountered Halfway House to Heaven by Bill Colegrave. The Wakhan Corridor, that long thin sliver of Afghanistan thrusting into the Pamir Mountains, hemmed in on three sides by Pakistan, China andTajikistan, has long been on my own radar, ever since I read The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron and Peter Hopkirk’s Great Game series. Colegrave, though, claims a much older influence, the Central Asian tragedy of Sohrab and Rustum, as recounted by the 19th century English poet Matthew Arnold. Read the full review here. Thin Paths — Journeys in and around an Italian Mountain Village by Julia Blackburn Reviewed by Claire Beyer Julia Blackburn, author of Thin Paths, has an eye for detail. The seemingly small and insignificant are given big lives. The common dormouse, the developing tadpole and vocal owl are all given as much loving attention as her new surroundings in this lovely tale of life in an Italian mountain village. Read the full review here. Read all the Lonely Planet  travel literature reviews here.