The folks over at Lonely Planet are kind of a big deal in the travel world, their recommendations determining where millions of visitors to flock to for their holidays.

Now they’ve released their ‘Best in Travel 2016’ list, one that “highlights not the places travelers are headed to next year, but the places our team determined they should visit”.

That’s according to Tom Hall, Lonely Planet’s editorial director, who is part of the team responsible for picking our northerly neighbours Botswana as their number one destination. Here’s CNN:

Next year’s must-visit country is Botswana, which the team at Lonely Planet calls “wild Africa at its best.”

Botswana has “some of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth,” from elephants and antelopes, to big cats and African wild dogs.

Also recommended are the Okavango Delta and Kalahari Desert, both “iconic African landscapes and vast stretches of wilderness.”

That list in full then:

Lonely Planet’s Top 10 countries for 2016

1. Botswana

2. Japan

3. USA

4. Palau

5. Latvia

6. Australia

7. Poland

8. Uruguay

9. Greenland

10. Fiji

They’ve also named their top 10 cities for 2016 which are as follows:

1. Kotor, Montenegro [pictured above]

2. Quito, Ecuador

3. Dublin, Ireland

4. George Town, Malaysia

5. Rotterdam, Netherlands

6. Mumbai, India

7. Fremantle, Australia

8. Manchester, UK

9. Nashville, Tennessee

10. Rome, Italy

I don’t know about you but I feel like they missed one out there in that last list – and no, I’m not referring to Jozi.

[source:cnn]