Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2010 provides inspiration for trips in the new year

Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2010

OAKLAND, Calif. — If you’re looking for inspiration for a trip in the new year, Lonely Planet’s “Best in Travel 2010″ offers trends, destinations and experiences around the world.

The travel guidebook’s top 10 countries for 2010 are El Salvador, Germany, Greece, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, New Zealand, Portugal, Suriname and the U.S. Top 10 cities for next year, according to Lonely Planet, are Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Charleston, S.C.; Cork, Ireland; Cuenca, Ecuador; Istanbul, Turkey; Kyoto, Japan; Lecce, Italy; Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina; Singapore and Vancouver, Canada.

Best value destinations for next year are Iceland, Thailand, London, South Africa, Malaysia, Mexico, India, Bulgaria, Kenya and Las Vegas.

And the best things to do next year include watching the total eclipse of the sun on June 11 from Easter Island; joining the wacky epic adventure known as the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge, in which vintage cars drive from China to France; attending the FIFA World Cup soccer championship games in South Africa; experiencing the Burning Man Festival in Nevada in August; making a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain; attending the Commonwealth games in Delhi, India; dropping $200,000 or so on a Virgin Galactic space flight (test flights are to begin in 2010, with full-fledged launches scheduled for 2011); attending the Olympics in Vancouver; visiting the Pushkar Camel Fair in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, India; and seeing the World Expo in Shanghai.