photo by Flickr user HerryLawford

Patricia Schultz, author of 1000 Places to See Before You Die, continues her whirlwind tour with another guest post:

I love big cities, so I knew good-lookin’ Sydney would win me over. Established in 1788 as a British outpost, today it’s a beautiful and vibrant modern city that is the NYC and London of Australia. An international center for commerce, art, fashion, culture and tourism, it is understandably rated one of the most liveable cities in the world–in great part due to the 4 million spirited and fun-loving Sydneysiders who call it home. The iconic Opera House always has a world-class performance going on, or you can follow in Oprah’s footsteps and sign up for the Bridge Climb up and over the “coathanger” (it celebrated its 75th birthday in 2007) for breathtaking views of the stunning harbor, the city’s playground. Jump on one of the countless ferries that ply its waters and head out to Manly for a beachfront stroll to watch the surfers; make sure to stop for a bite at Hugo’s at the wharf before heading back.

Tips:

• The Bridge Climb is especially magical at twilight.
• The Bridge Climb is expensive, but you can get a glimpse of the excitement merely by walking across the pedestrian walkway for free!
• With great views of the Opera House and harbor, the nearby newly renovated Park Hyatt is the city’s #1 hotel; it’s also a fun spot to linger for a cappuccino or a late afternoon cocktail.

For more recommendations from Patricia Schultz, check out 1000 Places to See Before You Die and 1000places.com!

photo by Flickr user Ian @ ThePaperboy.com

When we last left 1000 Places to See Before You Die author Patricia Schultz, she was offering tips on traveling to Rio de Janeiro. Now she joins us again for a sojourn to PNG.

Simply put, Papua New Guinea is unreal. Or surreal. Unlike anything I have ever experienced anywhere on the planet. For a country that is wild, untamed, and locked in the Stone Age (albeit a Stone Age where the appearance of a cell phone is not unusual ), its people are unexpectedly warm, welcoming and curious. We traveled there in August 2011 for the 50th anniversary of the Mt. Hagen Sing Sing Festival, but the country is a remarkable destination at any time of year. More than a third of the country’s 5 million people live in dense, rugged rainforest in remote highland villages, and hundreds of tribes travel for days to the festival where they fiercely compete in dance, song, and costume. It’s a heady display of colors and sound proudly put on for the locals and a modest number of international tourists who–if they’re like us–felt as if they had died and gone to National Geographic heaven.
Tips:

• More than 800 languages are spoken throughout the country, but it’s easy to learn a few words of the commonly spoken Pidgin (“Happy noon,” for example. means good afternoon).
• Even if you are not an avid birder, bring your binoculars: Some of the 42s pecies of the Bird of Paradise that live in PNG are found nowhere else.
• You will rarely see an outstretched hand asking for money. You may be tempted to bring practical gifts to the villages (such as the pencils and pens often welcomed elsewhere), but simply interacting and talking with the villagers is most recommended by the local tour guides. Villagers are shy but curious and love, love, love to have their photo taken (and would never dream of asking for remuneration. Something rare indeed!).

For more recommendations from Patricia Schultz, check out 1000 Places to See Before You Die and 1000places.com!

photo by Flickr user priscillajp

This guest post comes from Patricia Schultz, author of 1000 Places to See Before You Die.

Rio–the very name of the city makes me smile! Aptly named “Cidade Maravilhosa,” the exhilarating Marvelous City is one of the world’s most beautifully situated. From atop Corcovado, under the outstretched arms of the 120-foot-tall Christ the Redeemer statue (who wouldn’t embrace this view?), you can see much of the city’s almost uninterrupted 45-mile strip of white-sand beach (most popular are Ipanema, Copacabana, and Leblon). Cariocas (the residents of Rio) have raised life to a seductive art form–always with a score of samba playing in the background. Don’t even think about coming during hedonistic Carnaval season in February or March if you don’t relish the idea of getting swept up by the world’s largest street party. Ditto for New Year’s Eve, when millions of barefoot revelers dressed in white dance to live samba bands on Copacabana beach under a panoply of fireworks.

Tips:

• The two-stage aerial cable to Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf) is open late: go at dusk and watch the lights flicker on across the waterfront city and see the Christ statue illuminated across the bay.
• Take the old-fashioned tram up to the regentrified, hill-top neighborhood of Santa Teresa for a simple meal in a trendy restaurant, then linger in small music venues. Or head to the historic, charmingly shabby neighborhood of Lapa in central Rio, but remember, it doesn’t really get going until after midnight.
• The grand Copacabana Palace was inspired by the old waterfront hotels of the French Riviera and today hosts Carnaval’s most exclusive ball. Come any day for people watching over a potent but refreshing caipirinha, the national drink.

For more tips from a consummate world traveler, check out 1000 Places to See Before You Die and 1000places.com!

The brand new edition of 1000 Places to See Before You Die makes great reading any time of year, but during the holiday season, there’s the added magic of imagining all the places around the world where you could be celebrating Christmas.  Here are five destinations from the book where you might be especially excited to find yourself on December 25th:

1. You could journey to Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, Finland the gateway to Finnish Lapland and the closest a kid can get to the North Pole he or she’s always pictured.  Marvel at the elves’ toy factory and the 700,000 or so letters from children that wind up here each year.
2. All over Germany and Austria, Christkindlmarkts host carolers, baked goods, and old-fashioned (as in, Medieval) Christmas spirit.  Nuremberg and Dresden’s markets are the oldest in Germany, while Munich’s is one of the largest.
3. For the diehards, don’t rule out a pilgrimage to Bethlehem in the Palestinian territories, where a 15-point star in the Grotto of the Nativity marks what is thought to be the site of Jesus’s birth.
4. Stateside, Christmas in New York City wouldn’t be complete without the gigantic tree in Rockefeller Center, twinkling beside (and towering above) a small ice rink where you can rent skates.
5. Like the Rockefellers with Rockefeller Center, we have the Vanderbilt family’s largesse to thank for The Biltmore, an Asheville, North Carolina estate (built in 1895 and still the largest private residence ever built in the country!) that now houses an inn as well as extensive holiday festivities, including visiting choirs, candlelight tours, and crackling fireplaces.

Read about all these destinations, along with hundreds more for the other 364 days of the year, in Patricia Schultz’s book, now in a full-color second edition.

In addition to 600 full color photos, destinations in 28 new countries, and everything else that’s packed into the new edition of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, the book now has a brand new home on the web, for when armchair travelers want to engage in some double-click traveling: 1000places.com.  There, you can preview a few of the places featured in the book, get a sneak peak at the app, download the aforementioned indexes, order the book, and more.

Elsewhere on the web, we’ve been engaging in bracketology for the first time as we follow HuffPost Travel’s Ultimate Places to See Before You Die Sweet 16 Challenge, now in round three.  Sixteen destinations were culled from the (already exclusive!) 1000, which voters then winnowed down to 8, and now 4.  There’s still a chance to vote in this round before the finals start tomorrow, at which point the one place to see before you die to rule them all will be selected.  Don’t weep for the losing destinations, though: we’re guessing Moscow’s Red Square and Ipanima Beach in Brazil will continue to appear on plenty of travel wish lists despite their crushing defeats.

As its cover proclaims, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die is a traveler’s life list—the ultimate bucket list of things you need to see in this world while you can (last week we used the book to track Matt Lauer around the world). Each destination is intended to amaze, inspire, and make you appreciate the richness of the world around you. I’m not nearly as well-traveled as intrepid author Patricia Schultz, but I learned a lot while working on the completely revised and thoroughly updated second edition of the book (out today!), and you can bet that my personal “See Before I Die” list grew and grew.

One of the book’s online bonus features is a set of special indexes, which break down the book’s destinations into categories: “Splendor in the Glass, for example, gathers up all the world’s best vineyards, wineries, breweries, and distilleries. These lists are a huge plus for working on your own must-see list, but as I got really familiar with the book, I found that I could compile my own even more specific lists. I’ll start with a slightly embarrassing one.

The Unpronounceables: Places in 1,000 Places I Totally Didn’t Know How to Say

1. The Hebrides: Author Patricia Schultz recently returned from Scotland’s Hebrides Islands, home to rocky shores and scenic ferry rides. That’s “heb-ri-deez,” three syllables.
2. Curaçao: The tricky part of saying the name for this Dutch-influenced Caribbean island is the cedilla on the second “c,” which makes it “koor-uh-sou.”
3. Chichicastenango: This word looks intimidating, but it’s actually not so hard: “chee-chee-cast-en-an-go.” And luckily, the market in Quiché, Guatemala also goes by its nickname, “Chichi.”
4. Krak Des Chevaliers: This one is mostly confusing because it’s a castle (that served as a fortress during the crusades) in Syria, but the name looks French. It turns out it’s pronounced that way too: “krak de shev-uhl-yay.”
5. Old Tbililsi: Don’t be intimidated by the double consonants that lead off this city, an ancient river town and the capital of Georgia in Eastern Europe. Both the “t” and “b” get their own syllable, making it “tuh-buh-lee-see.”

And those are just a quick sampling—I didn’t even get to Scandinavia! Which brings us to another great thing about travel: you don’t have to be able to pronounce it to know you want to go there.

‘Twas the fifth and final day of “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” and he definitely landed himself in a spot worth spending the weekend at! His clues teased “a party of epic proportions” and while some readers thought this might be in reference to political parties rather than the more literal music and dancing scenario, I am happy to see that the latter won out,  because Matt washed up on the beach in Barbados!

If you missed the reveal, it’s worth a look, since Matt parodies the classic Old Spice commercial, ending up, appropriately, on a horse. (Watch it here!)

He’s taking some deserved R&R at the Sandy Lane Resort, which Patricia Schultz describes on page 1066 in the new 1000 Places to See Before You Die as “the jewel of the West Coast.” It’s one of the resort world’s classiest (and priciest) acts, with service that makes every guest, upon arrival, feel like Queen Elizabeth (and she did visit once!). But beyond the pink and white sand beaches , there are amazing waters to swim in and explore. The Platinum Coast (named for the fancy hotels and condos found along its edge) faces the Caribbean and offers up some of the “calmest waters and best beaches, and there is snorkeling with sociable well-fed turtles just offshore.” Matt noted these highlights, as well as the delicious food, amazing dancing, and celebrity vacationers, but he missed mentioning one of the most impressive sights: Harrison’s Cave, “site of a jaw-dropping collection of well-lit stalactites and stalagmites.” Please, someone, get me there, STAT!

In an interview later in the day, Matt confirmed that this, the 10th anniversary of “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” would be his last… Though I get that the travel can be grueling–it’s not often that one is asked to cross as many time zones in such a short amount of time–I just don’t buy it when he says, “It gets tougher and tougher to find extraordinary places.” Ahem. Matt. You say you’ve been to 51 locations over the years? I’ll admit, it’s impressive. But what about the remaining 949?

Perhaps he just needs Patricia Schultz to offer up a few dazzling recommendations!

Say, what?! Yes, today on Today, Matt Lauer revealed that he’s 11,745 feet above sea level at Jungfraujoch’s Sphinx Observatory, in the Swiss Alps (and now we understand the poor weather that caused him to change his itinerary early in the week–it’s hard to travel anywhere in complete whiteout conditions!).

Now, if he were really traveling through the pages of the new 1000 Places to See Before You Die, Matt could have skipped across a mere six pages from Madrid (page 266), where he was on Monday, to The Swiss Alps (page 272) where he landed himself this morning (no nasty weather conditions to worry about there, unless you count the wind generated from rapid page-turning).

Matt took the train to the observatory, which is precisely the highlight that Patricia Schultz points to in the 1000 Places entry. Swiss engineering has taken train travel to new heights — literally! There’s a rail tour called the Glacier Express that passes through the heart of the Swiss Alps, over 291 bridges, through 91 tunnels, and across the Oberalp Pass at 6,706 feet. There’s also the appropriately named Chocolate Train–a 10-hour journey that takes riders through the Lavaux vineyards (wine!), by the turreted castle in Gruyere (yes, as in the cheese–you can sample fondue there!), and on “to Broc’s world-famous Cailler-Nestle chocolate factory for a tour and sampling of the whopping 65 tons of chocolate produced on-site each day.” (Wine, cheese, chocolate = winning trifecta!) Then take your sugar high on the Bernina Express line, the highest railway in the Alps, that cruises by the Morteratsch Glacier and the Piz Bernina which, at 13,284 feet, is the highest peak in the Eastern Alps.

But while a lot of people take a train through The Alps, Matt chatted with some folks this morning who mountain climb to get there!

So did you unravel the clues to guess Matt’s location correctly? Natalie Morales did! (I didn’t…) Any guesses for tomorrow? Here are some clues that Matt revealed this morning: “With the Alps to our backs, we make tracks for a party of epic proportions.” Hmm…not sure what my guess is just yet, but my fingers are ready to rifle through this book one more time!

Matt Lauer, sighted this morning on the Malay Peninsula! He popped up in Kuala Lumpur (smartypants Al Roker totally guessed correctly!) where, though it was morning for those of us in Eastern Standard Time, Matt was readying for a night out on the town in Malaysia.

While Matt revealed his location on a skybridge connecting the two iconic Petronas Towers, Patricia Schultz, in the new 1000 Places to See Before You Die, highlights the foodie delights to be found in Kuala Lumpur, colloquially referred to as KL. “From streetside hawker stalls and brightly lit night markets to white-tablecloth restaurants with world-class chefs,” the authentic array of edible delights is a true feast to behold. Check out the stalls lining the Jalan Alor in the city’s Golden Triangle district, or take the elevator up to Seri Angkasa, the revolving restaurant atop the 1,380 foot KL Tower. And taste-test, they did, as Matt and fellow Todayster Amy Robach sampled some of the local Chinese-Malaysion fusion food. (Travel a halfhour outside the city center, to the edge of a rainforest, and they could have taken a cooking class with food writer and cook Rohani Jelani at her house-converted-to B&B, Bayan Indah!) They also rode in a rickshaw (technically a “trishaw”) festooned with brightly colored tassels and fake flowers, and Amy took us on a tour of an orangutan rehabilitation center.

Tune in tomorrow as we continue, page by page, to unravel the mysteries of “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” I don’t know about you, but my money’s on Japan.

PS: In the meantime, let’s hope there are no Matt Lauer-brainwashing schemes or DJs spinning Frankie Goes to Hollywood!

It’s Day 2 of “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” and this morning Señor Lauer woke up in Madrid, Spain, otherwise known as page 266 (for all you armchair travelers!) in the new 1000 Places to See Before You Die.

Ernest Hemingway has said of Madrid, It has none of the look that you expect of Spain….Yet when you get to know it, it is the most Spanish of all cities, the best to live in, the finest people, month in, month out the finest climate. By day, it’s an elegant, formal city of museums (featuring work by Spanish artists Miró, Dalí, Juan Gris, and Antoni Tàpies — as well as Alexander Calder, Man Ray, and Jean Dubuffet),  palaces (visit what was the royal residence from 1764 to 1931!), and tapas (yum!). At night, the city comes alive — giving New York City, aka “the city that never sleeps,” a run for its money.

This morning, Matt confessed that he had to change his travel itinerary due to weather conditions, which makes me want to scour the global weather map to see what locations might have been affected by severe weather  — any guesses where he might end up later this week? Our own Patricia Schultz placed her guesses (rather, her recommended itinerary!) yesterday. Stay tuned to see if any of those destinations show up later this week — until then, we’ll be following along in the book!