PHOTOGRAPHS: PHILIP LEE HARVEY, SHARMILA GRUNERT
@peter_grunert
@petervg73
Welcome to our annual Best in Travel issue! This is our chance to celebrate the places we’d most love to encourage you to visit over the year ahead (p42). Our coverage in the magazine is a smörgåsbord of the best countries, regions, cities, paradise islands, budget options, and cultural destinations perfect for families. To explore these winners and more in depth, let me point you in the direction of our Best in Travel 2018 book – you can claim your copy by taking out a subscription, also a fine way to tick a Christmas gift off your list (p16). You’ll already have found a whopping hint as to our number one country on the cover of this issue, and more views from it are shown here. Chile is a spectacularly skinny and tall place, its 2,653-mile length spanning a great range of landscapes, from the Atacama Desert to the icefields of Patagonia. It’s home to new-age winemakers and llama-like guanacos, funicular drivers and flamingos – all of which are encountered in our Great Escape (p61). That story was penned by our star writer Oliver Smith, who has just been named the UK’s travel writer of the year. For more on a winning month for Lonely Planet magazine, turn over…