Yasuní has ​​been highlighted by National Geographic as one of the destinations to visit in 2022

National Geographic has published the 25 most exciting destinations on the planet for 2022. This year’s list celebrates several World Heritage sites honoring 50 years of UNESCO helping safeguard cultural and natural treasures.

10 of the destinations on National Geographic’s list

Costa Rica

Walk from sea to sea. Stretching the length of Costa Rica from the Caribbean to the Pacific, El Camino de Costa Rica is a 174-mile-long window into life away from the busiest tourist route. The 16-stage hiking route follows primarily public roads as it passes through remote towns and cities, Cabécar indigenous lands, and protected natural areas.

It is designed to boost economic activity in rural districts. Local families, non-profit organizations, and a network of microentrepreneurs, such as the Ecomiel honey producers, the woman-owned Finca El Casquillo organic farm, and the sustainable La Cabaña micro-coffee mill, provide the bulk. accommodation, food, tours and other amenities for hikers.

Yasuni National Park

Yasuní, considered one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, is home to an astonishing variety of creatures, including anteaters, capybaras, sloths, spider monkeys and around 600 species of colorful birds. In the Napo and Curaray rivers that flank the park, visitors can observe the Amazon river dolphin, an enigmatic and endangered species.

It was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1989. The nearly 4,000-square-mile park, home to mahogany trees, sweet guavas, anthuriums, palms and mesmerizing ferns, is the first of five pilot sites in the TerrAmaz program, funded by France. This four-year initiative, launched in late 2020, supports sustainable development and protects biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.

Yasuní also provides refuge for the Tagaeri and Taromenane peoples, Waorani indigenous groups who live in voluntary isolation and use artisanal canoes to travel between waterways.

There are several tours that take tourists to the park. However, you can also take a bus from Quito to the city of El Coca. It takes between eight and ten hours and costs around US $ 10.

From El Coca, take the municipal boat to Nuevo Rocafuerte that leaves US $ 15.

The days and hours are variable since the communities that live in the area have priority. They are nine hours of navigation with a stop in the middle of the route.

Columbia River Gorge, Oregon / Washington

It straddles the Oregon-Washington border and comprises 293,000 acres of public and private land along the Columbia River Gorge.

With Mount Hood nearby, the area attracts more than two million visitors a year. A non-profit alliance is helping reduce the impact of tourism on local nature and culture. This collaboration has become a model for other regions building a sustainable tourism economy.

Hokkaido, Japan

Most visitors to Hokkaido, Japan’s wildly scenic and northernmost main island, don’t have many opportunities to learn about the Ainu, the indigenous peoples of the northern region of the archipelago. But the new Ainu National Park and Museum in Upopoy, which opened in 2020, hopes to change that. He joins the Ainu Kayano Shigeru Nibutani Museum, which opened in 1992, to teach Japanese and international visitors about Ainu culture.

Marginalized since the late 19th century, the Ainu were granted legal protections in Japan in 2019; The country’s new Ainu Promotion Law recognizes and prohibits discrimination against the Ainu.

Procida Island, Italy

The island city, located 40 minutes southwest of Naples by high-speed ferry, plans to use its year in the spotlight to illustrate the importance of culture.

Procida 2022 plans to broadcast cultural programming, such as contemporary art exhibitions, festivals and shows, for 300 days to encourage responsible travel throughout the year and avoid a massive influx of visitors during the summer.

Tin Pan Alley, Londres

Once full of music publishers, recording studios, rehearsal rooms and dimly lit clubs, London’s little street, nicknamed Tin Pan Alley, helped launch the British punk rock movement and legends like David Bowie, Elton John and the Rolling Stones.

In recent years, music had almost died, save for the guitar shops on Denmark Street. Now this iconic part of history is being revived as part of Outernet London, the West End’s new $ 1.2 billion entertainment district.

The remodeled street preserves pieces of its historical past: facades of restored buildings from the 17th century; the heritage-protected graffiti art of Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols (who lived here); old-school music stores (thanks to affordable long-term leases).

Granada, Spain

Marvel at the geometric beauty. Built as a palace-city by the 13th century Nasrid sultans, rulers of the last and longest Muslim dynasty of the Iberian Peninsula, the Alhambra (“red fortress”) is considered the Moorish architectural jewel of Europe. The almond-shaped profile of this UNESCO World Heritage site rests on a hill above Granada, one of the most picturesque cities in Spain.

But it is the mathematical magic on display here that is particularly fascinating to families. Intricate mosaics, arabesques (a stylized, repeating pattern based on a floral or plant design), and muqarnas (ornamental vaults) make the Alhambra a masterpiece of geometric beauty and a colorful classroom for exploring age-appropriate mathematical concepts such as the forms. , symmetry, proportion and measure.

Bonaire

Dazzling sunlight, a turquoise sea, palm trees, white beaches and a relaxed atmosphere – Bonaire ticks all the boxes for an idyllic tropical destination. But compared to many other islands in the Caribbean, Bonaire (21,000 inhabitants) is quiet and still relatively wild and unspoiled. Off its coast is one of the oldest marine reserves in the world.

The Bonaire National Marine Park was established in 1979 and has been on UNESCO’s provisional World Heritage List since 2011. The reserve encompasses 6,672 acres of coral reefs, seagrasses, and mangrove vegetation. Bonaire’s healthy reefs are a magnet for divers and snorkelers, who can spot up to 57 species of coral and more than 350 different fish species.

Łódź, Polonia

A green city stands out. Named a UNESCO City of Cinema in 2017 for its rich film culture, Łódź, a city of nearly 700,000 inhabitants in central Poland, was a major center of textile manufacturing in the 19th and 20th centuries. Now, Hollywood in Poland is changing the script of its industrial past to create a greener future.

In recent years, Łódź (pronounced woodge) has embraced new green technologies, such as using pre-RDF (waste derived fuel) and biomass energy to heat homes. In 2021, the city partnered with the European e-commerce distribution platform InPost to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions and traffic in the city center by installing 70 parcel locker locations and electric car charging stations. .

Palau

Swim with sharks. When you arrive here, your passport stamp will include the Palau Pledge, which all visitors must sign, promising that “the only footprints I will leave are the ones that will be washed.” The 59-word green pledge was written by and for the children of this remote western Pacific archipelago to help protect Palau’s culture and environment from the negative impacts of tourism.

Eighty percent of the country’s waters, recognized by National Geographic’s Pristine Seas project as one of the richest marine ecosystems on the planet, is conserved as the Palau National Marine Sanctuary. At 183,000 square miles, the exclusion sanctuary is one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, protecting some 700 species of coral and more than 1,300 species of fish, including a dazzling array of sharks. (I)