Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2018: The 10 most unlikely inclusions

Djibouti, Canberra and Lanzarote are your unexpected must-visit locations for 2018

(Max Pixel)

Belfast and its Causeway Coast may have caused a stir by being voted the best region in the world to visit in 2018 by Lonely Planet today; but that’s not the only surprise in the rankings.

Detroit, Canberra and Lanzarote are also surprise big hitters in the four lists, which cover top 10 countries, cities, regions and best value destinations.

The cities list is particularly surprising. Seville tops the rankings, followed by Detroit – whose controversial gentrification has seen hipsters migrate in huge numbers over the past few years – and then Canberra, the much-maligned capital of Australia, usually dismissed as boring.

The list continues with Hamburg, and Kaohsiung in Taiwan. Matera – a formerly destitute town of cave dwellings, or sassi, now popular with the Instagram crowd in Italy’s Basilicata region – is at number seven, and San Juan, the hurricane-hit capital of Puerto Rico at eight (Lonely Planet's partners CNN Travel have written about how they felt it important to keep on the list despite the damage). Oslo – again, often dismissed as dull and expensive– is at number 10.

Less of a shock is Tallinn, ranked the best value destination, followed by Lanzarote, Arizona and La Paz in Bolivia. The UK in its entirety comes in at number seven – helped by the plummeting pound.

As for the countries, Portugal - which has seen an astonishing explosion in popularity in 2017 - is only at number three, after Chile and South Korea. Djibouti - which has no direct flights from the UK, and was described by Bloomberg as "a forgotten sandlot of a country" - is a surprise entry at number four. Djibouti might also be off the list for ethical travellers - one person who recently visited told The Independent: “Given the abject poverty, chronic health provision and job shortages under which half the country's population subsists while the authorities reap billions in rent from Western bases, ethical tourists should browse for their luxury Red Sea scuba diving holiday with their eyes open.”

The full lists are:

Top 10 countries

Chile

South Korea

Portugal

Djibouti

New Zealand

Malta

Georgia

Mauritius

China

South Africa

Top 10 cities

Seville

Detroit

Canberra

Hamburg

Kaohsiung

Antwerp

Matera

San Juan

Guanajuato

Oslo

Top 10 best value

Tallinn

Lanzarote

Arizona

La Paz

Poland

Essaouira

UK

Baja California

Jacksonville

Hunan

Top 10 regions

Belfast and the Causeway Coast

Alaska

Julian Alps

Languedoc-Roussillon

Kii Peninsula

Aeolian Islands

Southern USA

Lahaul & Spiti

Bahia

Los Haitises National Park