The top trending travel destination for 2018

Japanese island of Ishigaki famous for white sandy beaches and Yaeyama soba noodles, according to TripAdvisor

The island of Ishigaki is famous for its white sandy beaches and specialty Yaeyama soba noodles, according to TripAdvisor (Getty)

Ishigaki, a stunning white island in Japan's Okinawa archipelago, is the top trending travel destination for 2018 on TripAdvisor - but you'd be forgiven for never having heard of it.

The Japanese island has topped TripAdvisor's “Destinations on the Rise” list, which, as part of its sixth annual Travellers’ Choice awards, used an algorithm that measured the year-on-year increase in positive TripAdvisor traveller feedback around accommodation, restaurants, and attractions, as well as increased booking interest.

Ishigaki is the largest of the Yaeyama Islands in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture and is home to many sandy white beaches, rare coral, mountains, and mangrove forests.

It's a popular destination with snorkellers and foodies, and is known for its speciality Yaeyama soba noodles, which are made of flour instead of the more traditional buckwheat, according to TripAdvisor.

The average price for a night's stay in a hotel on the island is £114· One of TripAdvisor's best-rated value hotels is the Art Hotel Ishigaki, which costs from £87 per night in June.

Okinawa has been tipped as the new Bali or Hawaii, and international tourism is growing fast. Bloomberg previously reported that the number of visitors to Okinawa rose 10.5% to 8.77 million in 2016, according to Okinawa prefecture data. This compares to the 8.93 million visitors that went to Hawaii that year, representing an increase of 2.9% comparatively.

​Here are the top 10 “Destinations on the Rise” in 2018, according to TripAdvisor:

1. Ishigaki, Japan.
2. Kapaa, Hawaii.
3. Nairobi, Kenya.
4. Halifax, Canada.
5. Gdansk, Poland.
6. San Jose, Costa Rica.
7. Riga, Latvia.
8. Rovinj, Croatia.
9. Nerja, Spain.
10. Casablanca, Morocco.

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