Spanish destination tops TripAdvisor 'best' list

TRENDING holiday destinations voted 'Best of the Best' in the 2022 Travellers' Choice Awards include two in Spain – one of which comes out top of the crop.

TripAdvisor, one of the biggest and most-consulted travel review sites on earth, compiles its various lists of the hottest holiday venues based entirely on user votes and recommendations.

Travellers' Choice Award categories include 'popular destinations', 'trending destinations', 'destinations for outdoor enthusiasts', 'destinations for food-lovers', 'destinations for city-lovers', 'destinations for sunseekers' and 'destinations for skiers'.

Those listed as 'trending' are described as 'up and coming', even though many of them are, in fact, long-established, mature holiday magnets.

Of the 22 in total, the island of Mallorca (pictured above) comes in right at the top.

Cairo, Egypt comes next, followed by the Greek island of Rhodes, Tulúm on the eastern Mexican coast, and Dubrovnik in Croatia.

Next, at number six, Spain makes another appearance – this time with the island of Ibiza.

These two lively, heavily-populated islands in the Balearics beat a long string of much-loved global locations, on and off the coast, such as the north-eastern Brazilian beach city of Natal; Arush in Tanzania; Göreme in Turkey – the region where the eerily-fascinating rock-chimney desert of Kapadokya, or Cappadocia is based – the famously blue-domed white houses of the Greek island of Santorini; Paraty on the Brazilian coast; and even the idyllic Caribbean paradise island of Aruba.

These make up the top 12, with the remainder, in descending order, being Split (Croatia), Playa del Carmen – close to Tulúm on the eastern Mexican coast – the Island of Hawaii in the State of Hawaii, Luxor in Egypt, the Dominican Republic in its entirety, Charleston in South Carolina (USA), the Dutch-and-French-owned Caribbean island of Sint Maarten or Saint Martin, North Male Atoll in the Maldives, Zanzibar Island off the coast of Tanzania, and the tropical-rainforest-and-waterfall scenery of La Fortuna de San Carlos in Costa Rica.