Sublime white sand beaches, astonishing marine life, beautiful hotels, and dreamy spa experiences. These are some of the reasons why we’ve chosen the Maldives as our Best Destination in Asia for 2021. This fragile archipelago also has a growing number of sustainable resorts and pioneering green initiatives, so you can minimise your impact on the earth during your stay.

The Maldives is top of many travelers’ wish lists.

Last year, the Maldives was named World’s Leading Travel Destination at the World Travel Awards — testament to just how popular this island destination is with travelers everywhere. There are 26 atolls, fringed by lagoons, reefs and farus (tiny atolls). Many resorts, along with capital city Malé are located in North Malé Atoll. Baa Atoll is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, with seas full of manta rays and whale sharks. Altogether, the islands are home to more than 100 resorts, many of them ultra-luxurious — and expensive.

The Whale Bar at St Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort.

Wherever you stay, you can expect to dive and snorkel in warm water teeming with tropical fish, rejuvenate in beautiful spas, and gaze at the stars in the clearest night skies in the world. Many once in-a-lifetime experiences can be had, from dining under the sea, to swimming while bioluminescent organisms glow all along the shoreline.
Something else special about the Maldives is the imaginatively designed resorts. With winding boardwalks leading to leafy hideaways built from wood, stone, thatch, there’s no ugly architecture here. At Soneva Jani in Noonu Atoll, villas have enchanting features; retractable roofs so you can see the stars, water slides, and lookout towers.
At the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi you can dine in private treetop pods. At Conrad Maldives Rangali Island you can sleep under the sea with fish swimming all around. Perched out in the ocean, the whale-shaped bar at St Regis Maldives Vommuli Resort is another cool piece of resort design.

The Baani Spa at Kagi Maldives

This year sees the opening of the Ritz Carlton on North Malé Atoll, with six restaurants, two bars and secluded villas with private beaches. Also new is Patina Maldives which has a sustainable ethos and biophilic design full of renewable materials and natural light. Kagi Maldives a 50-villa wellness resort offering retreats and spa breaks, opened at the end of last year.

Reef restoration at Anantara Dhigu

The Maldives faces many challenges to its unique environment because of climate change. 80 percent of land is less than one metre above sea level, meaning there are real risks from rising sea levels. Between 2014 and 2017, a large number of the island’s reefs were damaged during a disastrous worldwide bleaching event.
In 2020, the country was ranked a dismal 127 (out of 180) in the Environmental Performance Index, which uses data to rate countries on their environmental health. There are record levels of microplastics, and continued resort expansion — with 11 opening this year alone — threatens marine life and the stability of reefs.
Some Maldivian resorts have always worried about these problems. Anantara was one of the first brands to protect coral reefs in the Maldives, creating coral nurseries as far back as 2010. As a result of reef restoration projects, coral at Anantara Dhigu is now growing back, and is up to 1000 times larger than when projects there began.
Soneva has been pioneering sustainability in the Maldives for 25 years, leading the way in banning plastic, using glass-bottled drinking water and reusing waste. Their chic eco resort Soneva Fushi has zero carbon emissions, recycles 90 percent of waste and makes and sells tonnes of charcoal and coconut oil each year.
Gili Lankanfushi in North Malé Atoll is a luxury resort with a laid-back, eco philosophy. Their organic garden grows more than 20 different crops used in their restaurants. Food waste is recycled using mechanical composters. There’s also new Kudadoo, an ultra-luxurious all inclusive resort in Lhaviyani Atoll, which opened in 2019 and is fully solar powered and plastic free.
Many eco programs at resorts allow guests to get involved. At Anantara Kihavah you can snorkel to the reef and tie on pieces of broken coral with the in-house scientists. At Vakkaru (and many other resorts) you can join in reef cleanups, ridding them of debris, plastic and other rubbish. In 2018, the world’s largest 3D printed reef was created at Summer Island. Guests can plant coral on this new home for marine life, and be sent updates on its growth throughout the year.

Plant-based dining in Soneva Jani’s organic garden.

If you’re vegan or vegetarian and heading to the Maldives then you’re in luck; plant-based dining is a growing trend. The new Patina Maldives has a plant-based restaurant, Roots. Gili Lankunfushi offers vegan cookery classes and has plant-based menus and room amenities. Soneva Jani’s new food concept, So Wild, takes 90 percent of ingredients from the resort’s organic garden.
Away from the high-end resorts, it’s totally possible to explore the islands on a budget. Smaller hotels have air conditioned  rooms for a little as $150 per night. Cocogiri in Vaavu Atoll has beach villas from $178 per person per night. Kuramathi on Rasdhoo Atoll has water villas from $248 per night.
Another way to see the Maldives on a budget is to avoid resorts altogether. Most are built on privately-owned islands but many local islands can be reached by speedboat or ferry, where you’ll find guest houses and homestays in small towns and fishing villages. Connecting with local people and putting money back into the economy are also ways to reduce your impact in the Maldives.

We’ve named Uzbekistan Best Emerging Destination in our Experts’ Choice destination awards.
A crossroads of civilizations for thousands of years, Uzbekistan is home to ancient cities of the Silk Road, where cultures clashed and religious, political and scientific ideas developed over thousands of years. A republic of the USSR for most of the twentieth century, Uzbekistan was locked away, but in the last decade, especially since the death of repressive leader Islam Karimov in 2016, it has opened up to travelers and the media, revealing breathtaking architecture, riveting traditions and epic landscapes.
In 2018 Uzbekistan changed entry rules to allow visa-free entry for visitors from 65 countries, prompting travel companies to launch a raft of new trips including small group tours, culinary adventures, trekking, and journeys along the Silk Route by train.
Lonely Planet named it one of the top regions to visit in 2020, and many writers began to enthuse about its secrets — from Sebastian Modak, New York Times 52 Places traveler, to journalist and author Sophy Roberts.

Uzbekistan has opened up to international travel

During the past 12 months, Uzbekistan’s tourism board has been on a drive to promote its cultural heritage. Not that it needs promoting. The famous cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva, through which the silk routes passed, are enchanting jewels frozen in time. And, there are vast lonely deserts, mountain ranges, fertile valleys, towns and villages which few tourists have ever seen.
Travelers to Uzbekistan can have a huge variety of experiences, from visiting Tashkent, the modern face of the country, with its looming Soviet-style buildings, to exploring the Silk Route cities which have thousands of years of history perfectly preserved within their walls.

The Hyatt Regency Tashkent

Capital city Tashket is an intriguing collision of national institutions and monuments, hulking Brutalist buildings, Islamic mosques and leafy parks and squares. Visit the Muyi Mubarak Library Museum which houses one of the world’s oldest qurans along with thousands of rare books and manuscripts.
The city’s Communist-era metro stations, celebrating Uzbek life and national figures like poet Alisher Navoi and writer Gafur Gulom are filled with mosaic art, marble pillars and even Islamic-style domes, making them an attraction in their own right.
Uzbeks are traders and nowhere is this more evident than in Tashkent’s raucous Chorsu Bazaar which sells everything from horse meat sausages to hand painted plates. When it’s time to eat, the Central Asian Plov Centre cooks up a mountain of Plov — the dish that was said to sustain attacking armies during the time of Alexander the Great — in giant dishes.
Hyatt Regency Tashkent is one of the best accommodation choices and has a restaurant serving Uzbek cuisine and an outdoor terrace. Lonely Planet likes the Sharq, “a well-located upmarket but affordable hotel that has style, security and good service.” Hotel Uzbekistan a classic piece of Soviet modernist architecture recently changed hands and a refurbishment has been hinted at.

Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan’s Silk Route cities are the most captivating places to visit in the country, and contain some of the best preserved Islamic architecture in the world. In Bukhara, “city of a thousand merchants” the 46-meter-high Kalon minaret is a masterpiece built out of brick and covered in Kufic calligraphy.
In Samarkan, the Registan has dazzlingly beautiful Islamic tiling. The Gur-e-Amir tomb of ruthless conqueror of Persia Amir Timur has a jaw-dropping gold interior. Khiva is a magical walled city teeming with minarets, palaces and domed mosques that create a dusty, wonderfully cinematic cityscape against the hazy setting sun.

Hilltop fort in the Kyzylkum Desert

Away from the tourist trail Uzbekistan’s remote deserts have their own treasures, like Kampyr Tepe, an ancient city founded by Alexander the Great. Traversed by silk road traders through the ages, the Kyzylkum Desert, the “Red Desert” and Aydarkul Lake, which covers an astonishing 1200 square miles, offer opportunities for camel trekking, mountain hikes, birdwatching  and staying in yurt camps underneath star-filled skies.
In the western part of the desert are the Khorezm fortresses, more than 50 lonely fortresses dating back to the 7th century BC. They can be reached on trips from Khiva and Burkhara.

Uzbek girls sell local bread in Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan.

Community and eco-based tourism in Uzbekistan is still evolving. One way to really understand the culture is to spend the night in a homestay in a rural village and participate in local life. You can learn about traditional crafts like silk carpet weaving and ceramics, Uzbek music, traditional medicine, horse breeding and farming. With some villages literally in the middle of nowhere, there’s the real possibility of getting completely off the beaten track and discovering somewhere untouched by tourism.

Charvak Lake, Tashkent Region, Uzbekistan

For adventurous travelers, remote Uzbekistan is a wild landscape of mountains, kilometers-long canyons, and caves which present magnificent hiking opportunities. Rafting on the fast flowing Chatkal River is another great experience for thrill-seekers.
Amirsoy, a new ski resort in the Tian Shan mountains, is the brainchild of Uzbek entrepreneur Rashvan Abdullaevr who plans to turn it into a world-class winter sports destination. The Telegraph newspaper gave it a glowing review in February, commenting that “it should be all eyes east for the new ski frontier once international travel is back on the cards.”

Tripexpert’s Experts’ Choice Awards are given to the best of the best hotels, restaurants and attractions in 126 countries, and are based on professional travel reviews. We also give awards to the destinations we think should be top of your travel bucket lists. This year, our award for Best of Central and South America goes to Bolivia.

Vast salt flats, 6000-meter-high peaks, empty, windswept deserts — Bolivia’s remote landscapes fit perfectly with the post-pandemic travel vibe. But this isn’t the only reason why we’ve chosen this country as one of our top destinations for 2021.

Although Bolivia was a Spanish colony for three centuries, today, the country is alive with the colorful traditions and customs of its indigenous peoples. Its cities are varied and contrasting, from sedate, colonial Sucre, to chaotic, authentic La Paz.  And, it has astonishing biodiversity (in Madidi National Park alone, there are 265 mammal species and more than 1000 types of bird), something Bolivians have woken up to, strengthening protections at nature reserves and national parks as well as creating new ones.

Bolivia is made for thrill-seekers and explorers — trekking in distant mountains, exploring Amazonian rainforest and cycling along chillingly high mountain roads are just some of the many adventures you can have.  With a culinary scene that stretches all the way from fine dining to street food, great coffee and several beautiful wine regions, Bolivia is also a great destination for fans of food and drink.

The city of La Paz

Named one of Lonely Planet’s top 10 cities in 2020, La Paz is busy, gritty, and increasingly hip and arty. The most fashionable place to stay is Atix, a design hotel with a cool cocktail bar, but there are plenty of other good options, including the Stannum Boutique Hotel and Spa, which, according to Fodor’s Travel “makes for a flawless stay.” A new design hotel, Altu Quala is opening this summer.

One of the best places to sample Bolivian cuisine, in La Paz, you can try everything from smoked llama on the menu at Gustu to Andean anticuchos on the streets. The 17-mile-long cable car is a great way to see the whole city from above, and the Mercado de Hechicería (witches’ market), full of mysterious products used for charms, talismans and cures, is not to be missed either.

Beyond La Paz, Bolivia has other cities well worth visiting. Founded in the 16th century, Sucre is full of pretty squares, red-roofed colonial buildings, and interesting museums. Cosmopolitan Santa Cruz is Bolivia’s most modern city, and a good base for traveling to the country’s national parks, including little-visited Kaa Iya, home to jaguars, tapirs and pumas.

Kachi Lodge, in the middle of the Salar de Uyuni salt flat

Away from the cities and towns, Bolivia is full of incredible landscapes. 40,000 years old, 4000 square miles in size, the huge salt flat Salar de Uyuni has captivated travelers and tour operators alike in recent years, and now there is a permanent hotel in the middle of it  — Kachi Lodge, where you can gaze at the stars from your bed in a luxury heated dome, and take sunrise hikes across the glittering salt pan.

With Blink by Black Tomato, you can have your very own personalised camp set up in a unique location on the salf flat. And on Explora‘s journey across Chile and Bolivia, you can gaze at them from your mountain lodge accomodation.
There are also several salt hotels, where everything from the walls and floors to the beds are made by local people from blocks of salt. Palacio de Sal is the oldest and the best.

While there, you might also want to visit Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve where you’ll find Laguna Colorada, a lake tinged red with algae and populated by flamingos. Or the bleakly beautiful Siloi Desert with its bubbling geysers and distant volcanoes.

Bolivia has a multitude of experiences in the great outdoors. The 1200-kilometre-long Cordillera Real range, full of soaring peaks, glacial lakes and Andean tribal villages is a top mountain climbing and trekking destination and free from the crowds of trekkers that flock to Peru.

Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve

North-east of La Paz, the road to Coroico, a stunningly beautiful route that winds its way through forested mountains with vertical 1000-meter drops, is on many a mountain biker’s bucket list. The Coroico River is fantastic for white water rafting and kayaking.
And magical Lake Titicaca, sacred to the Incas and dotted with ruined shrines, temples and traditional Aymara farming communities also has wonderful hiking and kayaking opportunities.

Amboro National Park

Wildlife lovers have many choices, from Amboro National Park, which is home to more than 900 bird species, to the Valley of the Condors, where you can watch the threatened Andean Condor, one of the largest flying birds in the world.

North-west of La Paz, rainforested Madidi National Park is one of the most biodiverse places on earth, home to jaguars, tapirs, monkeys, and 11% of the world’s bird species. On its fringes, the Pampas (Amazonian wetlands), are inhabited by river dolphins, caimans, iguanas, squirrel monkeys, sloths and capybaras.

Bolivia is also becoming known for its beautiful high-altitude vineyards in Tarija, which produce distinctive, award-winning reds. Conde Nast Traveler is just one travel magazine writing about why Bolivia should be the next wine destination you visit in South America.

Just before the coronavirus pandemic, Bolivia hosted the World Travel Awards and won in several categories. COVID-19 dealt a huge blow to the country’s tourism industry, but with pristine national parks, remote landscapes that stir the imagination, a vibrant indigenous culture and a distinct lack of crowds, we think it won’t be long before tourism is booming in Bolivia again.

Tripexpert is excited to announce the winners of the 2021 Experts’ Choice Awards. This year, the award will be received by 5,000 hotels, restaurants and attractions in 126 countries. These are, quite simply, the best of the best places to stay, eat and visit in 2021, according to professional travel reviewers.

What’s new this year

The emergence of COVID-19 halted travelers in their tracks. Over 18 months, as the world went into lockdown after lockdown, it became clear that travel would have to be reinvented for a post-pandemic world. Throughout, businesses have shown amazing resilience and creative thinking. Michelin-starred restaurants became takeaways. Hotels took the opportunity to renovate or extend. Museums, galleries and other attractions went digital and innovated to engage visitors stuck at home.
Because of the pandemic, we decided against awarding Experts’ Choice in 2020. Instead, we used the time to overhaul the site, which is now faster and easier to use. We also improved our coverage of remote destinations that have been especially popular with travelers in the last year, such as national parks and nature reserves.

About this year’s winners

Many of our Experts’ Choice winners are notable for how they responded to the pandemic. In the restaurant category, the three Michelin-starred 11 Madison Park in New York was not above designing meal kits so diners could recreate their gourmet experience in their own homes. The Crane Resort in Barbados, another Experts’ Choice winner, is allowing guests who test positive for coronavirus to self isolate at the resort for free, rather than paying for a government hotel.

Despite the hardships involved in opening new businesses in the past 18 months, our list of winners includes an impressive 849 places that have not previously received the award.

As in previous years, Europe and the Americas performed very strongly; this year, it’s a virtual tie between the two continents in terms of total number of winners (about 1,900 each). They are followed by Asia (about 900 winners) and Africa and Oceania (about 250 winners each).

Selection criteria

Tripexpert is unique in relying exclusively on professional reviews in determining our award winners. Every place we cover has a Tripexpert Score — the result of aggregating reviews from travel guides, magazines, newspapers and blogs. Our sources include publications like Travel + Leisure, Frommer’s, and The New York Times.
Experts’ Choice is awarded to the highest rated places in each destination. In general, no more than 2% of businesses receive the award, making it a distinctive honor.

Next steps

If you’re a winner, we’ll send you an email. You can use our collection of Experts’ Choice badges on your website to show that you are top-rated by experts. Additional resources are available on our Experts’ Choice page, and we’re happy to help you with media outreach — please contact Chris Blume with any queries you may have.
If you’re a traveler, keep an eye out for Experts’ Choice badges on the pages of winning venues on Tripexpert.com and around the internet when you’re planning your next trip. You can also look for winners on our Experts’ Choice page.