Wanderlust Travel Awards 2009 - Top City

1    Antigua, Guatemala    97.78%

2    Kyoto, Japan    95.56%

3    Boston, USA    95%

4    Kraków, Poland    94.67%

5    Havana, Cuba    94.29%

6    Damascus, Syria    93.33%

7    Luang Prabang, Laos    93%

8    Cuzco, Peru    92.73%

9    Sydney, Australia    92.06%

10 Tallinn, Estonia    91.43%

New York, Paris, Buenos Aires… No, Wanderlust readers like to throw in a few curve balls. So we shouldn’t have been surprised that two-year-running winner Luang Prabang was toppled this time round by the Guatemalan city of Antigua.

A town of bougainvillea-lined streets and top-class language schools huddled by three volcanoes, Antigua had some passionate advocates. ‘I rated it so highly for a number of reasons,’ said reader Annabelle Taylor. ‘It has an abundance of beautiful old colonial churches, a wonderful vibrant market, incredibly kind people – and Fernando’s serves the best coffee!’

It’s also addictive: ‘I first visited Antigua when I was travelling around Central America in 2005 and fell in love with the town – so much so that, for the past three summers, I have worked as a volunteer teacher there!’ Sharon Hodgkins told us.

You also loved its ‘great, inexpensive local restaurants’, ‘fascinating Spanish and Mayan history’ and the fact that it’s a great base for exploring the surrounding volcanoes and lakes.

And the rest…

The rest of the top ten are an interesting mix – perennial faves Cuzco and Sydney are still there, but it’s mostly new entries, with typically bargain destinations Kraków and Tallinn getting in on the action.

But what of the others? You’d visited a grand 631 cities in total: loitering just outside the top ten were Melbourne, Fès, Verona, Seattle and Split; down at the bottom were Pakistan’s Karachi and Papua New Guinean capital Port Moresby.

>>See the rest of the award winners here