Ho Chi Minh City has been listed among Asia’s ten best destinations to visit in the year ahead by global travel guidebook publisher Lonely Planet, which revealed its 2018 ‘Best in Asia’ list on Tuesday.

For this third edition of the annual list, Lonely Planet’s in-house Asia experts have named the “eclectic” and “vibrant” city of Busan in South Korea as the number one destination, while the jeweled architecture and ancient cities of Uzbekistan are in second place.

In third comes Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, “a supercity that somehow keeps getting cooler."

“Aging apartment blocks are being colonized by vintage clothes stores and independent coffee shops, innovative breweries are fuelling one of the best craft beer scenes in Southeast Asia, and…eclectic venues are strengthening the local music scene,” Lonely Planet writes in its introduction of the southern metropolis on the list.

“Add in long-standing attractions [such as] The War Remnants Museum and a pioneering street food scene…and this buzzing Asian megalopolis is in no danger of going out of style,” the description goes on.

Ho Chi Minh City, also widely known by its former name of Saigon, is the Vietnam’s largest city by population.

It is also one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations among global travelers, having welcomed over six million foreign visitors in 2017, according to the municipal tourism department.

An aerial view of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Other destinations featured in this year’s Best in Asia list include Western Ghats (India), Nagasaki (Japan), Chiang Mai (Thailand), Lumbini (Nepal), Arugam Bay (Sri Lanka), Sìchuān Province (China), and Komodo National Park (Indonesia).

Lonely Planet’s Asia-Pacific media spokesperson Chris Zeiher regards Asia as a “vast and diverse continent” for anyone dreaming of an escape.

“Our experts have combed through thousands of recommendations to pick the best destinations to visit over the next 12 months…this is a line-up to inspire a multitude of travelers – whether they’re based in Asia, or maybe they’ve already visited some of the region’s heavy-hitting destinations,” he said.

The 2018 list is available online, with accompanying articles for each destination, at lonelyplanet.com/best-in-asia.

Lonely Planet, based in Tennessee, the U.S., is the world’s leading travel guidebook publisher, having printed more than 145 million guidebooks over the past four decades and grown a large global community of travelers.

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