What did 32,633 readers choose as the best in travel? Answers here.

This is the 21st year of the Condé Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards, one of the year’s biggest events for the magazine (full results will be listed in the November print issue.) Readers gave collective feedback on 9,168 hotels, resorts, cities, islands, cruise lines, airlines and car rental agencies.

Thanks to Consumer Travel Editor Wendy Perrin, I was flown to New York City (on JetBlue - hurray for seatback TV and satellite radio plus legroom!) to live-tweet the event on my Twitter stream (here are the awards-related tweets on Twitter’s search engine, using “#rca08″ which is a “hashtag” used to track a single topic.)

Not all winners were announced at the ceremony (only those who were able to send representatives to the event) but here is the complete list of awardees by poll ranking and here they are on a Google Map. I’m confining this post to those announced the night of October 15, as I typed like a maniac and grappled with a few WiFi and power issues.  My blogging compadres from Jaunted were also there somewhere, but I missed them in the crush.

Since I’m interested in how tourism organizations use social media, I’ve also included URLs to any official blogs that I could find.

Cities

Islands

  • Best Caribbean/Atlantic island: Bermuda (other finalists were St. Barts and St. John.)
  • Best Pacific Island: Maui (other finalists were Kauai and Bora Bora.)

Hotels

  • Best US hotel: The Peninsula Chicago (other finalists were the Elizabeth Pointe Lodge, Amelia Island FL and the Stephanie Inn, Cannon Beach OR.)
  • Best Asian hotel: The Oberoi Udaivilas, Rajasthan India (other finalists were the Peninsula Hong Kong and another Oberoi property, the Amarvilas in Agra, India.)

Resorts

  • Best Resort in Asia: Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle in Chiang Rai, Thailand (er, no, this is not really a camp for kids, and when I did a currency conversion of their rates from Thai baht into US dollars, I saw a figure of $2,152.89 per night, not including tax or tips. Wow.) Other finalists were the Four Seasons Bali at Sayan and the Oberoi Vanyavilas, Rajasthan.
  • Best Resort, Atlantic Ocean: The One&Only Ocean Club, Bahamas (with an annoying all-Flash Web site that drove me nuts auto-playing music and not providing distinct URLs for each property.) Other finalists include Pink Sands, Bermuda and The Reefs, Bermuda.
  • Best Resort, Mexico: A tie between the One&Only Palmilla and The Tides, Riviera Maya
    (the other finalist was the JW Marriott Resort and Spa in Cancun.)
  • Best Resort, Caribbean: The Ritz-Carlton Grand Cayman (other finalists were Curtain Bluff, Antigua and Petit St. Vincent Resort, Grenadines.)
  • Best Resort, Hawaii: The Four Seasons Maui at Wailea (other finalists were, um, two other Four Seasons properties….at this point I’m wondering, are there NO awesome places that aren’t chains? OK, it was the Four Seasons Hualalai on the Big Island and the Four Seasons Lana’i The Lodge at Koele.)

Airlines, Cars and Cruise Lines

  • Best Airline for US routes: Virgin America, a first-time winner although it only serves 7 US cities (other finalists were JetBlue and Midwest Airlines; the only big-name airline was Continental.)
  • Best Airline without any US routes: SilkAir, to 28 Asian destinations (other finalists were Air Iceland and India-based Jet Airways.)
  • Best Airline for international routes: Singapore Airlines (which has won every year except for Swissair in 1994. Other finalists were Emirates - get a load of their in-flight showers in First Class - and Virgin Atlantic.)
  • Best car rental agency: Hertz (based on rates, reliability of fleet, rental locations, service, staff efficiency and vehicle selection - other finalists were Avis and Enterprise.)
  • Best large ship cruise line: Crystal Cruises (other finalists were Disney and Regent Seven Seas.)
  • Best small ship cruise line: Seabourn (Yay, I actually found a blog for the Seabourn Odyssey launching in June 2009. Other finalists were SeaDream Yacht Club and Regent Seven Seas.)

As most of my readers know, I’m a budget-minded person who prefers independent travel, staying in locally-owned lodging and eating local food. I am so NOT a Four Seasons Whatever traveler, mostly because I cannot afford it, but also partly because luxury properties all seem to be the same on many levels.

They all have expensive spas, they all have “gourmet” restaurants, they all have a fancy pool, they all have valet parking, they all have a concierge, they all have elaborate lobbies with mood lighting and some sort of atmospheric music, their sheets are all high-thread-count, there’s always some sort of yoga class, they usually charge for WiFi and those silly bottles of water waiting in the room, blah blah. 

If I want to be all cocooned in the same predictable way like that (and I somehow have big money available) I’ll just drive downtown to the Four Seasons Austin rather than fly to a Thai jungle to stay in a $2,000/day tent.

If I do decide to get Ritz-y, apparently I’m about to experience a Golden Age. Because of our current economic problems, many luxury properties and destinations are pinched by a lack of customers and they’re ready to cut some deals. Now, we’re talking.

Wendy Perrin herself, ever on the hawk-like lookout for value, reports that, for example, Ritz-Carlton resorts are slashing prices for stays over the holidays, normally a time of year when prices go WAY up and everything fills up early.

Over the next few months, I look forward to reporting on possible ways for the El Cheapo Family Traveler to be able to experience places and properties from the Readers’ Choice Awards list, because we will be seeing some relative bargains from the best places in the world. Stay tuned.


By Sheila | Permalink | 10 comments | October 18th, 2008 | Trackback

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Comments

Craig | October 19th, 2008 at 5:58 am
top comment

Sheila,

We just spent five weeks in Buenos Aires with our kids, and I can tell you first hand Conde Nast readers are right in choosing it as the best city in the Americas. During our time there, were were never at a loss for things to do, there was great food, it felt very safe, and best of all, very affordable.

There are lots of details about what we did in BsAs at http://www.thewidewideworld.com.

I highly recommend it as a family destination.

Meg (B2B) | October 19th, 2008 at 8:44 am
top comment

Remember magazines are funded by advertisers and smaller hotels cannot afford CN’s rates. I am very biased on this one, it says a lot that the readers picked Maui over Kauai and Bermuda over St. Johns. That tells me that the readers are more interested in Golf than the islands. Not to snub all the choices, the One & Only Palmilla has been recommended as a dream for parents (with cash) and I want to try it out.

Thanks for tweeting & writing up your experience. (and where did you get that fab dress?)

Family Vacation Central | October 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
top comment

Wow this is in fact a great list of “the best of” that I have ever seen.

Is this an annual event that Conde Nast puts on? Where is it held? In the states or internationally.

This is the first time that I have visited your site, many thanks to Robert Scoble for posting about it.

Sheila | October 19th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
top comment

Hi Craig - thanks for the first-hand report; my knowledge of South America is woefully inadequate and I hope to fix that eventually.

Hi Meg - yes, I kinda have a problem with the same places being picked over and over. I hope to interview the person who pulls survey results together for CNTraveler, and talk about the criteria and maybe why people get so locked onto one place.

I got the dress from the Nordstrom Web site when I lived in the Netherlands (ordered shoes to match at the same time.) I was still on active duty and normally wore my Navy Mess Dress uniform to formal events, but there was one in civilian clothing, so I needed something. Turns out to be perfect for travel - it’s a long rayon-velvet dress with jacket, and even after rolling it up in my carry-on, it came out wrinkle free in New York. Yay!

Hi Family Vacation Central - Thanks very much for visiting; I did not know that I had made Scoble’s FriendFeed Google Reader link list! :) Conde Nast runs the survey annually - it’s now Web-based with very detailed questions. Covers both US and international destinations and properties.

john-travel | October 20th, 2008 at 7:14 am
top comment

Thanks for giving more information on the most popular with best in travel.the travel places are more in total world and all are good tourist places.

Mara | October 20th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
top comment

I found your tweets, your observations, and the list itself all to be interesting. I am also someone who is generally opposed to the “nice-ification” of everything, especially everything travel-related.

I’ve never been to Buenos Aires, but my parents have several times. It’s definitely on my list!

JetPunk | October 20th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
top comment

Nice list! The only city that I’d agree with is Buenos Aires.

My picks would be

US: San Diego
Europe: Prague
Asia: Tokyo

Heather Green | October 20th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
top comment

Hi Sheila! Thanks for the Seabourn blog shoutout. We included a link to this article on today’s blog.

Thanks so much for your support!

Heather

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Jenny | November 5th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
top comment

Aye! The Four Seasons in Maui is the best! Good post!


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