Who’s the coolest of them all?

So, the news is out — on the front page of the Dom­Post, an adver­tis­ing colour sup­ple­ment, and ban­ners all along the Gold­en Mile: Welling­ton is the “coolest lit­tle cap­i­tal in the world”.

Yep, that means Welling­ton has beat­en out oth­er lit­tle cap­i­tal cities such as Vat­i­can City, Dili, Kab­ul and Apia to be the coolest. Ha — take that, The Pope!

The excerpt from the Lone­ly Plan­et’s Best in Trav­el 2011 guide (and let’s remem­ber, this is a mas­sive pro­mo­tion for Lone­ly Plan­et’s book, as well as Welling­ton tourism) sum­maris­es the best of the city, and notes that “locals love their city”. Hey, that’s true!

But maybe more impres­sive than the “best lit­tle cap­i­tal” title is to check out Welling­ton’s place in Lone­ly Plan­et’s top 10 list of trav­el des­ti­na­tions for 2011:

1. New York City, USA
2. Tang­i­er, Moroc­co
3. Tel Aviv, Israel
4. Welling­ton, New Zealand
5. Valen­cia, Spain
6. Iqui­tos, Peru
7. Ghent, Bel­gium
8. Del­hi, India
9. New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia
10. Chi­ang Mai, Thai­land

Yep, those are some real­ly amaz­ing cities on that list (includ­ing my fave New­cas­tle — a cul­tur­al gem!). It’s choice to be amongst such com­pa­ny.