Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
A Top 50 Finish
Seeing a headline teasing the top 50 places in the world to visit in 2023 suggests the exotic, the distant, the places you can’t afford. And yes, the list from Travel Lemming, a top U-S based travel website lists plenty of remarkable attractions for 2023.
But there it is, nestled in at number 22, a place familiar to us all, Whidbey Island.
“This tranquil, unhurried island in Puget Sound entices nature lovers and artists with a slower pace of living.”
25 writers and editors at Travel Lemming, which specializes in emerging destinations, brought their best ideas to the table and pared them down to just 50 locations. They called their list, “definitely our boldest yet.”
Of Whidbey Island, they wrote, “This tranquil, unhurried island in Puget Sound entices nature lovers and artists with a slower pace of living.”
Travel Lemming writer Chelsea Booker commented, “Incredible vistas, welcoming towns, and a wealth of recreation make it easy to fall in love with the largest island in Washington state. Whidbey is not hard to get to but still feels wonderfully off-grid. This makes it one of the best places to disconnect and get away from the demands of everyday life.”
A Look at the Rankings
At number 21 is an island off New Zealand and at 23 is a village in the Yucatan. All three destinations offer great beauty and the chance to disconnect. The list includes 7 destinations in Europe, 5 in Asia, 4 in South America, 4 in Oceania, 4 in Africa, 6 in North America (besides the US), and 20 in the United States.
Whidbey Island was not the only American destination that Travel Lemming brought to their 6 million annual readers, nor was it the top location in the U.S., but that wasn’t the point. The point was that any of these destinations would provide a unique experience and memories to last a lifetime.
Notably, another U.S. destination was first; Lafayette, Louisiana. Following that were Bhutan, Utila, Honduras, Ile Sainte Marie, Madagascar, and Kosovo rounding out the top five.
Lists
Travel Lemming’s list isn’t the ultimate authority on travel, of course. I have a beautiful coffee table book (remember those?) from National Geographic called, Drives of a Lifetime – 500 of the World’s Most Spectacular Trips. Pages 68 and 69 describe Island Hopping in Washington and features a car-centric visit across Puget Sound, including Whidbey Island.
Other lists over the years have featured Camano Island or Cama Beach State Park. Still others highlight our beaches and still others rave about our hikes and still others find a way to add some of our restaurants to their lists.
The idea of each of these lists is to offer their readers a limited amount of information, and gratefully, Whidbey or Camano Islands often made the cut. And to that we thank the authors and hope their readers find them useful.
Jack Penland lives on Whidbey Island with his wife, Diane. Even though they’ve lived here for more than 20 years, they keep finding new adventures, places to explore, and food to try.
