Top Ten Global Tourist Destinations

France - Rich in culture and has some of the finest places to see. The landscapes range from the fretted coasts of Brittany to the limestone hills of Provence, the canyons of the Pyrenees and the half-moon bays of Corsica, from the lushly wooded valleys of the Dordogne to the glaciated peaks of the Alps. Each region looks and feels different, has its own style of architecture, its characteristic food and often its own patois or dialect.

If you need more than urban stimuli to activate the pleasure buds - clubs, shops, fashion, movies, music, hanging out with the beautiful and famous - then the great cities provide them in abundance. Paris, of course, is an outstanding cultural centre, with its stunting contemporary buildings and atmospheric back streets, its art and its ethnic diversity. And the great provincial cities like Lille and Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille and Nice vie with the capital and each other, like the city-states of old, for prestige in the arts, ascendancy in sport and innovation in urban transport.

Spain - If you are coming to Spain for the first time, be warned: this is a country that fast becomes an addiction. You might intend to come just for a beach holiday, or a tour of the major cities, but before you know it you'll find yourself hooked by something quite different - by the celebration of some local fiesta, perhaps, or the amazing nightlife in Madrid, by the Moorish monuments of Andalucia, by Basque cooking, or the wild landscapes and birds of prey of Estremadura.

USA - Every traveler in the United States - be they foreigners on a coast-to-coast road trip or locals exploring their extraordinarily diverse land - has some idea of what to expect. American culture has become so thoroughly shared throughout the globe that one of the principal joys of getting to know the country is the repeated, delicious shock of the familiar. Yellow taxis on busy city streets; roadside mailboxes straight out of Peanuts cartoons; wooden porches overlooking the cottonfields; tumbleweed skittering across the desert; endless highways dotted with pick-up trucks and chrome-plated diners; the first sight of the Grand Canyon, or the Manhattan skyline - now more than ever an indelibly iconic image.

Italy - Of all European countries, Italy is perhaps the hardest to classify. It is a modern, industrialized nation. It is the harbinger of style, its designers leading the way with each season's fashions. But it is also, to an equal degree, a Mediterranean country, with all that that implies. Agricultural land covers much of the country, a lot of it, especially in the south, still owned under almost feudal conditions. In towns and villages all over the country, life grinds to a halt in the middle of the day for a siesta, and is strongly family-oriented, with an emphasis on the traditions and rituals of the Catholic Church which, notwithstanding a growing scepticism among the country's youth, still dominates people's lives here to an immediately obvious degree.

China - The first thing that strikes visitors to China is the extraordinary density of population: central and eastern China do not have landscapes so much as peoplescapes. In the fertile plains, villages seem to merge into one another, while the big cities are endlessly sprawling affairs with the majority of their inhabitants living in cramped shacks or in depressingly uniform dormitory buildings.

The most enduring images of China are intrinsically Chinese ones: chopsticks, tea, slippers, massed bicycles, shadow-boxing, exotic pop music, karaoke, teeming crowds, Dickensian train stations, smoky temples, red flags and the smells of soot and frying tofu - as well as the industrial vistas you would expect from one of the world's largest economies. Away from the cities, there is the sheer joy of crossing such a vast and ancient land - from the green paddy fields and misty hilltops of the south, to the mountains of Tibet, to the scorched, epic landscapes of the old Silk Road in the northwest.

UK - The UK today is a diverse patchwork of native and immigrant cultures, possessing a fascinating history and dynamic modern culture, both of which remain hugely influential in the wider world.

The UK is short for the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" and is formed by the province of Northern Ireland and the countries of Great Britain - England, Scotland and Wales. Each of these countries has a very distinct identity and you should not call a Welshman English or vice versa, and some may not like being called 'British', even though the Welsh (and the Cornish) are the original Britons.

The different islands in the Irish Sea and those North of Scotland are also part of the UK. The capital city of the United Kingdom (and the largest city) is London and a perfect place to start your travels.

Russia - Modern Russia is very accessible, and although visas are still obligatory and accommodation often has to be booked in advance, independent travel is increasingly an option. Nonetheless, Moscow and St Petersburg remain the easiest places to visit, and these are covered below. For the adventurous, travel further afield can be booked through various agencies in Russia and abroad, and there are an increasing number of Web sites offering advice and travel services for the less standard routes.

Moscow and St Petersburg are mutually complementary. Moscow , the capital, is hugely enthralling. It is not a beautiful city by any means, and is a somewhat chaotic place. However, Moscow's central core reflects Russia's long and fascinating history at the heart of a vast empire, whether in the relics of the Communist years, the Kremlin with its palaces and churches of the tsars, the wooden buildings still tucked away in backstreets, or in the massive building projects of the mayor, Yuriy Luzhkov, which have radically changed the face of the centre.

Mexico - Mexico enjoys a cultural blend that is wholly unique: among the fastest growing industrial powers in the world, its vast cities boast modern architecture to rival any in the world, yet it can still feel, in places, like a half-forgotten Spanish colony, while the all-pervading influence of native American culture, five hundred years on from the Conquest, is extraordinary.

The north of Mexico, relatively speaking, is dull, arid and sparsely populated outside of a few industrial cities - like Monterrey - which are heavily American-influenced. The Baja California wilderness has its devotees, the border cities can be exciting in a rather sleazy way, and there are beach resorts on the Pacific, but most of the excitement lies in central and southeastern Mexico.

It's in the highlands north of and around the capital that the first really worthwhile stops come, with the bulk of the historic colonial towns and an enticingly spring-like climate year-round. Coming through the heart of the country, you'll pass the silver-mining towns of Zacatecas and Guanajuato , the historic centres of San Miguel de Allende and Querétaro , and many smaller places with a legacy of superb colonial architecture. Mexico City itself is a nightmare of an urban sprawl, but totally fascinating, and in every way - artistic, political, cultural - the capital of the nation.

Canada - Canada is almost unimaginably vast. It stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the latitude of Rome to beyond the Magnetic North Pole. Its archetypal landscapes are the Rocky Mountain lakes and peaks, the endless forests and the prairie wheatfields, but Canada holds landscapes that defy expectations: rainforest and desert lie close together in the southwest corner of the country, while in the east a short drive can take you from fjords to lush orchards. What's more, great tracts of Canada are completely unspoiled - ninety percent of the country's 28.5 million population lives within 100 miles of the US border.

Austria - Australia is massive, and very sparsely peopled: in size it rivals the USA, yet its population is just over eighteen million - little more than that of the Netherlands. This is an ancient land, and often looks it: in places, it's the most eroded, denuded and driest of continents, with much of central and western Australia - the bulk of the country - overwhelmingly arid and flat. In contrast, its cities - most of which were founded as recently as the mid-nineteenth century - express a youthful energy.

The harshness of the interior has forced modern Australia to become a coastal country. Most of the population lives within 20km of the ocean, occupying a suburban, southeastern arc extending from southern Queensland to Adelaide. These urban Australians celebrate the typical New World values of material self-improvement through hard work and hard play, with an easy-going vitality that visitors, especially Europeans, often find refreshingly hedonistic. A sunny climate also contributes to this exuberance, with an outdoor life in which a thriving beach culture and the congenial backyard are central.