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[manzara]

A team of top explorers, adventurers and award-winning writers put together a list of the greatest travel adventures to get our hearts racing for 2010.

Travel experts including Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler, explorer Benedict Allen and broadcaster Simon Calder share some of the most intense adventures available on the planet which include:

1. Tiger tracking on elephants, Kanha National Park, India
"You'll never get so close to a tiger in the wild."

2. Skiing on Asahidake, Hokkaido, Japan
"Asahidake is Hokkaido's highest mountain and sends out a stream of smoke from its vents. It enjoys eight meters of snow a year, the most consistently excellent in the world."

3. Diving with hammerhead sharks in the Galapagos
"With basic scuba skills you can safely dive with these fabulous, iconic sharks - in the company of so many of them that you lose count."

4. Encounter with mountain gorillas in Rwanda
"Nothing rivals a close-up with our closest relatives. The trek can take five hours. It is at altitude, in a rainforest, with no paths. Worth it - massively and emotionally."

5. Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru
"Popular though this three-day trek is, nothing can prepare you for the awesome first sight of the 'lost' city of the Incas as you round the trail on the last day, seeing it perched high above the Urumaba with the mist swirling around it."

6. Larapinta Trail in Australia's Northern Territory
"Classic outback country: dry, dramatic, lots of wildlife ... the 'dry' component would normally make it unwalkable until the establishment of regular water tanks made it one of Australia's best hikes."

7. Trans-Siberian Railway, Russia
"The greatest rail adventure of them all. I'd suggest the weekly Moscow-Mongolia-Beijing train. It's six nights and over 5,000 miles across Siberia, the Gobi Desert, and through the
Great Wall for as little as GBP410. You can even start your trip at St. Pancras."

8. Hot-air ballooning over the Serengeti, Tanzania
"Even if there are no migrating herds, just to pass over the African savannah in silence is something you will never forget."

9. Hiking the Grand Tsingy Circuit, Madagascar
"Tsingy are pinnacles and spikes of limestone creating the world's most exotic rock garden. Rare succulents shelter in the gullies that visitors cross using boardwalks, ladders, and bridges. An extraordinary experience on an extraordinary island."

10. The wildlife of the Pantanal, Brazil
"Check out giant otters, caimans, jaguars, green iguanas, and more."

The nearest I've got to any of these is tracking tigers in a Jeep in Ranthambore National Park, Rajasthan, India and we've visited Tanzania - well Zanzibar to be precise!

How about you?

[kathryn77]

7. Trans-Siberian Railway, Russia
"The greatest rail adventure of them all. I'd suggest the weekly Moscow-Mongolia-Beijing train. It's six nights and over 5,000 miles across Siberia, the Gobi Desert, and through the
Great Wall for as little as GBP410. You can even start your trip at St. Pancras."


^^^ Really?! I didn't know you could start from St Pancras...how would that work...?