The Best City To Visit 2012 Travel Tournament Winner Is…Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina!

• 13 years ago

In two days of voting, after 14,211 total votes, Sarajevo defeated a determined Guimaraes to become The Best City to Visit in 2012. The 5th seed Sarajevo made it past a string of Mediterranean opponents knocking off Vernazza, Seville, Rome, Izmir, Fethiye, before eventually Guimaraes. Though the Portuguese supporters were passionate (as the comments show) and dedicated to getting the European Capital of Culture to the Finals, Portugal was not to repeat Porto’s victory this year. The Bosnia-Herzegovina media blitz – Internet, TV, and radio was simply too big an obstacle to overcome.

Both cities and their supporters should be proud to accomplish what more than 100 others cities around the world could not. So, we say goodbye to Porto and hello to Sarajevo, The Best City To Visit until next March’s tournament.

• Congratulations as well to Alen, who originally nominated Sarajevo and wins this year’s $300 prize.

View The Best City To Visit 2012 in a larger map

Sarajevo Is Now In My 2012 Travel Plans

As I promised at the beginning of the tournament, I’ll be heading to The Best City to Visit 2012 – Sarajevo – before this year is over. It will take me a few weeks to get my general travel plans sorted but right now I’m guessing I’ll be in Bosnia-Herzegovina sometime this fall. I’m sure many of you have suggestions for me (feel free to leave some in the comments below!) and I’ll be planning one of my meet-ups in Sarajevo. I hope to see many of you in person when I arrive!

• Since it may be a few months until then, you can keep up with me are through Facebook, Twitter, and my daily or bi-monthly emails.
• There are other benefits too as I run several contests throughout the year and even occasionally send my readers places.

You can also find out where I am right now, where I’m headed, and the countries I’ve written about.

Thank You Everyone Who Participated In This Year’s Tournament

Massive thanks to all of you who entered a city this year, voted in the tournament, shared it around the Internet, and made 2012’s contest one hell of a competition to watch. I hope your wanderlust was fueled and that The Best City to Visit 2012 Travel Tournament highlighted a few cities you hadn’t considered (or heard of) before as travel destinations.

• Along the way you may have even learned what is a city really?

My Book Writing Is Almost Complete So I’m Hitting The Road

The next 48 hours will be an intense one for me as I complete the working draft of my next ebook but with the end in sight, I’m getting ready to hit the road. In April I’ll be traveling around Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and considering a swing by Kuwait too before the month is up. (All new countries for me.) Maybe we cross paths along the way there or somewhere else this year.

• In case you’re already having best city tournament withdrawal, I’ve got post about some of the drama that surrounds it each year coming up in a few weeks. Much of it may surprise you.

So for now, another big congratulations to Sarajevo on being voted The Best City to Visit in 2012; and to all of the cities nominated in this year’s tournament for a wonderful effort.