TripAdvisor has recently announced its top 5 cities in the world. Topping the list, as their best city was Cape Town followed by Sydney, Machu Picchu, Rio de Janeiro and New York City. The votes were cast by millions of world travellers and this is what they came up with as their favourites.

However, it is worth thinking hard before using this list as your ultimate one. Firstly, people would have only voted for cities they have visited. This means that cities that are not often visited could be much better, but people do not know about them and therefore do not vote. Of course, you may feel that if it was that good, people would have heard of it and they will be wanting to visit it and therefore vote for it. But it depends on what you want from a city.

With these sorts of lists, it is difficult to know what people are using as the criteria to base their vote on. Also you have no idea how many cities they have actually visited and so what form of comparison they have. However, with so many travellers voting it does seem to be quite a good source of information. You will probably find a whole host of similar lists over the Internet, some with similar and some with very different results.

However, trust your instincts. Do research about a place and decide whether it sounds like the sort of place you would like. Think about what there is to do and whether that would be the sort of thing that you and your family would like to spend your time doing. It is also worth thinking about what part of the world they are in and whether that is somewhere you would like to explore. If you are going to be there for a while, then you will need to consider what else there is to do in the area, what other places there are to visit and what there is to do, to keep everyone entertained.

If you are considering a city break, think about why you want one and what you hope to get out of it. Are you thinking of going London because you like the sound of the museums or because your friend said you should go. What do you plan to do there? Where do you plan to stay? How long for? It is good to research a place. It is very different having a city break to a beach holiday for example. With a beach holiday you know there will always be a beach and that is why you are there so you know you will get what you want. However, with a city, they vary so much that you could get a whole host of different things and you need to make sure that you are getting what you want and expect.

So in conclusion, use the lists as a guide and give the planning a lot of thought. Decide what you want form the holiday and match that with the destination rather than doing things the other way around.