KEY POINTS:
If your aim in travelling is to find Sin City, then Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2009 is the book for you.
Its special section on the best places for deadly sins offers the top choices for naughtiness out of the various destinations, journeys and experiences on offer
throughout the world in the year ahead:
GREED - Las Vegas
Vegas' slogan could be "greed is good". The bandits may be one-armed, but they're reaching for your money all the same.
It's not just the casino owners - everywhere, glazy-eyed gamblers try to defy the odds and pile up the pennies. Come here to connect with your inner kitsch: acres of neon, rhinestone-encrusted showgirls and outrageously opulent casinos. The capital of capitalism is unlike anywhere else on earth - after all, there's no exceeding excess.
WRATH - Milan
It's easy to mistake the red flares burning at big Italian soccer matches for the red mist of rage, so fierce are some local encounters.
Packed in amid seething crowds, you'd be excused a frisson of fear as decibels surge to ear-numbing proportions and the teams trot on to the pitch.
Some of the most wrathful rivalry has been seen at the San Siro stadium, where Milan take on local arch-enemies Inter. When they do, the whole city is a riot of red and blue.
ENVY - Tokyo
Shoto in Tokyo's Shibuya district has some of the world's most expensive real estate. Costing about US$1800 ($3052) per square foot, it recently pipped Barker Road in Hong Kong, Eaton Square in London's Belgravia and New York's Fifth Avenue to the title.
Get a culture-shock, but don't expect to buy a home.
SLOTH - Caribbean Islands
When it comes to laid-back chilling out, many minds turn languidly to the Caribbean. In this place, limin' (watching the world go by) is a way of life.
While away some lazy, hazy days in relatively undeveloped Tobago. Calypso music drifts by on the breeze, azure seas lap at pristine sands and turtles glide silently across coral reefs. If you visit at Easter, watch for the crab and goat racing.
LUST - Amsterdam
Amsterdam is as notorious for its red-light district as for its tolerant approach to soft drugs. Despite plans to close a third of the city's sex venues, the scantily clad women in the Wallen's well-lit "window brothels" are still a big draw for the curious coach-party crowd.
If all that risqué posing falls rather flat, develop a burning passion for Amsterdam's waterfront architecture instead.
PRIDE - Los Angeles
Los Angeles is a land of big hair and small noses. Displaying more nips'n'tucks than a street full of couture houses, this is a city that appears to have more plastic surgeons than palm trees. Cruise the boutique shops of Beverly Hills for some people-watching or head to Hollywood for a burst of celebrity-spotting.
GLUTTONY - Paris
For centuries the epicentre of epicurean delight, the restaurants of Paris risk making gluttons of us all. Although Tokyo sometimes trumps the French capital for sheer numbers of Michelin stars, dining by candlelight in a back-street bistro in the Latin Quarter is still divine. Guzzle a galette in even the humblest creperie and you'll wonder how they manage to make buckwheat pancakes taste so sublime.
Visitors can work off the calories with a Gallic game of boules.
Reproduced with permission from Lonely Planet Best in Travel 2009, copyright Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd. This is an edited extract from Lonely Planet's Best In Travel 2009, Lonely Planet Publications, 2008. $49.99.
