DANNY ROBINS' INDIE TRAVEL GUIDE TO... TOP PLACES FOR 2011 PART 2

Following on from last week's suggestions on where to go in 2011, here are some more top tips for where to take yourself this year.

2011 is very definitely about being adventurous, exploring places you'd never thought of going before and considering countries and cities that are experiencing a bit of a rebirth after languishing in the doldrums. Here are some ideas...

The Middle East

I talked about Jordan last week and the Middle East definitely seems where it's at for the tourism industry in 2011.

This could be a big year for Tel Aviv - Easyjet started direct flights there from London in 2009 and at the end of last year it was voted Number 3 in Lonely Planet's Top 10 Cities for 2011. TLV, as the in-crowd call it, is the total flipside of Jerusalem - a secular, hedonistic party-loving city by the sea, with a reputation as the 'San Francisco of the Middle East' - it's a really fun, relaxed place with great weather all year round. It's also the home of Israel's art, film and music scenes. You can get there via Easyjet for about £140.

Two Middle Eastern places you might not have thought of visiting are Syria and Libya. Syria is now off the US's Axis of Evil list (the diplomatic equivalent of the naughty step) and with a program of modernisation going on, the country seems to be full of a new optimism. You can stay in lovely Ottoman palaces and drink coffee in souks, meet Bedouin and hang out in their goat-hair tents, and get lost in the maze-like old city of Damascus, one of the oldest cities in the world.

Check out the Syrian Tourist Board's great old-school website. If websites had existed in the 70s, this is what they'd have looked like.

Libya has also opened up a bit. The visa process has relaxed and you can now just get a visa when you arrive in the country. The Libyans are actively targeting tourists - If you're a history buff, it's got some of the most impressive archaeological remains in the world, with the remnants of many Greek, Roman and Byzantine cities. For the adventurous traveller, it's got to be fascinating to check out a country run by Colonel Gadaffi.

New Orleans

Treme (pronounced 'Tremay'), the new series from David Simon, creator of The Wire, starts going out in the UK in April. Treme is an area of New Orleans and the drama is set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps partly as a result of the programme, which has already gone out in the States, and certainly the fact that last year marked 5 years since Katrina and the city is much more back on its feet, there's a buzz around the place. The development and regeneration is ongoing but it's definitely back on the map as somewhere to visit.

This is a city that can't fail to please anyone who likes food or music (that's most of us then). The local Creole cooking is famous, particularly the gumbo (a spiced stew with shellfish or meat). A lot of restaurants were closed for a good while after Katrina and their gradual reopening has been an important part of the city reclaiming its identity. One of the great institutions, Dooky Chase - a soul food restaurant where Obama stopped on his 2008 campaign tour - is still opening only irregularly I think, despite a public campaign to help 88 year old owner and chef Leah Chase - but if you can get in there, it's well worth a visit.

For a gumbo recommended by Wendell Pierce, star of Treme (and Bunk from The Wire) try Olivier's just opposite The House of Blues club in the French Quarter. Or try an Osyter Po Boy - fried oysters with tomato lettuce and mayonnaise in a baguette - at Domilises, a seemingly rundown tavern that does some of the tastiest food in New Orleans.

Music is everywhere In New Orleans - in happiness and sadness the city expresses itself though music - funerals processions with bands and dancing are one of those classic New Orleans sights to look out for. Of course there are loads of great jazz clubs and in August there's the Satchmo Festival in honour of local boy Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong. I'm not normally the biggest jazz fan but in New Orleans it feels very right to be sat in a jazz club.

On the Indie front, check out the New Orleans Indie Rock Collective who promote gigs and run festivals. There's the New Orleans Indie Rock Fest in November and March 11th-13th this year there's the Foburg Music Festival on Frenchmen St - the street is normally famous for its jazz bars but for those few days they are filled with local indie and alternative artists, and some better known acts who are on their way to South By South West.

Of course, as well as music and food, New Orleans is famous for its voodoo tradition. If you fancy coming home armed with some authentic voodoo dolls, there are loads of shops you can pop into such as Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo and Voodoo Authentica of New Orleans Cultural Center & Collection.

You can get a flight to New Orleans for under £400. Just to show how much the locals love music, you fly into Louis Armstrong Airport.

New Zealand

From New Orleans to New Zealand. This is going to be a big year for the country that often suffers a little bit from being in Australia's shadow. They're hosting the Rugby World Cup in September, the biggest tournament staged in the country's history, and it will be accompanied by a big push from the tourist board. To tie in with the world cup, the Kiwis are hosting lots of events like outdoor concerts and food and wine festivals.

Wellington, the capital of NZ, and birthplace of Flight of the Conchords, is another of Lonely Planet's Top 10 Hot Cities for 2011, it always ranks very highly in those 'quality of living' surveys they do for world cities and is now getting a reputation for being cool too.

It apparently has more bars, restaurants and cafes per capita than New York. There are loads of independent coffee roasteries - Antipodean coffee and cafes are apparently the best in the world these days if you believe some people - for a fine example based here in the UK, check out Kaffeine on London's Great Titchfield St, run by Aussies and Kiwis, it's won lots of awards.

Wellington is also home to 'Wellywood' - the film-making base of Peter Jackson. The Hobbit is being made there this year, which comes as a big relief to the country - there was a lot of uncertainty about it due to MGM's financial situation.

If you're a fanboy/girl nerd-type you can go on a Lord of the Rings Tour around the locations used in the films.

Of course, you don't have to have any interest in hobbits or Gollum to be blown away by the beautiful landscape of New Zealand. It's staggering. The country's divided into 2 landmasses, the South Island and the North Island. The North Island is the more developed. The major cities there are Wellington on the southern tip and Auckland in the North. Only just less than a quarter of the NZ population live on the South island, even though it is bigger. Collectively, the country is a not too different in size to the UK - a bit bigger - but it has a population of 4 million instead of 62 million, so basically there's a lot of space (and a lot of sheep). Because of the distance from the UK, you'd want to be heading there for at least 2 if not 3 weeks to do it justice.

Stockholm

And finally, I realise those suggestions all involve quite long flights (though London to Tel Aviv is only 5 hours), so to redress the balance, my last tip is somewhere a bit nearer. Stockholm was one of the first Indie Travel Guides I did on this show and it's certainly no secret - it's had a hip reputation for a while, but I reckon interest in the Swedish capital is going to grow and grow in the wake of the films of Steig Larsson's Millennium trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, etc) and the build up to the Hollywood remake which is released at the end of this year.

Like for the Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, you can do a Steig Larsson tour of the locations in Stockholm used in the books and films - either guided and in English on Saturdays at 11.30am, organised by the Stads Museum, or on your own using one of the booklets you can buy from their shop.

There seems to have been a real invasion of Swedish culture the last couple of years, with the massive success of the Larsson books, the BBC adaptations of the Wallander Swedish detective novels starring Kenneth Branagh and a continuing stream of good Swedish bands and singers, including the likes of The Tallest Man on Earth, Lykke Li, Fever Ray and Robyn.

The city is a great place to watch bands, with a lot of good music venues, such as Debaser, with gigs on every night of the week and Fylkingen, a converted brewery that plays home to a lot of experimental music and. There's even a burgeoning stand up scene in Sweden, a lot of it in English, and quite a few Swedish comics played at the Edinburgh Festival last summer.

It's a city of two halves, freezing cold and snowy in the winter, and lovely and sunny in the summer, when you can take boat trips out to the archipelago - one of the nicest things you can do in any European capital.

Perhaps best of all, there's absolutely no language barrier. Almost everybody you meet will speak perfect English. Get over there before it's full of Americans who have seen the Hollywood remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Tweet me www.twitter.com/danny_robins if you have questions on any of the tips I've given.

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