Asheville near top of 2020 travel list

Travel+Leisure, an international travel magazine, has ranked Asheville third among the 50 best places to visit around the world in 2020.

“With a small-town feel and big-city cultural cred, Asheville, North Carolina, is home to artists, musicians, and food and drink entrepreneurs who were making microbrews and serving farm-to-table meals long before such things were de rigueur,” the magazine said on its website.

Addis Ababa was ranked number one on the list, while Arequipa, Peru, came in at number two.

The magazine touted Asheville’s new art museum and Chow Chow, an Appalachian food festival inaugurated last September.

“There’s a slew of new watering holes” in Asheville, the magazine noted, as well as new hotels “adding lively, urbane alternatives to the scene.”

Among a slew of international destinations - Austria, Beijing, Brisbane, Australia - Asheville was the highest-rated U.S. destination. Others included Hawaii, Boston, California’s central coast, the Great Lakes, Maine, and Oklahoma City.