While speaking at a travel show last weekend, my daughter and I were asked to name what we considered the top travel bargains for the year ahead, both in destinations and in facilities for travel. Here's how we answered:

1. China. With apologies for seeming like a broken record, we must again start with China. Despite a slowly-strengthening currency, China remains available at unbeatable rates (including airfare there) from China Focus (www.chinafocustravel.com), Chinaspree.com (www.chinaspree.com), Rim-Pac (www.rim-pac.com), Ritz Tours (www.ritztours.com), Pacific Delight Tours (www.pacificdelighttours.com), China Travel Service (www.chinatravelservice.com), and many others.

2. Vietnam. Its touristic cost of living is remarkably low, and its shopping prices are minor miracles (like custom-tailored suits in Hoi An for less than $150). A great many independent travelers simply book a direct United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City (via Hong Kong), and then pick up accommodations as they move along throughout the country.

3. Panama. Fastest-developing country in Central America, receiving ever-growing numbers of cost-conscious vacationers, as well as U.S. retirees looking for a cheap second home. The skyline of Panama City is beginning to resemble Hong Kong or New York's financial district -- except that those skyscrapers are residential condos.

4. Nicaragua and Honduras. Both coming up fast as favorites for adventuresome tourists. Honduras' off-shore island of Utila (for scuba-diving) is the latest discovery. Nicaragua's prices for lodgings and meals are surely among the lowest in the area.

5. Costa Rica. It remains immensely popular, and though it's gaining swanky accommodations, it remains inexpensive for the tourist who searches out low-cost lodgings, like those available from Bells' Home Hospitality in San Jose (see our previous blog, in "Search this blog").

6. Dominican Republic. Home of the low-cost all-inclusive hotel. Giant crowds simply looking to laze in the sun are flocking to properties where all you do is eat three enormous buffet meals a day and doze in a chaise lounge.

7. Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile. Located surprisingly close to one another, both benefit from currencies that are weak against the U.S. dollar. Large numbers of Americans are also starting their South American stays in Buenos Aires, and then journeying further south to the natural attractions of Patagonia.

8. The U.S. National Parks. A drop-off in foreign visitors since 9/11, and high gas prices, have reduced traffic to the most famous of the parks: Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Great Smokey Mountains.

9. Bali in the Indian Ocean. Its cordial attitudes towards the visitor, coupled with its low price structure, has re-started the flow of tourism, overcoming the long-ago effects of two terrorist attacks on beachside nightclubs.

10. Sicily. Its price structure is markedly lower than in the rest of Italy; its method of touring is a low-cost, self-drive auto making a complete circumference of the island along its coastal road, stopping in places like Erice, Agrigento, Siracusa, Taormina.

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