Play football at the North Pole or dive beneath it in a submersible. Go in search of wolves in the Caucasus or leopards in Iran. Just as there is scarcely a corner of the planet untouched by tourism, so there is no let up in the spate of ideas designed to turn armchair dreamers into soft adventurers.

This week, the world was in London at World Travel Market, one of the travel industry's biggest showcases. Here is a whistle-stop tour of the innovations, offbeat options and emerging destinations that stood out from the throng at this year's show.

Emerging countries

The departure of Slobodan Milosevic and the lifting of at least some sanctions imposed on his regime has encouraged Serbia to re-kindle the interest of western tourists. The tourist organisation, Serbia Info, has rushed out a glossy new map and information leaflet on the country's many ancient and stunningly beautiful monasteries.

Putnik Travel would like to tempt Club Med back to St Marko, the island it owns in the Adriatic Bay of Kotor. Just before the Kosovo crisis blew up, Thomson Holidays was offering ski packages to Kapaonik and First Choice was planning to do likewise. The Serbs would like to woo them back, too.

Also seeking to make a comeback is Montenegro, which once attracted some 80,000 British holidaymakers a year but now gets hardly any. Uncertainty over its future status makes it one of the best bargains in the Med. For example, a double room can be had at Sveti Stefan, the 15th-century fortified village turned luxury hotel, perched dramatically on a rocky isthmus, for £30. Celebrity guests have included Kirk Douglas, Sylvester Stallone, Princess Anne and Claudia Schiffer. Several tour firms are expected to offer packages there for next year.

One snag - this week the Foreign Office continued to warn Britons to steer clear of Serbia and Montenegro unless they have essential business there - but officials of both are hoping that advice will be softened soon.

The FO urges similar caution about visiting some areas of Rwanda, a first-time exhibitor at the show, but Explore Worldwide (01252 760000) is hoping to offer tours there next year. Its great draw are the mountain gorillas of the Virunga Volcanoes. The agency already offers trips to see them across the border in Uganda, but the Rwandan option would greatly increase its chances of getting permits.

A brochure from the tourism and national parks office notes plaintively that the Rwandan genocide is now history: "Recent history, perhaps, but history all the same."

Eco-tourism

There are few better examples of the benefits of sustainable tourism than the two tours in search of wolves in the former Soviet republic of Georgia being organised next year by Silk Road Travellers Club (01491 410510), one of which will be a charity trek led by the actress Rula Lenska. The trips will involve walking around 15 miles a day and cost from £950.

Iran is also trying to drum up interest in eco-tourism, offering tours in search of bears and leopards. The Iran Tourist Company has been talking to at least one British operator about running tours there. Naturetrek (01962 733051) will offer birdwatching tours in 2002.

Meanwhile walking safaris are planned to start early next year at South Africa's Shamwari private game reserve), midway between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown on the Eastern Cape, where lions have just been re-introduced to the wild after an absence of 100 years.

City star

The rise and rise of Valencia , Spain's third largest but too often neglected city, continues. It is celebrating the opening of a striking new, £149m Science Museum, designed by the locally-born architect Santiago Calatrava to resemble some great, bleached skeleton, the gaps between its ribs filled with glass walls.

The museum is part of Valencia's spectacular City of Arts and Sciences, which already has an IMAX theatre in the form of an eyeball, with a winking lid, a planetarium and a "laserdrome" and which, by 2003, will have an oceanographic park and an opera house.

Going to extremes

Spend three hours at the Pole, play a football match, watch a fireworks display and celebrate with champagne. That is the offer from Russian travel agency Dula-Siberia, based in Krasnoyarsk (e-mail: dula@mail.kts.ru).

The whole exercise takes around 24-27 hours and the price is US$3,300 - though you also have to pay the fares to and from Krasnoyarsk.

If that looks pricey, (01494 464080) Quark Expeditions is offering customers the chance to dive 14,500ft beneath the Pole in a nickel-steel submersible. Voyages to the Pole start and finish in Spitsbergen, Norway, on August 28 and September 11, and cost from US$15,950pp sharing a cabin. The dive, which is optional, costs an extra US$50,000.

Walking

Corfu's long-distance footpath, running some 150 miles between Arkoudillas on the island's southernmost tip to Cape Agia Ekaterini in the north, will at last open next spring - thanks to £40,000-worth of funding which has come partly from the EU and partly from a private source.

The waymarked route reveals aspects of Corfu unseen by most package holidaymakers. Several tour operators specialising in walking holidays are reported to be interested in offering packages.

Closer to home, the 81-mile, coast to coast Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail is scheduled to open in June 2002.

Food

Around 20 hoteliers, B&B proprietors and restaurateurs in the Départements of Ardèche and Drôme have formed the Association des Menus Curieux. The curious menus in question make use of flowers, fruit, herbs and "forgotten vegetables" traditionally used in local kitchens. Further details from the Comité Départemental du Tourisme de la Drôme (31, avenue President Herriot F 26000 Valence), or De l'Ardèche (4, Cours du Palais, BP 221, F 07000 Privas).

Winter

Following the success of a similar venture in Sweden, a hotel complex carved from ice will open this winter in the Canadian province of Quebec . Due to open on New Year's Day in Montmorency Fall Park, near Quebec City, it will cover 10,000 sq ft, will be made from 4,500 tonnes of snow and 250 tonnes of ice, and will even have its own cinema. It has already taken more than 1,000 bookings for this winter. Expect tour operators to include it in city breaks. Further information: www.icehotel-canada.com.

Trains, boats & planes

Steam train trips around Russia have been operated since soon after the break-up of the Soviet Union. For next year, specialist operator GW Travel (0161-928 9410), which has pioneered them, is offering a new itinerary around the Baltic States . Starting and finishing in St Petersburg, stops will include Tallinn and Riga. The price of the 12-day holiday is £2,295, based on two sharing hotels and sleeping accommodation on the train and including all meals.

Tourism officials in Maine are hoping high-speed catamarans will soon link Acadia National Park and Boston. A service already runs between Bar Harbor, on the edge of the park, and Nova Scotia.

And a new charter airline will make its debut next summer. Excel Airways aims to provide seats for small- and medium-sized tour firms who claim they are being squeezed out by the big operators.