Best places to travel in 2026: 25 destinations worth your time

2026 is shaping up to be an extraordinary year for travel. Global search volumes for international destinations sit at their highest since before the pandemic; two major sporting events are driving attention to three continents simultaneously; and a meaningful shift has taken place in how people search — from pure destination queries to experience-typed ones: 'solo travel Osaka', 'shoulder season Albania', 'family hotels Algarve'. That shift signals deliberate planning rather than impulse browsing, which means the people arriving in 2026 tend to be better-prepared travellers. Against that backdrop, this is our selection of 25 destinations that deserve serious consideration in 2026. Some are surging on data that caught analysts by surprise. Some are well-established favourites returning with a specific reason to visit this year rather than any other. And a handful are places where the search metrics have not caught up with the reality yet — which, if you prefer to arrive slightly ahead of the crowd, is precisely where the most interesting travel is happening.

Destinations having their moment — the six places below share a common quality: the data behind their surge is not manufactured by a single viral moment but reflects genuine sustained demand. That tends to be more durable, and more honest, than a TikTok spike.

1. Japan — Japan has topped virtually every major travel trend list since the yen weakened sharply, and in 2026 it remains the world's most-searched international destination by volume. EMEA searches are up 60% year-on-year, Okinawa searches have increased 71% globally, and Osaka has been ranked the number one trending destination worldwide by TripAdvisor. The useful story is not the headline number but the geographic distribution: the obvious Japan — Tokyo first-timer itinerary, Shinjuku to Shibuya, teamLab and Tsukiji — is more crowded than at any point in living memory, while the parts that reward early movers (Kanazawa, Fukuoka, the Kerama Islands, the sake district south of Fushimi Inari) remain almost entirely visitor-free. The value equation remains compelling: a restaurant meal, a night in a business hotel, a Shinkansen journey all cost meaningfully less in sterling or euros than they did three years ago. The places to focus: Osaka as a base rather than a day trip from Kyoto; Okinawa for genuinely tropical water and Ryukyuan culture; and any of the secondary cities — Kanazawa, Hiroshima, Fukuoka — for the Japan most visitors never reach. We've covered the regional breakdown in full in our dedicated Japan 2026 guide.

2. South Korea — South Korea has built one of the most effective soft-power operations in modern tourism: K-drama, K-pop, K-beauty and K-food are drawing travellers who arrived via a streaming service or a skincare brand and discovered a destination with genuine depth. Seoul is among the most consistently walkable and interesting capital cities in East Asia — the contrast between the historic Bukchon hanok village and the hypermodern towers of Gangnam, a twenty-minute metro ride apart, is more stark and interesting than anything comparable in Tokyo or Beijing. Busan, the country's second city, has emerged as a 'glowcation' hub: K-beauty tourism is a legitimate draw, with clinics, cosmetic districts and wellness infrastructure built around the concept. Skyscanner forecasts that roughly one in three Gen Z travellers plans to visit somewhere specifically for beauty or wellness in 2026, and Busan is the clearest single-city beneficiary of that trend. Beyond the main centres: Gyeongju, the former Silla Kingdom capital, contains more UNESCO heritage per square kilometre than almost anywhere in East Asia and sees a fraction of the visitors it deserves.

3. Vietnam — Vietnam tied with Japan as the fastest-growing tourism market in Asia in the first half of 2025, recording 21% visitor growth year-on-year. The country spans three genuinely different travel experiences: the north — Hanoi, Ninh Binh, Ha Long Bay, Sapa — is slower, more historically resonant and cooler in winter. The central coast, where Hoi An remains the most photogenic town in Southeast Asia, sits two hours from the beach at Da Nang. The south is Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta — flat, hot, food-obsessed. Phu Quoc, the large island off the southwest coast, has developed rapidly and now offers genuine luxury resort infrastructure at prices well below equivalent Southeast Asian competitors. What keeps Vietnam competitive is the same thing it has always offered: remarkable food at every price point, warm travel infrastructure, and a landscape variety — mountains, coast, rice paddies, city — difficult to match within a single country.

4. Albania — In the destination dupe category that has dominated travel search behaviour since 2024, Albania has emerged as the standout: it is simultaneously being searched as an alternative to Croatia, Greece, the Maldives and Montenegro, and searches have grown 120% month-on-month over the past year. The new Vlora International Airport — purpose-built to handle demand the existing infrastructure could no longer absorb — is scheduled to open in summer 2026, adding direct access from Western European cities. The Albanian Riviera, the stretch of Ionian coast between Vlorë and Sarandë, offers water quality and coastline comparable to the best of Greece at prices typically running 40–60% lower. Inland, Berat — a UNESCO World Heritage site of Ottoman-era white houses climbing a hillside above a river — is beginning to develop a serious hospitality scene. The window in which Albania remains genuinely undiscovered is closing. The beach season runs May to October; the mountain hiking season in the Albanian Alps peaks in July and August.

5. Matera, Italy — In Expedia's Wrapped report for 2025, Matera recorded the single highest year-on-year search increase of any destination in the world: up 205%. It is an extraordinary number for a city of 60,000 in the deep south of Italy, and it reflects both the destination's own qualities and the broader secondary-city trend reshaping Italian tourism. Matera is built into and across two ravines — the sassi — and its cave dwellings, continuously inhabited for around 9,000 years and among the oldest human settlements in the world, were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993. For most of the 20th century the sassi were considered a symbol of poverty; they are now among the most distinctive accommodation experiences in Europe, many cave dwellings converted into boutique hotels. The city served as a filming location for the 2021 Bond film No Time to Die. Matera is 65 kilometres from Bari — good flight connections from across Europe. A weekend is sufficient for a first visit; a week opens up the broader Basilicata countryside.

6. Buenos Aires — Buenos Aires sits third on TripAdvisor's list of trending global destinations for 2025, and Airbnb identifies it as the top short-break city for Gen Z travellers worldwide. The city's appeal — tango, steak, Parisian boulevards, a chaotic creative energy that has survived chronic economic instability — is not new. What is specific to 2026: the Argentine peso's historic weakness has created one of the most favourable purchasing-power situations for foreign visitors anywhere in the world. A dinner at a serious restaurant in Palermo, an excellent hotel in Recoleta, a week of tango lessons — all cost a fraction of the European or North American equivalent. Hotel rates are rising (American Express forecasts 5.6% increases in 2026 as demand catches up with the exchange rate reality), so book early. The Palermo neighbourhood is the epicentre of the restaurant and bar scene; San Telmo is more traditional; Recoleta is where the grand hotels are. Buenos Aires is also the natural gateway to Patagonia, and combining a city stay with Torres del Paine is one of the great South American journeys.

Classics with a 2026 reason to go — the following seven destinations are well-established and well-documented. Each appears here because it has a specific, 2026-relevant reason to visit that did not apply in quite the same way last year.

7. Portugal — Portugal is the most consistent performer in European tourism data over the past three years: Booking.com confirmed higher year-on-year flight search volumes across every single month of 2025. The country's quality-to-price ratio remains unmatched in Western Europe. Lisbon's best neighbourhoods — Príncipe Real for character, Chiado for convenience, Mouraria for atmosphere — are covered in our Lisbon guide. Porto, the city most Portuguese people would choose to live in, is covered alongside the Douro Valley in our wine country guide. The Algarve rewards a closer look: the western coast around Sagres is dramatic Atlantic cliff country with excellent surfing and very little tourist infrastructure; the eastern Algarve around Tavira is traditional and quiet; the Alentejo interior — cork forest plains, whitewashed villages, boutique wine estates — is perhaps the best-value region in Western Europe. We've covered the full country in our dedicated Portugal 2026 guide.

8. Greece — Greece has managed, more successfully than most destinations, to absorb the post-pandemic surge without entirely losing what made it worth visiting. The Cyclades — Santorini, Mykonos, Naxos — are at peak demand in July and August, but the shoulder season (May, June and September) remains genuinely pleasant and considerably less crowded. Santorini, despite its overtourism narrative, delivers on its visual promise: the cave hotel experience of sleeping inside a cliff face overlooking the caldera is something we've covered in detail in our Santorini guide. For visitors looking beyond the postcard circuit: Naxos is the most underrated of the Cyclades (better beaches than Mykonos, a fraction of the crowds); the Mani peninsula in the Peloponnese is tower-village country with a quality restaurant scene; and Crete rewards a week in a way that Santorini cannot. Athens itself has undergone a quiet renaissance: Monastiraki and Psyrri are worth entire evenings, and the Acropolis remains one of the most awe-inspiring sites in the world.

9. Morocco — Morocco sits in a category of its own for European travellers: simultaneously close (three hours from London, two from Madrid), very cheap by European standards, and genuinely unlike anywhere else. Marrakech is the obvious entry point and, for all its tourist infrastructure, remains extraordinary — the Djemaa el-Fna square at night, the medina rooftop restaurants, the souks behind the Ben Youssef Madrasa — all operating with an intensity that European cities cannot manufacture. Staying in a well-run riad inside the medina makes the difference between being in the city and being beside it. Beyond Marrakech: Fes has the most intact medieval medina in the Islamic world, and the tanneries — circles of coloured dye vats visible from the leather shop rooftops above them — are among the most photogenic sights in Africa. The Atlas Mountains, ninety minutes from Marrakech, offer trekking including the ascent of Toubkal (4,167m, the highest peak in North Africa). Chefchaouen, the blue-painted mountain city in the Rif, remains genuinely beautiful.

10. Spain (Barcelona) — Barcelona is the benchmark for the European city break: beach access, extraordinary food, Gaudí architecture unlike anything else in Europe, and a neighbourhood structure — El Born, Gràcia, Eixample — that rewards deliberate base selection, as we cover in our Barcelona neighbourhood guide. The city's relationship with mass tourism has become complicated; the practical implication for visitors is to spend money in a way that benefits the local economy rather than international chain infrastructure. Beyond the Gaudí circuit: the Fundació Joan Miró is one of the best modern art museums in Europe; the Palau de la Música Catalana offers concert programmes worth building an evening around; the beach bars in Poblenou serve locals rather than tourists and are accordingly better and cheaper. As a country Spain has extraordinary range — Madrid, Seville, the Basque Country and San Sebastián all merit separate consideration.

11. Thailand — Thailand remains the most well-constructed travel infrastructure in Southeast Asia: a sophisticated hotel market spanning from serious budget guesthouses to some of the finest resorts in the world, extraordinary food at every price point, world-class diving, and a warmth of reception remarkable after decades of mass tourism. Bangkok has reinvented itself multiple times and in 2026 the expanded BTS Skytrain network makes the city genuinely navigable without taxi negotiation. Chiang Mai is a completely different city — cooler, more relaxed, surrounded by temples and jungle, with a digital nomad scene embedded since the early 2010s. For the islands: Koh Lanta is the best balance of development and quiet; Koh Tao is the best-value diving destination in the region. The Thai visa exemption for most nationalities allows genuine flexibility. Bali remains a strong alternative for those wanting Southeast Asian warmth with more developed wellness infrastructure.

12. Iceland — Iceland offers one of the most reliably bankable travel propositions in the world: the Northern Lights, the midnight sun, dramatic geothermal landscapes, puffins and waterfalls and black sand beaches, all within easy reach of Reykjavík. The Northern Lights season runs September to March; optimal viewing conditions are most reliably found in the northeast around Akureyri and the Mývatn lake district. The Ring Road — Route 1, which circumnavigates the entire island — is one of the great self-drive routes in the world, achievable in seven to ten days; the south coast (Seljalandsfoss, Skógafoss, Reynisfjara) is the most accessible for shorter trips. Iceland is expensive by European standards, but the density of extraordinary natural experiences per day of travel is unmatched. New direct routes from North American cities have made it increasingly viable as a transatlantic stopover. Early booking of accommodation is now essential year-round.

13. Istanbul — Istanbul is one of the most consistently compelling cities in the world for a specific reason: it is genuinely two things simultaneously. The historic peninsula — Sultanahmet, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia, the Grand Bazaar, Topkapı Palace — is one of the greatest concentrations of historical monumentality anywhere, rivalling Rome or Athens. Across the Golden Horn, Beyoğlu and its adjacent neighbourhoods (Karaköy, Cihangir, Galata) function as a contemporary city of excellent restaurants, rooftop bars and a cultural scene with serious international credibility. Turkish cuisine in its Istanbul form — the neighbourhood restaurants of Kadıköy and Balat rather than the touristic version of Sultanahmet — is among the best urban food cultures in Europe. The price advantage for European and North American visitors, given the weakness of the lira, remains significant. The Bosphorus ferry, done independently rather than on an organised tour, gives the city a sense of geography that no map replicates.

Events worth building a trip around — the following six destinations have time-specific reasons to visit in 2026 that do not apply in the same way to 2025 or 2027. For some, the event creates a reason to visit a city you might have overlooked; for others, it amplifies an already-strong case.

14. Mexico (FIFA World Cup 2026) — Mexico is co-hosting the FIFA World Cup for the third time in its history, and its cultural relationship with football is unlike anything in North America. Monterrey — hotel searches up 145% year-on-year — is a revelation to visitors who expect a border town: it is Mexico's wealthiest and most cosmopolitan city, with a thriving food and arts scene around Barrio Antiguo and serious hiking in the Sierra Madre within ninety minutes. Mexico City has developed an international dining reputation that now places it in conversation with Tokyo and Copenhagen, and is hosting games at the historic Estadio Azteca. Guadalajara — birthplace of tequila, mariachi and the Mexican hat dance — offers a historic centre many visitors find more human-scaled than the capital. The practical advice: book accommodation now. We've covered the host city logistics and broader travel strategy in our dedicated FIFA World Cup 2026 guide.

15. Italy (The Dolomites) — The Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics drove a 40% year-on-year increase in Italy searches during the event window, and the post-event legacy effect is beginning. The Dolomites are one of the most visually dramatic mountain landscapes in the world: the pale limestone towers turn pink and orange at sunrise and sunset in the phenomenon the Italians call enrosadira. The combination of extraordinary hiking infrastructure, excellent northern Italian food and a well-developed luxury hotel scene makes the region work for travellers who would not naturally self-identify as hikers. Cortina d'Ampezzo is expensive and glamorous in a specifically Italian way. The less-visited eastern Dolomites, around Alta Badia and the Fanes-Senes-Braies nature park, offer comparable scenery with a fraction of the summer crowds. The Via Ferrata routes — fixed-rope climbing across the Dolomite faces — range from accessible to genuinely challenging. Hiking season runs June to October; skiing December to April.

16. Malaysia (Visit Malaysia Year) — Visit Malaysia Year 2026 is a government campaign targeting 35.6 million international visitors, and the infrastructure behind it is substantive: Kuala Lumpur was TripAdvisor's second-most trending destination globally in 2025, a new UNESCO site has been added, and the second-tallest building in the world opened in the city. KL itself is an underrated city break: Merdeka Square, Batu Caves, the Petronas Towers rooftop bars and the hawker food of Jalan Alor make for a city that rewards multiple days. Penang — Georgetown specifically — is a UNESCO-listed city of colonial architecture, street art and what many food writers consider the best street food in Asia. Langkawi offers beach resort infrastructure at prices significantly below Thailand. Malaysian Borneo — Sabah and Sarawak — is in a different category entirely: rainforest, orang-utan, Mount Kinabalu and cultural diversity rooted in hundreds of indigenous communities.

17. Finland (European Capital of Culture) — Finland appears on this list for a specific reason: Oulu is the European Capital of Culture for 2026, Tampere holds the title of European Capital of Smart Tourism for the same year, and Lonely Planet named Finland in its Best in Travel 2026 list. This combination of designations gives Finland a time-limited reason to visit that did not apply in 2025. The Northern Lights are equally visible from Finnish Lapland as from Norway or Iceland — typically September to March — and the Finnish programme adds elements those destinations do not: saunas (Finland has more per capita than any country on earth), lake swimming, reindeer farms and a quieter Arctic experience. Helsinki is worth two or three days: the Design District, market square, archipelago ferry routes and Finnish design culture make it one of the most distinctive Nordic capitals. Finland also scores consistently highly on digital nomad indices for connectivity, English proficiency, safety and natural environment.

18. Scotland (Film Location Tourism) — Scotland arrives on this list with a specific catalyst: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, filming in Scottish locations for a 2026 summer release, is expected to do for Scottish landscapes what Outlander did for a decade. The Wuthering Heights adaptation already drove a 311% increase in North Yorkshire searches in the weeks following its release. Scotland's genuine claims — the Highland landscape, Loch Ness, Skye, Edinburgh's Old Town and Castle, the whisky distillery trail — are being bolstered by renewed film-driven interest. Edinburgh in August is the Fringe festival: 3,000+ shows over three weeks, with the city's population effectively tripling. For visitors who prefer less crowded alternatives: the Hebrides (Skye, Harris, Lewis), the northwest Highlands around Torridon and Applecross, and the far north around Cape Wrath deliver remote, dramatic scenery with few Western European equivalents. Scotland is also considerably cheaper than England for comparable accommodation quality.

19. Canada (FIFA + BC + Rockies) — Canada is co-hosting FIFA 2026 with two venues: Vancouver and Toronto. Both are exceptional North American cities — genuinely walkable, multicultural, with hotel and restaurant infrastructure that competes seriously with their American counterparts. Vancouver sits at the gateway to British Columbia: the Sea-to-Sky corridor north to Whistler, the Gulf Islands, Tofino on Vancouver Island's west coast. Toronto is Canada's cultural and financial capital, with a restaurant scene driven by extraordinary immigration diversity — the city speaks over 140 languages. Away from the FIFA host cities: the Canadian Rockies, accessible from Calgary, contain Banff and Jasper National Parks — lake and mountain scenery that makes European Alpine resort pricing feel difficult to justify. The Rocky Mountaineer train and the Vancouver-to-Halifax rail route (four days) are among the great train journeys of the world. One practical note: most visitors significantly underestimate travel time between major Canadian cities.

The ones the data does not fully capture — the final six destinations below are places where search volumes are rising but have not yet reflected the full quality of what is on offer. These are early-mover opportunities; the window varies from a few months (Greenland) to a few years (Colombia, Jordan).

20. Colombia — The transformation of Colombia's international image from dangerous to desirable has been one of the most significant travel narratives of the past decade, and in 2026 it has reached a tipping point. Medellín and Bogotá both rank in the top ten globally on digital nomad indices for infrastructure, cost and quality of life. Cartagena's walled city — a UNESCO World Heritage site on the Caribbean coast — is one of the most beautiful colonial streetscapes in the Americas: colour-washed townhouses, bougainvillea, heat and sea. Medellín's transformation from the city most associated with the narco era to a city celebrated for its urban cable car system, its neighbourhood arts culture and the extraordinary street art of Communa 13 is complete. Bogotá's restaurant scene has a genuine case for being the best in South America, with Central, Maido-inspired contemporaries and the extraordinary local larder driving menus that rival any Latin American capital. Safety in tourist areas has improved substantially; the standard precautions that apply in any large Latin American city apply here.

21. Jordan — Jordan is one of the most under-visited countries in a region where several neighbouring destinations remain genuinely difficult or inadvisable to travel, and its safety record, accessibility and concentration of extraordinary sites make it the obvious starting point for Middle Eastern travel. Petra — the rose-red Nabataean city carved from a sandstone canyon — is genuinely one of the wonders of the world in person, and the by-night experience (candlelit Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings) is among the most atmospheric experiences in the region. Wadi Rum, the desert valley of red sand and ancient rock formations where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed, rewards an overnight camp in a way a day visit cannot — the stars are extraordinary. The Dead Sea, forty minutes from Amman, makes it physically impossible to sink. Jordan charges a single Jordan Pass covering most major sites; Aqaba offers Red Sea diving; and Amman's Jabal Amman and Rainbow Street area merits at least an evening for the food alone.

22. Slovenia — Slovenia is the most consistently pleasant travel surprise in Central Europe, and one of the few destinations on this list where the word undiscovered remains at least partially accurate. The country is small — population two million, roughly the size of Wales — entirely navigable in a week, and packs an improbable concentration of high-quality destinations into that geography. Ljubljana, the capital, is a thoughtfully developed walking city of castle hill, river bars and weekend street markets with no significant crowds at any time of year. Lake Bled, forty-five minutes northwest, delivers in person on its postcard image (island church, mountain backdrop). Triglav National Park covers much of the Julian Alps and offers serious Alpine hiking without the queuing and pricing infrastructure of Switzerland or Austria. The Soča Valley — electric-blue river, limestone canyon, site of some of the worst fighting of World War One — is worth a specific journey. Slovenia is an EU and Schengen member, uses the euro, and is unreservedly safe.

23. Peru — Peru is in a moment of international food credibility that has created a parallel tourism effect: Lima appears routinely on world's best restaurant lists, and visitors arriving specifically for the food scene tend to extend their trips into the country more broadly. Machu Picchu — the Inca citadel above the cloud forest of the Sacred Valley — remains the primary draw and the photographs do not lie: it is extraordinary. Entry tickets must now be purchased in advance at specific time slots; the revised ticketing system introduced in 2023 has reduced crowds considerably from peak saturation levels. The Sacred Valley itself — Pisac market, Ollantaytambo, the Maras salt flats — is worth two to three days entirely separate from the Machu Picchu day. Lima's Barranco and Miraflores neighbourhoods have a quality of restaurant, hotel and café infrastructure that rivals any comparable neighbourhood in South America. Peru's Amazon basin, accessible by light aircraft from Cusco, is among the most biologically diverse places on earth.

24. Croatia — Croatia appears on this list with a specific caveat: summer Dubrovnik is among the most overtouristed experiences in Europe. The solution is not to avoid Croatia but to time it differently. May and June are warm enough for swimming, the Adriatic is a deep and extraordinary blue, the ancient walled cities of Dubrovnik, Trogir and Korčula retain their medieval character, and the crowds are a fraction of peak summer. The Dalmatian islands in the shoulder season — Korčula, Hvar, Brač and the less-visited Vis — offer a Croatia that the Game of Thrones tourism wave never quite found: quieter, locally-focused, with restaurants serving the island's own wine and olive oil. Vis, furthest from the mainland, has the best food and the fewest visitors of any significant Dalmatian island. Split, with Diocletian's Palace at its centre — one of the best-preserved Roman imperial residences anywhere — works well as a base for island hopping. We've covered staying within Dubrovnik's old city walls in our dedicated Dubrovnik guide.

25. Greenland — Greenland is on this list not despite being less-visited than the other 24 destinations but because of it. The island recently acquired its first international airport (Ilulissat, opened 2025; Nuuk following in 2026), United Airlines has added the first nonstop transatlantic service from the United States, and the Greenlandic government has launched its first ten-year tourism development plan. The framing being applied in travel media — the new Iceland — captures something real: Greenland offers the iceberg, glacier and aurora experience that Iceland offers, without the tourist infrastructure Iceland now carries. The Ilulissat Icefjord — where enormous glacial icebergs from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier emerge into Disko Bay — is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most dramatic landscapes in the northern hemisphere. Dog-sledding, Northern Lights viewing (September to March), whale watching and ice-sheet hiking are available with local guides. The window in which Greenland remains genuinely ahead of mass tourism infrastructure is probably three to five years. 2026 is a compelling moment to go.

A final note on timing. The most consistent theme across these 25 destinations is that the gap between when a place is genuinely good to visit and when it becomes overwhelmingly popular is closing faster than it used to — partly because social media compresses the discovery cycle, and partly because global travel capacity has increased significantly. Albania in 2026 is at a different point in that cycle than Albania in 2028 will be. Greenland's infrastructure doesn't exist yet; Iceland's does, and you feel it. None of this means the famous places on this list are not worth visiting — Santorini, Machu Picchu and Istanbul are famous for excellent reasons — but it does mean that the premium on planning, timing and a willingness to explore beyond the obvious is higher than it has ever been. The destinations that will give you the most distinctive version of travel in 2026 are the ones you book before most people think to.