Expedia has revealed its Destinations of the Year for 2027, and the number one spot goes somewhere with a lot of water in it: South Lake Tahoe, California. Search interest for the resort town on the shore of North America's largest alpine lake has jumped 195% compared with 2025 — by far the biggest surge on the list.

The appeal is easy to see. In winter it's a ski base; in summer the same shoreline switches to kayaking and paddleboarding. Few places work as a proper year-round break quite like it.

Second place went to Hyogo prefecture in Japan, with searches up 95%. Expedia flagged it as one of the country's most overlooked regions — coastline, mountains and castles all within one stretch — and awarded it its Smart Travel Health Check, a badge for destinations managing tourism responsibly. If overtourism is on your mind when planning Japan, Hyogo is worth a look before the crowds catch on.

The rest of the top five: Punta del Este, Uruguay's glitzy beach city, up 65%; Sedona, Arizona, up 55% thanks to its mix of hiking, yoga retreats and spas; and Busan, South Korea's port city, up 50% on the back of its beaches and film festival.

Europe only managed two entries. The higher of them is Perugia, Italy, at number seven with a 35% rise in searches. The Umbrian capital packs a 14th-century hilltop old town, a well-known jazz festival and a chocolate festival into its calendar — a solid alternative if Florence and Rome feel done.

The other is Chichester in West Sussex, up 30% and ranked tenth. It's a low-key pick: Roman ruins and a walkable city walls trail, with South Downs National Park, West Wittering Beach and Arundel Castle all within easy reach. A good excuse to finally explore a corner of England most people drive past on the way to the coast.

Rounding out the ten are Holbox in Mexico (+45%), The Tweed region in New South Wales, Australia (+35%), and Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada (+35%).

What links most of the list is a pattern: secondary cities and nature-first regions rather than the usual headline capitals. For travellers, that means the picks are less about seeing somewhere famous and more about getting ahead of the curve — Hyogo and Perugia in particular are the kind of places that will look very different on search charts by 2028.

If you want first pick of the lot, South Lake Tahoe is the one everyone else will now be eyeing too.