Eclipse-chasers, hikers and food lovers all have a reason to circle 2027 on the calendar. Condé Nast Traveler has published its annual ranking of the 27 best places to go next year, and the list reads less like a bucket-list rehash and more like a snapshot of how people actually want to travel now: slower, cooler, and further from the Euro-summer crowds.
A few entries stand out. Luxor and Aswan in Egypt get the nod partly thanks to new Nile cruises — and because in August 2027 the region falls under what's being billed as the eclipse of the century. Shanghai makes the cut for a culture-heavy year: the November 2027 Biennale coincides with a wave of gallery openings in the West Bund district and the new Snøhetta-designed Grand Opera House. And Jamaica's South Coast features as hotels recover a year on from Hurricane Melissa, the strongest storm ever to hit the island, with travellers invited to support the rebuild simply by showing up.
The outdoors gets plenty of airtime too. Albania's Accursed Mountains offer inn-to-inn hiking, turquoise rivers and family-run wooden guesthouses before the secret gets out. Armenia has two long-distance trails ramping up — the Transcaucasian Trail with new maps and luggage-transfer services, and the 620-mile Armenian National Trail, whose first sections opened in June 2026 and will eventually link more than 100 villages with homestays and lavash-baking hosts.
Culture and heritage entries are strong as well. Benin is mid-way through a $1.4 billion tourism investment, with new museums opening in Cotonou, Ouidah and Abomey (including 26 royal artefacts repatriated from France), plus the eight-day Vodun Days festival running 2–9 January 2027. Chile's wine valleys get a chef-led refresh, with Kurt Schmidt's new tours through Maule, Huasco and Aconcagua, Concha y Toro's new Centro del Vino, and mirrored bungalows at the VIK estate in Cachapoal.
The rest of the list spans the globe: the Albanian Alps aside, expect Denmark's low-key 'Danish Riviera', ice trekking in Argentine Patagonia, sailing the Cook Islands, Tunisia's capital Tunis, Zanzibar, Jaipur, Penang, Japan's Niigata, Yunnan in China, the Galápagos, Guatemala, Dartmoor, Corsica, Bodrum, Memphis, San Diego, New Zealand's Southland, Australia's Sunshine Coast, Brazil's Prea, Canada's Clayoquot Sound, and the Kavango-Zambezi conservation area across southern Africa.
Why it matters: if you like booking ahead of the crowd, this is the kind of list that shapes where flights, hotels and tours fill up first. The common threads — cooler climates, walking routes, food with roots, and places rebuilding or reopening — are useful signals for planning a 2027 trip that feels current rather than crowded.
Story based on Condé Nast Traveler.
