Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2026 features the 25 hottest must-visit destinations and 25 must-do experiences for next year. Photo: Supplied.
The value of personal, real-world activities emphasises lived experience. Life is short and the world is wide, so let’s not waste time and start planning our next adventure to escape the ordinary. What defines an ideal holiday? What keeps the magic of travel alive in our minds?
As an editorial director, Fionnuala McCarthy is well informed. In Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2026, she asserts that it’s not always the big, bucket-list travel events that linger.
“It’s the small, often fleeting moments that elevate a trip and make it unforgettable: the delicious aromas that waft over you when walking into a local bakery on your first visit to Paris; the 20 minutes of people-watching you steal on the bus ride from Atocha Staton to Museo del Prado in Madrid; the views you earn after hiking the Sintra uplands on your day trip from Lisbon.
“These are the memories that push a travel experience from good to great, and sustain our desire to do it all over again somewhere else. That’s what next year’s Best in Travel is all about.”
Three Australian locations have made the best-trips list: South Australia’s Ikara-Flinders Ranges & Outback, South Australia — the only place in Australia to make the list — are named in the 2026 Top Places Hotlist. Melbourne’s vibrant food scene and Victoria’s Bathing Trail are included in the 2026 Top Experiences Hotlist.
Lonely Planet’s senior director of trade sales and marketing Chris Zeiher is “ecstatic to see the epic Ikara-Flinders Ranges and wider South Australian outback on our prestigious list, it’s one of the world’s most breathtaking environments, perfectly primed for the world to discover in 2026.
“Melbourne’s food scene is world-class — eclectic, energetic, and experimental. And for a steamy taste of Australia, Victoria’s Bathing Trail is unmissable.”
There’s something for every type of traveller in this comprehensive, beautifully illustrated collection, which aims to blend emerging hotspots with fresh takes on well-known locations. Find answers to dreams of an under-the-radar carnival experience like Grenada’s Spicemas, of joining the fanatical crowds at an English Premier League football match or of rafting the rapids of the USA’s mighty Colorado River. Wildlife lovers will find the lure of tracking desert elephants in Namibia or the Azores’ whale-watching truly irresistible.
Best in Travel 2026 offers fresh reasons to visit perennial favourites Phuket, Mexico City or Ireland in 2026. Those searching for something new should seek out expert recommendations for the USA’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the jewel of the Indian Ocean, Réunion Island or the ubercool Liberdade district of São Paulo in Brazil. In Europe, take a deep dive into Belgrade’s legendary nightlife; if daytime activities are more your thing, there’s Bristol’s creative and gritty street-art scene to be explored.
Other highlights include Maine (USA), the Solomon Islands, Cádiz (Spain), Botswana, Sardinia (Italy) and Jeju-do (South Korea), along with experiences like attending a Premier League football (soccer) match in England, whale-watching in the Azores, camping in Tajikistan, riding horses in the Andes or feasting on food tours in Old Dubai and Kerala (India).
This annual guidebook, in eye-catching softback format, is the 16th publication, complete with striking photography. It includes all-colour chapters covering the top 25 destinations and top 25 experiences for the year ahead, including local advice and essential involvements. It also features extended photo essays on a selection of entries.
Each entry reflects a personal know-how from Lonely Planet’s vast community of staff, contributors from around the world, publishing partners and more. To ensure a diverse list of picks covering places and themes from across the world, the in-house editorial panel of experts curated 50 of these fervently argued nominations into the collection of indelible moments and must-see locations for the new year.
Lonely Planet Journeys has also been launched. The travel-planning service pairs travellers with local experts to create personalised, meaningful and boundary-pushing trips. To mark the moment, Journeys released 23 bookable trips inspired by the winning locations of Best in Travel 2026.
According to Lonely Planet’s SVP, content and executive editor Nitya Chambers, this year, the possibilities for travel seem bigger than ever before.
“With the launch of Lonely Planet Journeys, we’re expanding how we connect travellers to meaningful experiences. Our recommendations reflect the destinations and adventures our globally based contributors — always exploring, always inspired — are most excited to share for the year ahead and beyond.”
Best in Travel 2026, by Lonely Planet, $32.99
