- 7 minutes ago
TIME reveals its 2026 World’s Greatest Places list, highlighting top global destinations, hidden gems, and must-visit spots for travelers this year.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Get ready to not want to head into the office tomorrow as soon as you hear all about Time's
00:04World's Greatest Places list for 2026. There are brand new remote resorts, upgraded museums,
00:10old school favorite destinations, so much. And to break it all down, now we are joined by Emma
00:16Barker Bonomo here with us, Senior Editorial Director at Time. Thank you so much for being
00:20here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, of course. There's so much to get to here. But first,
00:26the question at the top of my mind, and probably most of our viewers as well, is how did you
00:30select
00:31these 100 places? I know some are submitted, there's an application process, but still,
00:35how do you narrow it down to only 100? Yeah, so as a global news publication, we have a
00:42really wide network of correspondents and editors around the world who normally cover the news in
00:50their particular regions of the world, but are experts in their areas. And they help us determine
00:57what are the most exciting new openings, the most exciting new offerings for tourists in the area,
01:04pretty much every continent, including Antarctica.
01:08That's amazing. I mean, the list is so wide reaching. First, let's talk about hotels. These
01:12make up almost about half of the list, more than 40 properties. So you have some like the Six Senses
01:17in
01:17the Maldives that have been there since 2011. And then some brand new ones, like the one and only's
01:22first property in the US now in Montana. So tell us a little bit about why these ones are on
01:26the list
01:26and what you're most excited about here. Yeah, absolutely. There's a really wide range of reasons
01:32a place might be on the list. But ultimately, every place is on because it's, this is the year to
01:37go.
01:38So whether that's because of a certain event that's taking place nearby, or a new offering at the
01:44hotel, some of the hotels are new themselves. But in the case of the Six Senses and the Maldives,
01:52it's they have an incredibly impressive conservation effort at their property. And that a lot of that
02:01is monitoring the wildlife monitoring, the sea life there, and they have actual researchers working out
02:07of there. And they got a lot of new equipment that visitors can actually participate in a lot of the
02:15research with, with the researchers. So you're, you're down there, you're, you're helping to monitor
02:22the rays in the water and doing some really cool stuff that you can't really do at any other spot
02:29in
02:30the Maldives. That's so exciting to think about all of these fun things to add to all of our travel
02:35to-do lists. So I love that. In terms of museums, that's the next kind of biggest category. I think
02:39there are about 15 on the list. I've been to a few of them, like the new Grand Egyptian Museum,
02:43the Studio Museum that just got a facelift, and some of these other ones that are kind of getting
02:48a redo here. So tell us about why it was so important to include some of these older institutions
02:54that have either gotten completely redone or just gotten maybe a new section or something added to them.
02:59Yeah, I think museums are crucial. And I think it's, you know, they don't often get as much love
03:05on some of the travel sites, mainly because they're not, you know, kind of the places where you're
03:11dropping the most money. Some of them are free. But I think there's some really exciting things
03:16happening in museums right now, especially art museums. The Frick in New York is on the list that
03:21just went through a huge renovation. And it's such a cool place. They opened an entire new floor of it.
03:29And there's just a lot of new things to experience. So if you've been to the Frick before,
03:33you haven't been to this Frick, and it's a really cool place to go. There's a lot of really exciting
03:39art openings, especially in Asia. There's some really cool things. And the Contemporary Art Museum
03:46in Uzbekistan in Tashkent on the list is one of the coolest art openings of the year.
03:55And I think is an area that you wouldn't necessarily think to go for contemporary art.
04:01Yeah, that's incredible to kind of highlight these places that you wouldn't necessarily think about,
04:05but really are having a moment now and hopefully bringing that into the future as well. So it's very exciting.
04:09When we move on to restaurants, probably my favorite topic, a lot of the ones you guys have
04:14included are a little bit off the beaten path, not on all the regular best restaurant lists. So tell us
04:19a little bit more about that selection process and why you chose these ones.
04:23Yeah, our benchmark for restaurants is really that it's an experience. We're not necessarily,
04:30we're not a food publication. We're not looking at what's the best meal, although these are all
04:34incredible meals. But we're really looking for something that's immersive, something that you're going to go out
04:39of your way to visit and not just eat at because you're in town. One of my favorites on the
04:45list
04:45is Savia in Mexico City. Just a really cool experience where it's a super small table,
04:53very few seats per night. But making that effort to get that reservation and go to Mexico City for it,
05:01I think is really going to pay off to a lot of people. That's so exciting. And now I want
05:04to make
05:05reservations at all of them. So I'm definitely one of those people. Tell us a little bit more about
05:09the travel trends taking shape for 2026 and how this year's Greatest Places reflects this kind
05:14of global shift in what's happening in tourism today. Yeah, it's a really big year for tourism.
05:20It's been continually climbing since, tourism numbers have been continually climbing since the
05:25pandemic. And this year was no different. It continued to climb. But something that was
05:30really interesting is people are going a little further afield from a lot of the kind of go-to
05:36European destinations that we typically see at the top. Bhutan saw really big numbers in terms of
05:43increases in visitors. And so I think there's some really interesting stories there. As we talked
05:51about, it's a really big year for art museums and art galleries. And that's a really big reason people
05:57are traveling now is these art openings and new exhibits. Another big year was in amusement parks,
06:05actually. Kind of the opposite of museums. We have a handful of amusement parks on the list this year,
06:11which we usually only have maybe one or two. This year we have the Six Flags in Saudi Arabia, which
06:18is the
06:18first Six Flags outside of the United States, and also has the world's largest roller coaster. And we
06:25have the new Universal Park in the United States. There's also some cool cruises that are kind of along the
06:35the entertainment timeline, which is the Disney Destiny Cruise. It's the first heroes and villains cruise
06:44that's existed. And I think that kind of thing is very popular. It's fun for people to go on a
06:50cruise
06:50with like the Marvel heroes and villains, which you're not used to seeing in like a cruise landscape.
06:57Yeah, it's definitely interesting to think about how all of these things are kind of integrated now
07:01into a cruise where I saw the Netflix houses on there as well. Again, taking people's favorite kind of
07:07things like that and translating them from media and entertainment into things they can actually go
07:12and do and interact with. So on that topic, tell me a little bit about some of your favorites in
07:17the
07:18U.S. Because I know that Netflix one was big. What else is happening in the U.S. that you're
07:21really excited
07:22about? Yeah, so Netflix House is really interesting. It's really the brand's first foray into like a
07:31permanent space. They've done a lot of kind of pop-up experiences around, especially like Stranger
07:38Things and some of their really popular shows. But in the past year, they opened two locations. Actually,
07:43we have the Philadelphia one on our list. And then they opened a location in Dallas. And it's really just
07:50like a wonderland for fans of Netflix shows. There's like, is it cake themed rooms and things to do
07:58and activities? And there's Stranger Things. There's Squid Game. There's everything. If you
08:04love a Netflix show, that's your sort of amusement park. And yes, it's entirely like a marketing ploy,
08:11but that doesn't make it any less fun for fans of the show. That's so true. That's such an important
08:16thing to remember. And when we look at all of the locations that are on the list, you have 100
08:21on there.
08:22I think about half of them, actually more than half, are in the United States or Asia, but then the
08:26rest
08:26spread around the world. Was there any reason that it broke down this way with so many in the US
08:31and
08:31Asia? Or is it kind of just what happened to come out of all of your research? That's sort of
08:35what
08:35happened to come out. I mean, the US is a huge country and there's such varied offerings across
08:41the country that there's always a lot of tourism here. Yeah. It was a really big year for Asia. I
08:47would
08:47say usually Europe is kind of the second most tourism going into this list. And Asia really overtook
08:56that this year. Asia just had a ton of offerings, Japan especially. Japanese tourism is really big
09:04right now. A lot of people going to Thailand. Thailand's kind of the place to be. And we had
09:10spots in Sri Lanka, in Indonesia that are really cool. And a lot of people are kind of heading that
09:17direction this year. Yeah. It's interesting to think about that travel trend of a lot of people heading
09:22to Asia at the same time that a lot of these countries in Asia are also upping their game
09:25when it comes to some of these museums and other experiences that they're offering.
09:29Yeah. And they're trying to get places, they're trying to spread the tourists out too. We featured
09:34Songtsam Lodge in Zhejiang, China, which is a very rural area of China. And the Songtsam Lodges,
09:43it's a small chain of these very luxurious lodges that are mostly in these rural areas of China and
09:52are trying to get tourists out of the big bustling cities and especially young Chinese people out of
09:59the bustling cities and offer these kind of like lush country retreats in China, which is a really
10:05interesting trend too. Yeah, it definitely is. It's also interesting to think about the domestic travel
10:09that happens in a lot of these countries and these new places being built for them as well,
10:14because a lot of times we just think about ourselves going to travel places, but there are
10:18obviously domestic tourists everywhere. So it's great to see that happening. When we think a little
10:23bit about the slow travel trend that seems to be on the rise quite a bit, you know, as we
10:28mentioned,
10:29I think there are seven cruises on the list, but I only saw two train trips. And it's interesting,
10:33because I think a lot of trains are kind of coming online of interesting places around the world.
10:38So I wanted to see what you thought about that. If it's people are kind of preferring more boat
10:42travel to train travel these days or any trends with that slow travel that you might have noticed.
10:47Yeah. I mean, because this is an annual list, we're really looking at like kind of what's booming this
10:52year. And we did a lot of coverage of some new train routes last year. There was a really exciting
10:59one
10:59in Europe and on the Belmond in Europe. And there was a really great one through rural Australia that
11:12was really exciting as well. But this year I think was really about the river cruise. We're seeing a lot
11:18more of these small kind of sailboats, yachts, these smaller boats where you're either booking out the
11:26entire thing, or it's maybe a couple of small parties, like less than 20 people on these boats.
11:33And it's like a smaller, more intimate experience. They make more stops. And it's a little less of a
11:39mega ship like the MSC World America, which is also on the list. But that's really the iconic cruise,
11:47where it's like a small city on the ocean. But we're seeing a lot of these kind of smaller,
11:53more intimate cruising experiences really becoming super popular this year.
Comments