The travel goals to consider for 2026 Trying not to reproduce the disaster of overtourism

In 2026, traveling abroad is no longer an innocent gesture. It is a choice that says something about us, our relationship with the world, and the economic model we continue to legitimize. After years of low-cost flights, serial city breaks, and places turned into brands, international tourism exposes all its cracks. The most visited cities in Europe are no longer spaces to traverse but devices for rapid consumption: crowded and drained of real life. Overtourism is not a side effect of success but its most consistent form. It is what happens when travel is conceived as a standardized product and the territory as a resource to exploit. Barcelona, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Dubrovnik have become symbols of a paradox: the more they are loved, the less livable they remain. In 2026, continuing to choose them without reflection means participating, even unintentionally, in this mechanism.

Is a new way of traveling possible? In 2026, hopefully yes

This is why an alternative geography of international travel is emerging. Not a secret map, but a constellation of places that have not yet sacrificed their social fabric to the tourism industry. Places that do not promise constant entertainment, but ask for attention.

Sarajevo

In the Western Balkans, for example, travel still has a political and historical dimension. Sarajevo does not offer the illusion of neutral beauty: it forces you to confront the 20th century and its fractures. It is not a city domesticated for visitors, and precisely for this reason it retains an authenticity that has been lost elsewhere. Here, tourism has not yet erased memory, nor replaced it with a simplified narrative. Albania is one of the most emblematic cases for the coming decade. It is already attracting growing interest, often presented as the new frontier of European tourism. But this rhetoric risks repeating the same mistakes seen elsewhere. The interior of the country, far from the rapidly transforming coastlines, tells another story: stone towns, local economies not solely dependent on visitors. Traveling here in 2026 means walking a fine line, where each choice contributes to shaping future development.

Between Estonia and Finland

Moving toward Northern Europe, the situation changes but the core issue remains. Countries like Estonia and Finland are not immune to tourism, but they have maintained a more balanced relationship between inhabited spaces and visited spaces. Outside the capitals, the landscape expands: forests, islands, lakes, small towns where time has not been accelerated to meet global demand. Here, travel is not an accumulation of experiences, but subtraction. Fewer stimuli, more silence.

Eastward and beyond

In the Eastern Mediterranean, Greece provides a clear example of the ongoing bifurcation. On one side, islands fully surrendered to seasonal tourism; on the other, territories that resist because they are difficult to reach, lacking visitor-comfort infrastructure. In these places, travel returns to being an experience of adaptation. One does not arrive to take, but to stay. Even outside Europe, 2026 marks a moment of reconsideration. In some areas of the Caucasus, tourism remains marginal compared to local life. Georgia and Armenia are neither easy nor domesticated destinations. They require time, listening, and the ability to navigate contexts not centered on the visitor. Precisely for this reason, they offer some of the densest and least commodified travel experiences in the Eurasian continent. The key point, however, is not to discover new destinations before they become trendy. It is to change the paradigm. Overtourism does not arise from excessive movement, but from the idea that the world must always be available and ready to entertain us. A logic that reproduces the same inequalities of global capitalism: wealth concentration and the expulsion of locals.

We can still go to Lisbon and Paris

Traveling abroad in 2026 implies accepting limits. Traveling less often, staying longer, choosing off-peak periods, giving up some comfort. It means acknowledging that the right to mobility cannot become the right to temporarily colonize every place. In this sense, travel becomes a silent political act. It does not make noise and does not produce viral content, but it leaves traces. It can help strengthen local economies or drain them. It can support relationships or consume them. It can be a form of respectful passage or yet another temporary occupation. In 2026, perhaps, the real question will no longer be where to go, but how to go there without destroying what makes that place desirable.