Expedia just released its list for the hottest 2026 travel destinations, calculated with the destination's capacity in mind.

Expedia has identified Big Sky, Montana as the top travel destination for 2026, noting a surge in interest of over 90 percent. Okinawa, Japan and Sardinia, Italy follow as the second and third most popular destinations. The selections are based on data from millions of users visiting Expedia's platforms.

To address concerns about over-tourism and sustainability, Expedia has partnered with the World Travel and Tourism Council to implement a smart travel health check for its featured destinations. This system evaluates whether destinations are prepared to handle increased tourism, focusing on infrastructure and community readiness. Travelers are also advised to book holiday travel early to secure better airfare prices.

Expedia's 2026 top travel destinations

Welcome back. Well the end of the year is get this just three months away and Expedia is taking a look at where travelers are headed to to get away from it all. So Big Sky Montana that is number one on the list. Expedia also says there's interest in going. The interest in going there that is is rising more than 90 percent. Okinawa Japan and Sardinia Italy they come in at two and three. Expedia travel expert Melanie Fish joins us now on set to chat more about this. I love talking travel. So it's something that I noticed in that graphic was three of them there have Expedia's new smart travel health check. So what does that mean. And how can travelers use it. Expedia just released its destinations of the year for 2026 and it's based on data. Millions of people are visiting the Expedia sites and app every day. So these are the places that are really surging in interest for 2026. Well Expedia really helped democratize travel as the first online travel agency. So we really kind of felt like we had a responsibility to make sure that the destinations we were calling out were prepared to welcome the influx of interested travelers. Yeah. So this year Expedia partnered with the World Travel and Tourism Council to come up with a system to put these destinations of the year through a smart travel health check. Are they prepared with their infrastructure. Does the government have a proactive plan to make sure they can take care of all the people who are coming and the residents of the community itself. We hear so much about over tourism. This goes beyond over tourism and is really about sustainable travel. So that's a stain of that smart travel health check is really just a checkmark that says this is more information for you. It shows that this place is as ready to welcome you as a traveler as excited as you are to go there as a traveler. That's so interesting because I think recently we've seen what happened in Mexico City with a surge in U.S. travelers that went there. And so I just wonder if you are hoping to book when is the best time to book. And are there any good deals out there. I'm not going to lie if you're looking for holiday travel. I think airfares are not cheap but I have some tips for you. It's as simple as make sure you book all of your travel for the end of the year by Halloween. And it's kind of counterintuitive but you might want to look at booking your Christmas travel first because those prices are starting to rise around October 24th on average. So if you book before then you can save 60 70 dollars on your airfare and then Thanksgiving travel really starts to rise October 28th around there. OK. Some great advice Melanie Fish. Thank you. Thanks.

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