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Written by Stephanie Mikkelsen
For 2027, these destinations are at the top of every serious traveller’s list – India and Japan for the depth, Vietnam and Sri Lanka for the food and value, Africa for the wildlife, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Spain and Portugal for the kind of history you can stand inside.
They also share something else: all of them reward a guided small-group tour over going it alone. The right guide gets you to the Taj Mahal before the crowds. The right camp puts you at the Mara River at the right moment. Here’s why each one is worth booking – and why a tour is the way to do it.
India tours: the Golden Triangle, Rajasthan & beyond
Nothing else on earth hits like India. The Taj Mahal at dawn with the light moving across the marble. A desert camp in Rajasthan where the silence at night is total. Street food in Old Delhi so good you’ll be thinking about it on the flight home. This is a country that rewards the traveller who comes prepared – who knows when the light falls right on the Mehrangarh Fort, which chai stall is worth the detour, and how to be at Varanasi’s ghats before the rest of the world wakes up.
South India is a different trip again – backwater canals in Kerala, Dravidian temple towers, a food culture built on coconut and spice that has almost nothing in common with what gets served as Indian food everywhere else. One country, many journeys. Start planning.
Vietnam tours: Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An & Ho Chi Minh City
Incredible value. Extraordinary food. Landscapes that look like they were designed to be photographed. Vietnam in 2027 is one of the strongest cases for getting on a plane – and it’s still affordable in a way most of Asia no longer is.
Hanoi’s Old Quarter at dawn, Ha Long Bay from the deck of an overnight junk, the lantern-lit streets of Hoi An, the full-throttle energy of Ho Chi Minh City – each feels like a separate country. The food alone justifies the trip: banh mi in the south is not the same as in the north, bún bò Hue exists only in Hue, and the best pho you’ll ever eat is at a plastic stool somewhere no algorithm will find for you. Come hungry. Come with time. Come with someone who can show you everything.
Japan tours: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka & beyond
Japan is having a moment that shows no sign of ending – and if you haven’t been, 2027 is the year to fix that. Tokyo is one of the great cities on earth, full stop. Kyoto’s temples at first light before the crowds arrive. Osaka’s late-night food scene in Dotonbori. A mountain ryokan where dinner is a 12-course kaiseki served in your room and the only sound is rain.
The depth here is the thing. A week in Tokyo could be spent entirely in neighbourhoods that don’t appear in guidebooks. The sake breweries of Fushimi require advance arrangement. The best ryokan books out months ahead. Japan rewards the traveller who knows where to look – and a small-group tour is the way.
Africa safari tours: Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania & Zambia
A leopard in a tree at golden hour. Elephants crossing the Chobe River at dusk. A lion kill at dawn in the Serengeti, with no one else around. Africa delivers moments you won’t find anywhere else on earth – and the guide in the front seat determines whether you see them at all.
The Masai Mara, Botswana’s Okavango Delta, Zambia’s South Luangwa – these are not interchangeable. The Okavango floods between June and August, concentrating wildlife in ways that have to be seen to be believed. The Great Migration crosses the Mara River between July and October, and the crossing point matters more than most people realise. This is a trip where knowing the land, the season and the camps makes all the difference. Get it right and it’s the best trip of your life.
Egypt, Jordan & Morocco tours: the Nile, the Medina & the Sahara
Three countries that belong on the same trip. Each one is worth the flight alone; together, they’re one of the great travel combinations on earth.
Egypt first: standing inside the Valley of the Kings, or on the Giza plateau as the sun comes up over structures that were already ancient when the Roman Empire was young, is one of those travel experiences that genuinely recalibrates your sense of time. A Nile cruise between Luxor and Aswan – slow, punctuated by temple complexes arriving like chapters – belongs on every serious traveller’s list.
Jordan next. You walk the Siq – a kilometre of narrow sandstone canyon – and then Petra’s Treasury appears at the end of it, rose-red and vast and exactly as extraordinary as everyone said it would be. Then Wadi Rum: a desert so otherworldly it’s been used as a stand-in for Mars on film, where a night in a Bedouin camp under an ink-black sky is the kind of thing people describe for years. The Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, is the punctuation mark between the two.
Then Morocco: Marrakech’s medina at dusk, the blue streets of Chefchaouen, a night in a desert camp in the Agafay with the Atlas Mountains behind you. The country gets into your system fast. Most people who go once are already planning a return before they’ve left.
Spain & Portugal tours: San Sebastian, Andalucía, Porto & the Douro Valley
The Iberian Peninsula is on a run and there’s never been a better time to go. Spain‘s San Sebastian is one of the great food cities on earth – more Michelin stars per square metre than almost anywhere, and pintxos bars along Calle 31 de Agosto that reward an entire evening’s slow exploration. Andalucía delivers the Alhambra in Granada, the Mezquita in Córdoba, whitewashed villages in the Alpujarras that feel entirely removed from the rest of modern Europe.
Portugal has settled into something quieter and more interesting than its recent fame suggested. Porto and the Douro Valley is the real case – port wine lodges, tiled facades, and vine-covered hills that look exactly the way wine country is supposed to look. Two countries, one trip, no wasted days.
Scandinavia tours: Norway, the Northern Lights & Finnish Lapland
The northern lights are the obvious hook, but Scandinavia in 2027 is worth far more than that. Bergen, with its wooden Hanseatic wharf and mountains pressing in from every direction. The Flåm Railway – a 20-kilometre descent through waterfalls and sheer rock into the Aurlandsfjord – earns every word of its reputation. The Lofoten Islands in the Arctic Ocean, where the light turns gold at 11pm in summer and the beaches look borrowed from the Caribbean.
In winter, Finnish Lapland delivers: dog sledding, reindeer farms, and the specific strange pleasure of watching the aurora from a glass-roofed cabin at midnight. This is one of the few parts of the world that still feels genuinely remote, genuinely wild, and entirely unlike anywhere else.
Sri Lanka tours: Yala, the Hill Country, Galle & the Kandy to Ella train
Leopards in Yala. Tea estates in the Hill Country. A Dutch fort city in Galle with some of the best small hotels in Asia inside its walls. Cave temples at Dambulla painted floor-to-ceiling with 2,000-year-old frescoes. Whale sharks off the south coast. The train from Kandy to Ella – four hours through mist and tea gardens – one of the great rail journeys of the world.
Sri Lanka is a small island that punches well above its weight, and it rewards the traveller who takes it slowly. Shift from the dry north to the lush south. Take the slow train. Stop for chai when the view demands it. It’s been on lists for years and keeps delivering for everyone who finally goes.
