NYT: 2025 Travel Destinations

52 is a lot to get to in one year. But none are on my top-ten list anyway.

I always enjoy looking over these lists, but if anything, they dissuade me far more than prodding me to book a trip the destinations they tout. The FOMO / bucket list / influencer crowd must go nuts booking these trips when these articles get published...there are no more hidden places, but there is no need to join the crowd after some place gets buzzed about in the NYT or on other "where to go" lists.

I'm wondering if this is one of those compilations by writers who have never actually been to these places (per recent thread), just researched via google. Or from info provided by the local tourism boards. Anyone who can afford to go to most of these places in lieu of the more boring usual suspects, is not in my social strata.

Stan, I wondered the same thing;)

I have not been to many on that list, nor have an interest in them, but we are headed to Greenland in a few months. Not to the Nuuk area though. so the new airport is not in our plans.

Stan and mikliz97, I don’t think so. The New York Times has a pretty good roster of travel writers and I doubt very much they would have to make up anything. Plus they pride themselves on their journalistic integrity.

EDIT: I think it’s pretty cool that they put Hamburg, Germany in there and also Flow Country, Scotland. And I like that they have Asheville, North Carolina, which is struggling to recover from the terrible flooding.

They also have Bulgaria listed, which is on my list of destinations for 2025.

Thanks for posting this, Mike! I always look forward to seeing the NYT’s 50 destinations for the current year each year. One can dream,can’t they?

I have misgivings about putting the Flow Country on that list simply because it is such a remote place that it could never support significant tourist infrastructure.
But it is an incredible place which deserves to be better known. One of real importance to the planet. It is on one of the quieter variations of the NC500 drive, on a valid if unusual route to Scrabster for those driving to Orkney.
I stayed at the only hotel actually in Flow Country once on my way to Orkney. Then it had about a dozen rooms and was quite a characterful Highland Hotel. Now it only has three or four rooms.
The only time I have had to climb out of the ground floor window to get to breakfast when the room door broke on me.
As touched on this is also an area where you can visit the remains of a couple of villages emptied and abandoned in the Highland Clearances by the Duke of Sutherland- infamously the army were called out at one stage to enforce the clearances.
A pretty sobering experience to be at the villages- further north towards Bettyhill- you need a car to reach them.
Part of Scottish History which is complicated and terribly sad.
Anyone that far north should visit the Strathnaver Museum in Bettyhill to learn more about the area, including the clearances.

Remarkably Forsinard also has a railway station. I also wonder if the NYT has actually been there as I would have expected mention of the plaque at Forsinard Station to the Jellicoe Express- the heavy troop trains which ran in both wars (far better known in the First War) from London to serve the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, Orkney. Forsinard being the last refreshment stop northbound/first southbound- on the 22 hour journey.

Maybe not somewhere for a first visit to Scotland, but certainly for a second or third.

Stan and mikliz97, I don’t think so. The New York Times has a pretty
good roster of travel writers and I doubt very much they would have to
make up anything. Plus they pride themselves on their journalistic
integrity.

That's not bad at all, considering that the article mentions the new hiking trail in the Stockholm archipelago.

While the trail formally opened last year in the autumn, it won't really be accessible until next year when the ferries start running on the summer schedule...

Oh, and the Zaragoza to Canfranc railway reopening- the line never closed. It closed between Canfranc and Pau (France), but not to Zaragoza.
Whether they've put the tracks back into the old platforms, from the new platform I don't know. Either way skewing tracks doesn't make a reopening.
There are funds to rebuild the line into France, but whether it happens is anyone's guess.
SNCF do a very very good job in hiding the rail replacement buses on into France.
The line has been on my bucket list for decades, but even I can't fathom the SNCF buses.

I live along #40! Trent Severn Waterway. And am a graduate of Trent University.

We have boated along it many times. Haven't been to the Canoe Museum yet but have been meaning to since the new location opened. I remember I had a prof at Uni who was involved in it's founding and turned every lecture towards canoes, somehow.

Most of the places listed have either new transport links of new attractions and that’s why they’re in the list. It’s just giving readers ideas for trips that they may not be aware of or new information that might make trips more accessible. Eg, the China destination info tells me that Alipay now accepts foreign cards. That makes travelling to China far easier than it was last year. I’d love to go to China at some point so that’s useful for me to know.