AS winter sets in, many Brits are already looking ahead to their next holiday.
But travel experts have revealed the destinations that shouldn’t be on your 2026 bucket list, including a sunny favourite for UK residents.
From overtourism to negative environmental impacts, there are a variety of reasons to avoid this stunning locations.
Fodor’s Travel has revealed its No 2026 List, explaining: “Its purpose is to highlight destinations where tourism is placing unsustainable pressures on the land and local communities.”
While the round-up of locations is “not a call for boycott”, it aims to highlight the issues facing each area, urging tourists to “ease up on a spot for now–not forever”.
“Give a rest to any location that clearly needs a breather,” the travel pros encouraged readers.
The list includes a popular tourist destination for Brits as well as a city set to host next year’s World Cup.
Antarctica
Unlike most destinations, Antarctica doesn’t need marketing campaigns to lure visitors to fuel its existent economy.
In fact, it doesn’t have an economy at all, and therefore doesn’t need tourists.
Despite this, the remote region welcomed 120,000 visitors from 2023 to 2024, a number which is projected to double by 2033.
Mike Gunter, professor of political science and chair at Rollins College in Florida, who studies ecotourism and environmental policy, spoke about the recent shift in tourism for Antarctica.
“Unfortunately, in the last quarter century, Antarctica has been moving more toward mass tourism instead of the traditional ecotourism world,” he explained.
Expedition ships offer visitors a chance to set foot on the driest land on the planet and witness calving glaciers.
Elizabeth Leane, professor of Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, pointed out that a major draw of Antarctica is that it “still has that mystique of being the last place, the last wilderness”.
However, Jessica O’Reilly, associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University and an advisor to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, explained: “The environment is fragile, and it’s a rare environment”.
“That’s why people want to go there, but it’s also why it can’t really sustain high numbers of tourism,” she said.
With no caps on visitation in Antarctica, the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) has only been able to set out voluntarily regulations for visitors.
Canary Islands
With warm temperatures for most of the year, the Canary Islands have established themselves as a long-time favourite destination for Brits.
From cheap prices and direct flights to world-class waterparks and stunning scenery, there are many draws to the destination.
However, a whopping 7.8 million visitors in 2025 alone has left locals concerned over how much their islands can take.
Thousands even marched through the streets of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Lanzarote in May under the banner, “Canarias tiene un límite” (“The Canaries have a limit”).
The booming tourism is causing soaring housing costs and mounting environmental strain, threatening the foundations of island life.
While tourism contributes more than a third of the Canary Islands’ GDP and employs roughly 40% of its population, it has come at a price.
“Residents have started protesting because they’re genuinely fed up,” says John Dale Beckley, founder of the sustainability platform CanaryGreen.org.
“The government previously changed regulations that allowed residents to rent out their properties on Airbnb and Booking.com.
“This has driven up both rental prices and property values. Many young people now find it almost impossible to rent or buy a home.”
Meanwhile, there have also been “alarming losses in biodiversity” due to overcrowding.
And water scarcity and infrastructure strain are predicted to be the next looming crises.
Glacier National Park, Montana
First opened in 1910 with the displacement of the Blackfeet tribe, Glacier National Park (GNP) in Montana struggles to live up to its name.
GNP is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, leaving just 27 of the estimated 150 glaciers from early 20th century.
And these too, are expected to disappear by 2030.
While Michael Jamison, Northern Rockies campaign director for the National Parks Conservation Association, cited climate change as a main factor, with more frequent and expansive wildfires and milder winters.
“For a lot of these species, climate change is what they call a ‘threat multiplier,’” Jamison explains. “
It magnifies existing threats and intensifies them … We’re seeing changes to migration routes, to seasonal habitats and winter range, and to entire populations.”
For some travelers, the last-chance draw of the rapidly melting glaciers has motivated visits to the park.
Already one of the most visited national parks in the US, Glacier saw around 300,000 more visitors in 2024 than 2023.
These large and growing numbers have various impacts on the park, from traffic congestion on Glacier’s iconic Going-to-the-Sun Road to the faster accumulation of garbage, and a greater risk of wildlife disturbance.
Glacier National Park has implemented policies to mitigate some of the effects, with visitors required to have timed reservations to enter during peak summer months and hours since 2020.
However, the damage may already have been done.
“The challenges absolutely are unprecedented,” says Jamison. “At no point in the history of Glacier Park have so many existential threats intersected all at once.”
Isola Sacra, Italy
This small community near Rome has been given the green light for a new port, where some of the world’s largest cruise ships will dock.
These plans have caused backlash from residents and environmental campaigners.
Despite the devastating impact of the cruise industry on other Italian areas such as Venice and Santorini, the quiet coastal district of Isola Sacra in Fiumicino is set to become the next cruise destination.
Located just 20 miles from Rome, the stunning area will become home to a pier for mega cruise ships, each over 230 feet high, over 1,150 feet long, and capable of carrying up to 6,000 passengers.
Authorities say the project will bring an employment boom, however various local and national associations have been fighting against these development plans since 2010.
Long-time residents of Isola Sacra have formed Tavoli del Porto, a committee working to safeguard the area.
“Only together can we stop these projects that threaten to destroy a delicate ecosystem of dunes, wetlands, agricultural land, unique vegetation, and terrestrial and marine animal species,” the activists told local press ahead of a protest planned in November.
The project includes measures for the protection of marine biodiversity, with Fiumicino’s seabed so shallow it will require 105 million cubic feet of sand would to be extracted to create a deep channel allowing access for ships.
The Jungfrau Region, Switzerland
Located in the Bernese Oberland of central Switzerland, the Jungfrau Region stretches from the valleys of Interlaken to the imposing summits of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.
The area is most famous for its Alpine villages of Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, and Mürren.
However despite its stunning scenery, the Jungfrau Region faces the challenge of balancing a booming tourism with the preservation of its environment and local quality of life.
The popularity of the area strains natural resources and the daily lives of residents, making now a critical moment to address sustainability.
According to Jungfrau Railways’ corporate announcements, both visitor numbers and profits have never been higher.
More thana million people visited the Jungfraujoch, the ridge that joins two of the Bernese Alps’ towering 13,000-foot peaks dubbed “the Top of Europe”, in 2024, up 5.1% from the previous year.
Meanwhile, the Eiger Express gondola transported more than 2.1 million passengers, while the Harderbahn, Firstbahn, and Lauterbrunnen-Mürren cableways also broke attendance records.
In the first half of 2025, transport income has generated record profits, offering tourists the chance to reach the high Alps.
But this booming industry has had a visible impact on the surrounding countryside.
“Where there was ice, there are now trees,” explained climate and science reporter Mark Poynting of the Great Aletsch.
Mexico City
Set to host the opener of the highly anticipated 2026 FIFA World Cup, this city
On July 4, large protests erupted in Mexico City against gentrification, short-term rentals, and rising rents.
Signs reading “Mexico for Mexicans” and “gringos out” were spotted across the city.
Similar to the Canary Islands, the proliferation of Airbnb and other short-stay listings are contributing to housing displacement and rental inflation in the city.
“Simply put, Airbnb should be banned from Mexico City,” says Natalia de la Rosa, the Mexico City-born and bred operations leader of Club Tengo Hambre.
“It’s a platform that incentivizes evictions and tears at the social fabric of communities in neighbourhoods.”
“Deep-pocketed elites and large corporate and international portfolios purchasing entire apartment buildings to convert them into short-term rentals are negatively impacting our city,” she added.
Inside Airbnb, an advocacy group that analyzes the company’s footprint on residential areas through data-driven research, estimates that there are over 25,000 short-term rentals in the city.
Airbnb listings in the city have shot up by 35% since 2020.
Mombasa, Kenya
With a record 2.4 million international arrivals last year, Kenya’s tourism industry has been booming, making travel the third-largest industry in the country for amassing foreign currency.
Cruise travel is one of the sector’s new tourism products, bringing a 164% rise in port traffic in coastal cities Mombasa and Lamu in 2024.
However, despite the country’s vigorous campaign to attract more travelers, Kenyan officials do not have a clear understanding of how many tourists it can accommodate without harming ecological health.
Mombasa, the country’s oldest coastal city, renowned as “the white and blue city,” now hosts 70% of tourists visiting the coast.
And now overtourism has left the city grappling with depleting resources, overcrowding, poor and congested roads, poor waste management–littered beaches and polluted oceans.
Officials have continuously prioritized tourism over local needs, going so far as to establish a Tourists’ Inspectorate Unit, a special security team safeguarding tourist centres, despite worries about crime outside these areas.
Montmartre, Paris
Paris’ hilltop village of Montmartre has long drawn tourists to its picturesque cobbled streets, from Van Gogh lovers to John Wick fans alike.
Montmartre, once a village on the outskirts of the city, has remained untouched, maintaining the narrow cobbled streets of yore.
Today, these picturesque ruelles are considered an undeniable tourist draw in the city.
However in recent years, it’s become more than the 30,000 residents can bear.
Some 11 million visitors now throng the area each year, topping the numbers seen by the Eiffel Tower.
Rémy Knafou, professor at Paris 1–Panthéon Sorbonne and author of several books on overtourism has noticed that even previously quieter spots, notably the northern flank of the hill, now teem with tourist shops.
“At night, the Place du Tertre is completely invaded by café and restaurant terraces,” Knafou told Fodor’s.
“Some of the population living in the area is protesting–discretely, politely, but firmly–its discontent. It is therefore possible to speak of overtourism.”
Local government officials claim that they are working to reduce the impact of tourism on residents.
However, if trends continue in this way, experts warn Montmartre may be “progressively emptied of its population.”
This could contribute to “a loss of ‘authenticity,’ or, at any rate, a modification of the local identity”.
“We’ll need to ask ourselves: whether tourists will be satisfied to come and only encounter other tourists.”