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Lonely Planet has unveiled 50 destinations and experiences for 2027, with The Tweed and the Red Centre carrying Australia’s flag. But for travel advisors, the more valuable story is not simply where Lonely Planet says to go. It is what the selections reveal about the way travellers increasingly want to experience the world.

One of travel publishing’s best-known annual collections is back, and this time Australia has two quite different reasons to pay attention.

Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2027 features 25 must-visit destinations and 25 experiences, selected by its panel of experts, with recommendations from staff, authors and its wider travel community.

Australia appears twice: The Tweed in northern New South Wales is the country’s only destination selection, while the Red Centre is included among the experiences for its art, culture and storytelling.

That distinction matters.

This isn’t another list built entirely around famous capitals, blockbuster resorts, and the usual “must-see before you die” suspects. The 2027 choices range from secondary cities and less-obvious regions to rail journeys, food trails, walking routes, wildlife encounters and cultural immersion.

For Australian travel advisors, that makes the list considerably more useful than a collection of attractive photographs. It offers clues about the questions clients may start asking in 2027 and about the kind of journeys advisors can turn into something more valuable than a room-and-airfare transaction.

The Tweed finally gets its moment

The Tweed has spent years living beside two tourism attention magnets: the Gold Coast to the north and Byron Bay to the south.

Lonely Planet’s message is essentially that travellers should stop treating the space in between as scenery viewed through a windscreen.

Destination NSW confirms The Tweed is Australia’s only destination in the 2027 selection and one of just three destination picks in Oceania, alongside Dunedin and the Waitaki in New Zealand/Aotearoa and New Caledonia.

Lonely Planet Destination Editor Oceania Jessica Lockhart said the publisher had watched The Tweed grow in popularity with domestic tourists, highlighting its food and outdoor appeal as well as the Northern Rivers Rail Trail and Gidjuum Gulganyi Walk. Her central point was simple: the country between the Gold Coast and Byron Bay deserves to be treated as a destination in its own right.

That is a useful sales proposition.

The Tweed can be packaged as a short break, food escape, wellness stay, cycling holiday, walking itinerary or broader northern NSW journey. Its combination of coast, hinterland, rainforest, villages, paddock-to-plate dining and outdoor activities also gives advisors rather more to work with than the old formula of beach, bed and breakfast.

Destination NSW says the 2027 choices reflect what Lonely Planet is seeing and hearing from travellers: a desire to slow down, escape crowds and seek meaningful experiences beyond the obvious.

The Tweed fits that mood rather neatly.

Byron may still have the celebrity postcode, but 2027 could belong to the neighbour that has been quietly doing the job.

The Red Centre becomes an experience, not just a landmark

Australia’s second inclusion is even more revealing.

Lonely Planet does not merely nominate the Red Centre as a place to visit. It frames the experience as immersing yourself in art in Australia’s Red Centre.

That reframing moves the conversation beyond photographing Uluṟu at sunset, magnificent though that remains, and towards engaging with Central Australia through culture, art and storytelling.

Tourism Australia promotes Aboriginal cultural experiences at Uluṟu and Kata Tjuṯa, including opportunities to learn about local Aṉangu stories and culture through the Cultural Centre. It also highlights major light-based experiences including Field of Light and Wintjiri Wiṟu, where light and drones transform the desert night.

Tourism Australia’s wider Red Centre material also points visitors towards bush foods, medicines, dot painting, traditional wood artefacts and cultural interpretation connected with local Aboriginal communities.

For advisors, the commercial lesson is straightforward: the Red Centre need not be sold as a one-night tick-box stop.

It can become a deeper itinerary built around guided cultural experiences, art, dining, walking, Alice Springs, Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa National Park and the wider desert landscape.

That creates a better holiday and, very often, a more substantial booking.

Asia gives Australian advisors a strong 2027 shortlist

For Australian travel sellers, the Asian selections may be among the most immediately marketable.

Lonely Planet’s destination picks in Asia are Okinawa in Japan, Chengdu in China, Gujarat in India, Danang in Vietnam and Fulidhoo in the Maldives.

The experience selections are equally diverse: travelling by longboat into orangutan territory in Malaysia, riding the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in India, trekking Japan’s Michinoku Coastal Trail, following a food trail in Taiwan and exploring the architecture of Astana in Kazakhstan.

None of them is a true identikit holiday.

Okinawa gives repeat visitors to Japan a reason to look beyond Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka. Chengdu combines its internationally recognised giant-panda attraction with one of China’s celebrated food cultures. Gujarat opens an Indian journey beyond the familiar Golden Triangle. Danang adds another strong Vietnam proposition, while Fulidhoo points towards a Maldives experience with a different character from the traditional private-island resort model.

These are exactly the sorts of trips where professional advice becomes valuable.

Internal transport, touring, guides, seasonality, accommodation choices and the order in which a trip is constructed matter.

The internet is very good at selling a hotel room.

Joining all those moving parts into a holiday that actually works remains a rather more specialised profession.

The Pacific refuses to play second fiddle

Oceania’s three destination selections are The Tweed, Dunedin and the Waitaki, and New Caledonia.

Its experiences are equally strong: art in Australia’s Red Centre, Faʻa Sāmoa in Samoa and ocean adventures in French Polynesia.

Again, the emphasis is not simply on arriving.

It is on participating.

For advisors, Samoa and French Polynesia in particular provide an opportunity to explain culture, island choice, transport, resorts and experiences rather than simply compete on price.

That matters because many clients now arrive with a phone full of social-media inspiration but no coherent itinerary.

The advisor’s job increasingly begins where the algorithm stops.

Europe looks beyond the usual suspects

Europe’s destination selections are Veneto in Italy, Dessau in Germany, Skanör-Falsterbo, dubbed the Swedish Riviera, Šibenik in Croatia and León in Spain.

Its five experiences are a road trip along France’s Route Napoléon, sailing the Aeolian Islands off Sicily, walking St Cuthbert’s Way to Lindisfarne in the United Kingdom, diving in Greece and visiting Killary Fjord in County Galway, Ireland.

The broader pattern is again obvious: movement, immersion and regional discovery are as important as the final pin on the map.

For experienced Australian clients who have already “done” Paris, Rome and Barcelona, that creates useful second- and third-visit propositions.

Veneto beyond Venice, León instead of another rushed pass through Madrid, and Šibenik alongside Croatia’s better-known coastal names are all conversations worth having.

Africa and the Middle East broaden the choice

Lonely Planet’s destination selections for Africa and the Middle East are Oman, Rabat in Morocco, and Kenya’s Tsavo East and West national parks.

Featured experiences include visiting Abu Dhabi’s museums, taking a safari trek in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park, and exploring São Tomé and Príncipe.

For well-travelled clients asking the eternal question “Where can we go that feels different?” these selections provide useful starting points.

They also underline that the 2027 list is not built solely around mass-market accessibility. Some entries require more planning, more specialist knowledge and, in some cases, a greater appetite for adventure.

That is hardly bad news for travel professionals.

The Americas mix wilderness, food and adventure

North America contributes Québec, California’s Coastal Redwoods, Maryland, Prince Edward Island and New Mexico as destinations.

The experience list ranges from becoming a temporary keeper at Rose Island Lighthouse in Rhode Island and flightseeing in Alaska to wine and fine dining in Mexico’s Valle de Guadalupe, hotel-hopping around Miami’s South Beach and taking Minnesota’s Slow Road.

Across the Caribbean, Central and South America, destinations include Montserrat, Bariloche and Argentina’s lake district, Granada in Nicaragua and Bocas del Toro in Panama.

The experiences include a Galápagos expedition cruise, tango in Buenos Aires, a polar plunge in Antarctica and exploring Costa Rica’s Monteverde cloud forest.

Apparently, simply looking at Antarctica is no longer enough.

Somebody now wants you in the water.

What the list really tells travel advisors

Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2027 should not be mistaken for a forecast of the destinations Australians will book most heavily next year.

It is an editorial selection involving Lonely Planet’s travel experts, staff, authors and wider travel community, rather than a published league table based on tourism arrivals or forward-booking volumes.

That distinction is important.

But influential travel lists can still stimulate curiosity.

A traveller who had never considered The Tweed as a standalone holiday may suddenly start searching it.

A client returning to Japan may ask about Okinawa.

Somebody planning another European trip may decide Venice is only the beginning of Veneto, not the whole story.

And someone who has already visited Uluṟu may discover there is considerably more to experience in the Red Centre than a photograph at sunset.

That is where an advisor can add value.

The selections place considerable emphasis on experiences that give travellers something to do, understand, taste, learn or talk about when they return home.

Railways, walking trails, food, culture, wildlife, regional touring, art and less-crowded places all feature prominently across the 2027 collection.

For advisors, the opportunity lies in turning inspiration into logistics and logistics into a holiday worth remembering.

2027 could belong to the curious traveller

Perhaps the most useful conclusion from Lonely Planet’s 50 selections is that no single “next big destination” exists.

The more interesting story is fragmentation.

Travellers can still want Paris, Phuket or New York, of course.

But they can also want a longboat into orangutan country, a food trail through Taiwan, a railway journey through the Himalayas, art beneath a Central Australian sky or a few unhurried days in a corner of northern NSW they previously drove straight through.

That is good territory for travel advisors.

When every holiday looks the same, booking it online is easy.

When a client wants culture, transport, guides, specialist accommodation, local experiences and the confidence that all the pieces will connect, expertise begins to matter again.

Lonely Planet has supplied 50 ideas for 2027.

For the travel trade, the opportunity is turning those ideas into 50 reasons for travellers to speak to someone who knows how to make them happen.