Where to Travel Next: 2022 Hot List

Each year, we index the best, brightest openings, but for the 26th edition of Condé Nast Traveler’s Hot List, we’ve upped the ante: This time, editors at all seven worldwide editions had a hand in scouting and selecting the entries. At its heart, this is still a hotel list—a whopping 96 made the cut this year, which is a true testament to the industry’s resilience. But because (almost) no hotel is an island, we’ve widened the lens to include the restaurants, culture, transportation, and cruises you need to know, and the destinations that are reinventing themselves. We mean it when we say this may be the hottest Hot List yet. Here, the seven destinations around the world you should travel to next.

Click here to see the entire Hot List for 2022.

All listings featured in this story are independently selected by our editors. However, when you book something through our retail links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Maine

Momentum has been building around Maine for some time, but 2021 was its year. That’s thanks in part to a slew of nature-minded projects and comfortable places to spend the night that weren’t confined to the coast. New trails like the Great Circle Trail and the Bold Coast Scenic Bikeway made the rugged 100-Mile Wilderness and Downeast areas more accessible. Up north, glamping favorite Under Canvas’s first East Coast outpost and reimagined indie boutique The Claremont opened up Acadia National Park’s 26 peaks to a larger travel set, while fresh-opening Captains Collection kept classic Kennebunkport more relevant than ever. —Todd Plummer

Piedmont, Italy

This proud, polished northern Italian region is giving Tuscany and Puglia a run for their money, thanks to a boom in its southern Langhe, Roero, and Monferrato areas. Two game-changing openings are making these wine-centric areas more accessible to travelers. Sophisticated Nordelaia is a stylish 12-room conversion of a 19th-century villa, with a persuasive fresh-and-local restaurant. Farther west, surrounded by its own sweep of vineyards and truffle-rich woods, 39-room Casa di Langa is a terracotta-red riff on the traditional Piedmontese farm estate, with a contemporary-art collection including works by Ai Weiwei, Sean Scully, and Carla Accardi. —Lee Marshall