Rome2Rio in its third-quarter 2026 Travel Discoveries report revealed that travellers are searching for lesser-known destinations.
The data, based on millions of searches conducted worldwide on Rome2Rio’s platform in the second quarter of this year, showed that upcoming travellers are looking into Italian lake towns, US ferry routes and Croatian rail journeys.
Five Italian towns appear in Rome2Rio’s global top 10 fastest-growing destinations, all of them on or near Lakes Como, Garda, and the Venetian coast: Sottomarina, Torri del Benaco, Domaso, Toscolano-Maderno, and Nesso all saw search interest grow by at least nearly triple since the prior quarter. Greek coastal destinations also continue to rise by roughly triple from the last quarter: Líndos on Rhodes, Plataniás on Crete, and Faliraki on Rhodes all rank in the global top 10.
“Our data shows that travelers are becoming more destination-savvy and actively seeking alternatives to well-known destinations,” Rome2Rio chief executive officer Wendy Olson Killion said. “The places growing fastest right now aren’t replacements for the classics – they’re the places nearby and worth exploring that deliver landscapes and experiences with less costs and crowds.”
In North America, Boston to Salem, Massachusetts was the quarter’s single biggest ferry route by search volume — growing from 445 to 9,363 searches, a 2,004 per cent increase.
In Europe, Italy’s lake ferry networks saw extraordinary growth: Nesso to Como, Verbania to Cannobio on Lake Maggiore, and Nesso to Bellagio all saw search interest rise by about 1,500 per cent.
The quarter’s most train route growth came from Croatia: Split to Krka National Park grew more than 10,000 per cent as travelers discover the train as the ideal way to reach one of Croatia’s most spectacular national parks from the Dalmatian coast.
