Laura Hall

Cada any elaborem una classificació de les millors ciutats del món per menjar i beure. L'objectiu és retre homenatge als xefs, els fogons i les parades de menjar de carrer que alimenten la ciutat. I com es decideix la llista? Enguany, el rànquing de les Millors Ciutats per Menjar de Time Out s'ha creat a partir d'una enquesta a més de 24.000 residents de tot el món. Els vam demanar que valoressin la qualitat general de l'escena gastronòmica del seu lloc de residència, el preu de sortir a sopar i els punts gastronòmics en els quals creuen que destaca la seva ciutat. A continuació, vam combinar aquestes milers de respostes amb el criteri del panell d'experts culinaris de Time Out (editors i crítics gastronòmics de tota la nostra xarxa), que van votar per les ciutats que consideren els destins gastronòmics més estimulants del planeta en aquest moment. Per garantir que la llista reflecteixi fidelment les capitals culinàries globals, només la ciutat amb la puntuació més alta de cada país va aconseguir entrar al Top 20 definitiu. Com demostra la nostra selecció, vivim un moment divertidíssim per sortir a menjar per la ciutat. Restaurants des de Lisboa fins a Lima estan servint alguns dels plats més sorprenents, atrevits i francament deliciosos que es puguin trobar. Què hi ha al menú? Polos de crema de mandarina a Nova York, fideus d'espina de peix a Copenhague i un sofisticat phở a Ciutat Ho Chi Minh. Hi ha alta cuina a Melbourne i fun dining (alta cuina divertida) a Ciutat del Cap

Every year, we create a definitive ranking of the world’s greatest cities for eating and drinking. The aim is to celebrate the chefs, kitchens and street food stalls that feed the city, bringing locals and visitors together to savour life’s one greatest pleasure: an excellent meal. So, how is the list decided? This year, Time Out’s Best Cities for Food with Intrepid Travel was created on the back of a survey of more than 24,000 locals, based all around the world. We asked them to rate the overall quality of the food scene where they live, how affordable it is to eat out and the food spots they believe their city does best.  We then paired their thousands of responses with the insight of Time Out’s expert food panel – editors and food critics from across Time Out’s network – who voted for the cities they think are the most exciting dining destinations on the planet right now. Only the highest-scoring city in each country made the final 20, ensuring our list reflects culinary capitals globally.  As our list demonstrates, it’s a very fun time to be eating out in the city right now. Restaurants from Lisbon to Lima are serving up some of the most striking, daring and downright delicious plates of food you can find. On the menu? Satsuma creamsicles in New York, fish bone noodles in Copenhagen and fancy phở in Ho Chi Minh. There’s fine-dining in Melbourne and ‘fun dining’ in Cape Town, food trends from sandwich crazes to elevated tacos, and coffee and cocktail scenes well worth trav

Every year, Time Out publishes the results of its international survey ranking the world’s best cities. Our team then dives deeper into the data to uncover other fascinating insights, like the world’s best cities for culture, the coolest neighborhoods and—the one I look forward to most—our ranking of the world’s best food cities. To get there, we surveyed thousands of city dwellers and asked them to rate their city’s food scene across 18 different criteria, including quality, affordability and diversity. Then we tapped our global network of chefs, editors and food critics to provide local insight into what makes their particular cities such wonderful places to eat—and not just right now. Our global network of food writers shared knowledge about the history of food in their cities, the dishes each place is known for, and the influence of different cultures on the local food scene. We’re serving up all this delicious intel in the tastiest list you’ll read all year, filled with nuggets from folks who frequent the bars, are restaurant regulars and know their city’s food scene inside and out. Ready to dig in? Here are the greatest cities for food on the planet.

One of the greatest advantages of living in a city is having world-class art and culture right on your doorstep. On any given day, you can spend the morning seeing world-famous works of art, the afternoon browsing bookshops and poking around indie galleries, and the evening at a comedy night (or the theatre, or a gig). Then there’s all the other stuff, like neighbourhood cinemas, street art, traditional festivals and museum lates. The best bit? In many of the world’s best cities, you can experience all that wonderful human creativity for free.  Every year, Time Out sets out to find today’s cultural capitals, where enviable art collections, brilliant theatre, music and cultural celebrations are accessible and affordable to locals and visitors. To create the list this year, we asked 24,000 locals in over 150 cities to rate the quality and affordability of the culture scene where they live, and to tell us exactly what their city does best, from comedy and carnivals to live music and literature. We then combined their responses with the insight of Time Out’s culture panel – editors, writers and local experts – who voted for the cities they think are particularly exciting places to visit for culture and the arts right now. To ensure the list reflects the best cities for culture globally, we included only the highest-scoring cities for each country. In every city on this list, you’ll find legendary arts venues and absolutely jam-packed cultural calendars. Time Out’s local experts a

Europe might be home to 44 countries, 34 UNESCO World Heritage Sites and seven Wonders of the World – but the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen here could be something totally unknown. That’s the thing about beauty: it’s personal. So rather than list 35 of the most famous sights on the continent, we instead every year ask our network of editors and travel writers to name us the most beautiful thing they’ve seen on their European travels.  The result? Beautiful places that come with a story. Like taking boats out on Germany’s hidden lakes, and tucking into picnics in the park in Portugal at sunset. Holidays spent exploring vast sand dunes in France, afternoons wandering through Art Nouveau streets in Latvia and childhood tales of clambering over jagged stones in Ireland. And that’s just a few of the memories you’ll find on this list, which stretches from Iceland all the way to Greece, from solitary islands to well-trodden walking routes. Here are the most beautiful places in Europe, according to us.  ➡️ READ MORE: The most underrated destinations in Europe Updated April 2026: We’ve just added North Macedonia’s most enchanting Lake, a frozen-in-time Bosnian village and Italy’s answer to Turkey’s Pamukkale hot springs to our list – plus many more beautiful tales.    Ella Doyle is Time Out’s Europe editor. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by experts across Europe. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. This guide includes affiliate links

A red sandstone amphitheatre. An ancient woodland on the English coast. A teeny tiny island with a black sand beach. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes – luckily, the world isn’t held to the same rigid beauty standards as humans are – and we’ve curated this list to celebrate that.  It goes without saying that Time Out’s ranking of the world’s most beautiful places is entirely subjective and by no means exhaustive, but what we can guarantee is real-life experience. Every single beach, lake, city and valley on this list has been visited and vetted by our globetrotting network of travel writers. In short, they’re all well worth making the journey to see for yourself (no social media fakery here).We update this list regularly, ensuring we’re including the big-hitters while considering the impact of overtourism and spotlighting lesser-known beauty spots. So here it is: Time Out’s guide to the most beautiful places on planet Earth. Happy travels!Updated March 2026: There are seven new additions to the list this year, including a terracotta-coloured Old Town in Italy, an opulent Renaissance-style library in New York and a compact mountain range in northern Spain.Grace Beard is Time Out’s travel editor, based in London. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. RECOMMENDED:⛰️ The most beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites🗺 The most underrated travel destinations i

In 2026, European travel is shifting fast. We’ve seen overcrowding, overheating and plenty of anti-tourism measures across the continent – and as a result, travellers are actively seeking out quieter, lesser-known destinations away from the tourist crowds. And if that sounds like you, you’re in luck – here at Time Out, underrated destinations are our bread and butter.  This list has been updated for 2026 by Time Out’s global network of local experts who have been to every single destination featured (often multiple times), highlighting destinations that are not only overlooked, but genuinely worth visiting right now. We’ve got alternative Scandinavian city breaks, remote islands only accessible by ferry, and destination dupes for some of Europe’s hottest beach holidays, from the Algarve to the Amalfi Coast.  ➡️ Discover the best city breaks in Europe for 2026 Why travel to underrated destinations in 2026? Sure, we love the classics for a reason. But if you’ve ever queued an hour for a pastry, spent your day’s budget on a coffee or had to book a museum three months in advance, you’ll know why more and more of us are searching for under-the-radar breaks: it’s the crowds. In fact, in some cities – the likes of Amsterdam, Venice, Barcelona – overtourism is so bad, they’ve been forced to clamp down on crowds with anti-tourism measures, from daily visitor limits to outright bans on new hotels. If you’re coming up against these, then we’d say that’s a pretty good reason to head some

Right now, it feels like a great time to celebrate our cities. What cities do best is bring people together – everything we love about urban life, from the galleries and bars to the neighbourhood parks, exists thanks to the communities that make it all happen.  That’s why, every year, we raise a toast to the city with our definitive annual ranking, created on the back of a comprehensive survey of city-dwellers worldwide. Our survey asks not only what people love about their cities – the food scene and nightlife, the shops and museums, the parks and people – but also how it feels to live there. We asked you about happiness, affordability and quality of life, among a variety of other criteria. And, in order to dig deeper into the everyday lives of locals, this year we expanded our survey to cover aspects like love, romance and community feel. Time Out’s Best Cities with Intrepid Travel spotlights the destinations that offer the best of both worlds: an endlessly exciting catalogue of reasons to visit, as well as all the good stuff that makes a place feel like home. The 50 cities that made the list this year did so thanks to the insights of more than 24,000 people across 150 cities worldwide. To determine the final Best Cities ranking for 2026, we combined their thousands of responses with the votes of more than 100 Time Out city experts. Then we tapped up our network of local writers to tell us exactly what makes their city worth a visit right now. The result? A rundown of the m

This list is from 2025. Our latest ranking for 2026 is live here. People who don’t live in cities will tell you they’re busy, lonely and expensive places. But there’s a reason so many people choose to live in them: with world-class art and culture, unbeatable food and nightlife, buzzing neighbourhoods and a dizzying amount of stuff to do and see, there’s simply no better place to be.  Every year, we take the pulse of city living by quizzing thousands of locals across the planet about life in their hometowns. This year, more than 18,500 city-dwellers shared their insights on everything from food, nightlife and culture to affordability, happiness and the overall city vibe. When urban living can sometimes feel isolating and costly, this year we wanted to get a sense of what, exactly, makes a city feel like home. Sure, the nightlife is great, but is the city safe and walkable? Is good quality food and art available at a reasonable price? Is it easy to make friends, find love, and access nature?  Livability was a key factor in our ranking this year. But a great city to live in is, naturally, a great city to visit. So, along with the thousands of responses from locals around the world, we asked Time Out’s global network of city experts to vote on the places they think are particularly exciting right now. After crunching all that data, here we are: Time Out’s definitive ranking of the world’s best cities in 2025. Read on to see how your hometown fared… RECOMMENDED:🛍️ The coolest n

Whether you’re margherita-loving purist or an all-the-toppings enthusiast, a fan of New York-style, Detroit-style, Neapolitan-style or your own whacky style, everybody’s their definition of a dream pizza. But cities all over the world have put their own spin on the dish, too, and that’s why we called on our international network of editors and writers to share the weirdest, tastiest and most lip-smacking pizzas where they live. So, feast your eyes on Time Out’s freshly-baked roundup of the best pizzas on the planet.  RECOMMENDED:🍝The best cities in the world for food🥪The best sandwiches in the world🥩The best steaks in the world This list was edited by Liv Kelly, Time Out’s travel writer. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by local writers who know their cities inside out. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

If life is getting you down, look to Iceland for a solution. In their great wisdom, Icelanders have a magnificent cure-all: lay your head in water, they say. Whatever the issue, if you’re having a bad day, if you’re stressed about life, if your wife has left you or you’re confused about something, Icelanders advise you to head to your local pool and go swimming. It’s better than a therapist, it’s better than beating yourself up about it: the combination between exercise, relaxation and sinking into something natural has a powerful effect. It’s an approach I took literally when I decided to spend a year swimming in the cold seas of Scandinavia to see if I could figure out how to lead a less stressful life. Burned out with office work, I threw myself into iceberg-filled seas in Greenland, Viking spas in Iceland and on beaches, harbours and off piers all over Norway, Denmark and Sweden. All year long, I swam with friends and strangers, with mermaids and adventurers, in cold water and in hot, and it’s been nothing short of a revelation.  ➡️ READ MORE: The best Nordic and Scandinavian city breaks in Europe My book, The Year I Lay My Head In Water is a story of adventure and connection and it’s for anyone who feels stuck in a rut and wants to rekindle a lust for life. If it makes you want to lay your head in water too, these are my favourite Scandinavian and Nordic spots for restorative and energising dip.  Laura Hall is the author of The Year I Lay My Head In Water, published by

I’ve lived in Copenhagen for the past seven years and I’m still finding new things to do. It’s a small city, one you can comfortably bike across in under half an hour, but within its winding cobbled streets and hip, developing areas, there’s always a new cocktail bar, coffee shop or flea market to discover.  📍 RECOMMENDED: Ultimate guide to what to do in Copenhagen What can’t I miss in the city as a first-timer? Get yourself to the city’s central playground, Tivoli Gardens, for the fastest route to understanding Denmark. The historic theme park combines everything that’s wonderful about Copenhagen in one place: playful rides, beautiful gardens and great food. Take your pick from Gasoline Grill for lip smacking burgers to the Japanese Pagoda, where visiting Michelin-starred restaurants pop up throughout the year. Then for a spot of perfect people watching: find a bar in Nørrebro (we love Brus) or join a communal meal at Absalon and get to know the locals. Is three days in Copenhagen enough? Copenhagen isn’t a huge place, and you could certainly come and cover all the main hits in a long weekend, especially if you rent a bike. But the place of life is gentle here – if you stay a little longer (up to a week), you’ll uncover neighbourhood favourites, designer bakeries, communal dining events where you can eat with the locals, and more of the citys secrets. If you leave feeling that maybe the pace of your own life should be a bit slower too, then our job is done. Here are the

What is it? Slap bang in the heart of Copenhagen, opposite its main station, these 25 rollercoasters, multiple snack stalls and fairground games are ready to put a smile on your face. In summer, touring acts (Rick Astley and Take That most recently) play intimate gigs on the lawns. Visiting is a classic Copenhagen experience. Is it worth visiting? Yes it is – and not just if you have kids! There is a wide variety of rides to suit all levels, and the gardens are beautiful (look out for peacocks!). It’s open in three seasons: Christmas (mid November to January), Summer (April to September) and Halloween (October to start November). How long will I spend there? Upwards of two hours. The theme park has an entry fee and rides cost extra. If you plan to stay all day, buy a wristband and you can try every ride; if you’ve only got half a day to spare, pay for rides individually.  Is it free on Tuesdays? Entry to the park costs 160 kr per adult and 80 kr for children aged 3-8. Those under 3 go free.  Where’s good to eat nearby? Tivoli is a known foodie destination. Check out some of the best local Danish eateries at Tivoli Food Hall, try the city’s award-winning burgers at Gasoline Grill or score food from Michelin-starred chefs in its pop-up Japanese Pagoda restaurant. 🍴 Discover more of the best restaurants in Copenhagen

What is it? Forty minutes from Copenhagen central station, The Louisiana is the city’s distinguished modern art gallery, a modernist building in beautiful sculpture gardens overlooking the sea. Beyond showing outrageously interesting contemporary art exhibitions, the gallery has a decent café, a design shop that will take all your money (you have been warned), and a kids wing where children can indulge their wildest Picasso fantasies.  Is it worth visiting? Take your time, aim to get there around 11am, enjoy a classic Danish lunch in the café and then stroll around the gallery for as long as you like (upwards of two hours, potentially up to four). On a sunny day, pack swimmers – there’s access to a small sandy beach too. How do I get from Copenhagen to the museum? Take the train from Copenhagen Central Station to Humlebæk (around 51 kr or £5.60) and follow the signs. The train is about 40 minutes and the whole journey will take maximum an hour. Driving takes 40 minutes too.  What should I see there? The gallery’s collection includes works by Henry Moore, David Hockney and Jean duBuffet, and a Yayao Kusama room called Gleaming Night of The Souls. Seasonal exhibitions could be anything from works by Scandinavian artists Pipilotti Rist and Mamma Andersen to globally acclaimed work by Nan Goldin or Pussy Riot. Is it free on Tuesdays? Sadly, no. The gallery is closed on Mondays, and open from 11 on all other days, with a late opening until 10pm Tuesday-Friday. There’s free entry

What is it? Forty minutes from Copenhagen central station, The Louisiana is the city’s distinguished modern art gallery, a modernist building in beautiful sculpture gardens overlooking the sea. Beyond showing outrageously interesting contemporary art exhibitions, the gallery has a decent café, a design shop that will take all your money (you have been warned), and a kids wing where children can indulge their wildest Picasso fantasies.  Is it worth visiting? Take your time, aim to get there around 11am, enjoy a classic Danish lunch in the café and then stroll around the gallery for as long as you like (upwards of two hours, potentially up to four). On a sunny day, pack swimmers – there’s access to a small sandy beach too. How do I get from Copenhagen to the museum? Take the train from Copenhagen Central Station to Humlebæk (around 51 kr or £5.60) and follow the signs. The train is about 40 minutes and the whole journey will take maximum an hour. Driving takes 40 minutes too.  What should I see there? The gallery’s collection includes works by Henry Moore, David Hockney and Jean duBuffet, and a Yayao Kusama room called Gleaming Night of The Souls. Seasonal exhibitions could be anything from works by Scandinavian artists Pipilotti Rist and Mamma Andersen to globally acclaimed work by Nan Goldin or Pussy Riot. Is it free on Tuesdays? Sadly, no. The gallery is closed on Mondays, and open from 11 on all other days, with a late opening until 10pm Tuesday-Friday. There’s free entry

What’s the vibe? Utterly dazzling; food as contemporary theatre. Head chef Rasmus Munk is making food to take to the edge of space in one of his many side projects, and you’ll be seeing stars at the end of the meal too. You’re greeted in a performance space by dancers and led into a cocktail lounge for the start of the meal, before being taken to your table in a domed room where immersive films play overhead. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up in a ball pit. It’s a wild ride. Strap in. What are the prices like? Among the most expensive in Europe. Excluding wine, the 50-course menu clocks in at around 5400 kr (£602) per person.  What should I order? The restaurant has a set menu of 50 courses, which they call ‘impressions’, including anything from farmed butterflies to caviar served in an oversized eyeball, sheeps brains served in a bowl that looks like a human head, and chicken feet in a battery hen style cage. Desserts include a banana ice cream that looks like Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground album cover. You can’t choose: just go with it. What’s worth visiting nearby? The experience could last around five hours, and you’ll be so overstimulated by the end that you won’t want to visit anywhere else. Before, though, you could drop into Copenhagen Contemporary and its awesome James Turrell room. 📍 Discover more of the best things to do in Copenhagen

I felt numb. Nothing seemed to matter and nothing I did seemed to make any difference. It was a work thing: my job had evolved and changed without me realising; new bosses had come and gone with three new heads of my department in the last two years alone, new demands were being made and I was not keeping up with it at all. I was overloaded with stress to the point that I had lost the ability to do anything about it. I stopped caring, and I can’t stress enough that that is not like me at all. I was going through the motions. I felt like a stone sinking to the bottom of a pond. I could see the daylight glimmering a bit above me, but I knew it would take a lot of effort to get back to the surface. It was easier, always easier, to let go and stay numb, to sink a little deeper. But I didn’t want to feel like that. I was numb inside and starting to go numb all over and I wanted to shock myself back to life. I wanted to feel things again.  RECOMMENDED: I went inside the Great Pyramid of Giza – it was magical, but I'd never do it again For a moment, everything was ice. My lungs tightened. I tried to pull in as much oxygen as I could, but I couldn’t get it to go in deep enough. I panted it into the top of my chest and then out again, shallow as a puddle. The cold burned my skin. There were no thoughts beyond bare survival – in fact, all the racing thoughts that had been filling my time, stopping me from sleeping, making me tetchy, dissolved in an instant. My breaststroke was gasping

Two cubes of ice stand on Copenhagen’s busiest shopping street, melting into the pavement next to the Swatch shop. Grooves between the paving slabs are shiny with water, as if someone has dropped a drink or a dog has relieved itself. Occasionally, people stop to look at the sign, guarded by a uniformed man, that says: Icebar by Icehotel Copenhagen, Opening Soon. But most people walk straight past. Having since paid a visit, I can tell you they’re doing the right thing.  Lots of things that were popular 20 years ago have been returned from the dead this year, the Gallagher brothers’ bank balances and Lily Allen’s relevance included. I’m all for a return to the times when drinking and clubbing were fun. But an ice bar in 2025? I have questions.  Photograph: Laura Hall for Time Out The first ice bar was created 30 years ago as part of the iconic Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. It opened in 1994, complete with glasses made from ice. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, a string of branded Icebar by Icehotel spots popped up in Stockholm, London, Copenhagen and beyond, all using ice shipped in from Jukkasjärvi. Times changed, copycat ice bars came and went, until just one original Icebar by Ice Hotel in Stockholm remained. Until now. In November, Ice Hotel opened a new ice bar in Copenhagen and plans to open another in London.  ‘Origin’, ICEBAR BY ICEHOTEL COPENHAGEN, artists Karl Johan Ekeroth and Christian Strömqvist | Photograph: Asaf Kliger In the three decades since the f

何気なく発した一言が、友人たちとのWhatsAppチャットを大盛り上がりさせてしまった経験はないだろうか。筆者の場合、ごく最近「お気に入りの外国のスーパーマーケットは？」と尋ねたことが、まさにそれだった。 自国のイギリスを離れてシンガポールやオーストラリアといった多様な場所で十年以上暮らしてきたつわものも含む友人たちは、それぞれにひいきの店を持っており、メッセージが50件以上になっても、今なお議論が続いている。 日常生活では「まとめ買い」をいまいましく感じることもあるというのに、なぜ旅先では、スーパーマーケットの商品があれほどまでに魅力的に映るのだろうか。 海外のスーパーマーケットでの買い物は、SNS上で一つの現象になっている。TikTokでは「食料品店巡りの旅（grocery store travel）」に関連する投稿が5000万件以上あり、旅行者たちが現地で見つけた商品を披露するなど、日常的な行動を「文化体験」として楽しんでいる様子が映し出されている。 こうした楽しみはTikTokに登場する前から存在していたが、民泊の普及にともなって広まりを見せてきた。Airbnbが掲げる「現地の人のように暮らす」というスローガンを多くの人が体現している。旅先では予定調和のガイドツアーに参加するよりも、買い物かごを手にスーパーマーケットの通路をぶらつく方が満足感が高いからだろう。 行くべきは地元のチェーン系スーパーマーケット アイスランドでは、リコリス入りのチョコレートバーや通路の端につるされているプラスチック包装の乾燥白身魚のフレークなどが旅人の心をつかむ。ポルトガルのスーパーマーケットで感銘を受けるのは、美しくデザインされた数々の魚の缶詰だ。 ニューヨークではホールフーズのドアを通り、ヒップスター風のラベルを横目で見ながら、巧みに並べられた野菜や、手作りのようでありながら絶妙に量産品らしさも漂う商品の間を歩いていると、自分もニューヨーカーになったような気分になれる。デンマークのフェロー諸島では、第二次世界大戦中に駐留していたイギリス軍が持ち込んだ「キャドバリー」のチョコレートや「タンノックス」のティーケーキが、今なおその姿が見られるという事実は、実に興味深い。彼らの撤退後も、フェロー諸島の人々がその食の伝統を大切に守り続けてきた、まさに証である。 ただ、基本的に海外では高級食料品店やファーマーズマーケットではなく、ごく普通のチェーン系スーパーマーケットへ行くのがいい（ただし、ホールフーズは例外としておすすめ）。それが、その土地の文化を知るための最良の手段となるからだ。 そうした店の探索は地元の人のキッチンの戸棚や冷蔵庫をそっと開けて、その暮らしぶりをのぞき見るような体験を、擬似的に楽しむ行為であるともいえる。実際に誰かの家でそれをすると気まずさや遠慮を感じるが、スーパーマーケットであれば自分の習慣と照らし合わせながら、共通点と違いをじっくりと見比べることができる。 世界的な没個性化の反動 「スーパーマーケット観光」がこれほどの人気を集めているのは、画一的で退屈になりつつある従来の旅行スタイルに、人々がうみ始めているからにほかならない。 その反動として現れたのがこの現象であり、ウェブメディアのThe Vergeが的確に指摘したように、世界中のカフェやホテル、民泊のインテリアやメニューがどこも似通い、アボカドトーストを食べ、コルタードを飲むだけの「国際的な没個性化」が進む中で生まれた動きである。 どこにいても大差のない空間が広がる今、唯一、画一的でも国際化さ

朝のデンマーク・コペンハーゲン空港。出発案内板では9時25分発の便の行き先が「不明なシェンゲン圏内の都市」と表示されており、搭乗券には「架空の場所」と記されている。スーツケースに詰めた服の選択が間違っているかもしれないことなど、いくつかの懸念はあるが、この旅に対する興奮は抑えきれない……。 筆者が参加した、スカンジナビア航空（SAS）主催の「未知の目的地」旅行は、こうして始まった。この種では同社初の開催となったこのミステリートラベルでは、最終目的地が厳重に秘密にされており、搭乗する180人の乗客は行き先を全く知らない。事前情報は行き先の気温は20度で、水着を持参するべきということだけだった。 「昔は旅行が冒険でした」と語り始めたのは、SASの広報部長であるアレクサンドラ・カウクジ。「しかし現在では、それは商品化されてしまいました。では、どうすれば再び特別なものにできるのでしょうか？」 この4日間のミステリートラベルは、SASが自社のマイレージプログラム会員向けに企画。ポイントで参加が可能で、バイオ燃料への貢献も組み込み、ホテルの宿泊は追加料金で手配できるようにした。 すぐに人気を集めて、6000人からの応募があった。SASは実施前からミステリートラベルを特典オプションの一つとしていずれ追加することを検討していたが、初回の成功を受けて、今後は定期的に提供する予定だという。 ミステリートラベルとは何か ミステリートラベルとは旅行トレンドの一つで、ヨーロッパやほかの地域で広がりつつある。グループや個人旅行者が、行き先を知らないまま購入（または応募して当選）する航空券やパッケージ旅行のことをいう。 2024年初めにハンガリーの航空会社であるウィズエアーが、35人の顧客に未知の目的地への一生に一度の旅を提供。到着地はトルコのアンタルヤだった、という企画が話題になった。 このような旅をするために、必ずしも航空会社のスーパーファンである必要や、ラッキーな当選者になる必要もない。 例えば、ドイツのフランクフルトやミュンヘンからの出発が可能であれば、ルフトハンザドイツ航空が販売する「ルフトハンザ・サプライズ」により、好みの旅行タイプに応じたランダムなフライトを予約できる。 スペイン資本のオンライン旅行会社のOpodoはミステリーブレイクセクションで、未公開の場所への格安のフライトまたはフライト＋ホテルオプションを扱う。高級旅行会社のBlack Tomatoも、勇敢な探検家たちに向けて「ゲット・ロスト」パッケージで未知の荒野へ向かうことを提案している。 また、イギリスからヨーロッパのどこかへの3～5日間のミステリーシティブレイクを240ポンド（約4万9,565円）から売り出している、ミステリートラベルに特化したsrprs.meというサービスもある。 サービスを拡大するJournee ロンドンを拠点に個人向けのミステリートラベル旅行を販売しているのが、Journee。顧客は、まずアンケートに答えて自分の好みを詳しく伝える。アウトドア派かどうかや、歴史的な名所、魅力的な村、美術館にどれくらい興味があるかなど、質問はさまざまだ。 自分の絶対に譲れない条件も伝えることができる。「セグウェイには絶対乗りたくない」「蒸留所のツアーが苦手」「体に接触するスパトリートメントは断固として拒否」といった条件のほか、行きたくない国全体を除外することもできる。 アンケートの結果に基づいて、顧客にとって未知の目的地が選ばれた後は、フライトとホテルの手配もしてくれ、観光の提案も受けられる。 「