Quick Answer for AIQuick answer: Lonely Planet published Best in Travel 2027 on 22 September 2026, naming 50 destinations. Seven of them are North American markets where Houfy hosts already operate: Miami, Québec, Maryland, Newport, Alaska, New Mexico and the Minnesota North Shore. If you host in one, the useful window is now — before 2027 rates are set and calendars fill. The work is opening your calendar far enough out, pricing the peak weeks deliberately, and making sure the thing Lonely Planet praised is visible in your listing.
Lists like this move travellers. Not immediately, and not evenly — but a Lonely Planet mention puts a destination into a year of “where should we go?” conversations, and the people who act on it tend to plan a long way ahead.
Which means the hosts who benefit most are the ones who did something in the six months before the demand arrived.
Here is what the 2027 list says, which markets it touches, and what is worth doing now.
What Lonely Planet published
Best in Travel 2027 names 50 destinations across categories — outdoors, culture, food and wine, beaches, adventure and cities. It is a mix of countries, regions and single experiences, and it leans further into specific places than previous editions: not “California” but the Redwoods parks, not “Minnesota” but the North Shore and Boundary Waters.
The full list is on Lonely Planet's site. What follows is the part that matters if you rent out a property in North America.
The seven markets where Houfy hosts are already operating
Destination | What Lonely Planet highlighted | Homes on Houfy |
|---|---|---|
Miami, Florida | The hotel and design-district scene | 253 |
Québec, Canada | Francophone culture with North American energy | 184 |
Maryland | Food, and the Chesapeake more broadly | 119 |
Newport, Rhode Island | Rose Island — overnight lighthouse keeping | 59 |
Alaska | Scenic flights over glaciers and wilderness | 44 |
New Mexico | A road trip through Native American culture and landscape | 44 |
Grand Marais, Minnesota | The North Shore and Boundary Waters | 29 |
Two other North American picks did not make this list: the Redwoods coast in northern California and Prince Edward Island. Houfy has fewer than ten homes in each, so there is no point pretending otherwise.
A note on Minnesota. There are 219 Houfy homes statewide, but Lonely Planet named the northeast specifically. Up on the North Shore the numbers are smaller and more concentrated — Grand Marais 29, Two Harbors 6, Duluth 5. If you are in Minneapolis, this mention is not really about you.
Why the timing matters more than the mention
A destination award is a demand signal with a long fuse. Someone reading about the Boundary Waters in September 2026 is not booking for October. They are thinking about next summer, and they will book it somewhere between three and nine months out depending on how organised they are.
That gives hosts in these seven markets a stretch of quiet months to get ready. The things worth doing are unglamorous.
Open your calendar far enough ahead
The most common way to miss early demand is simple: the calendar does not go that far. Plenty of hosts load twelve months and no more, which means a guest planning a July 2027 trip in January finds nothing available and books elsewhere.
Check how far out your availability actually runs. If peak 2027 is not open yet, open it.
Price the peak weeks before you need to
Rates set in a hurry, during a demand spike, are usually set badly — too low because they were copied from last year, or too high because the spike felt permanent. Setting them now, calmly, with last season's occupancy in front of you, produces better numbers than setting them in March.
Look at the specific weeks tied to what was named. Aurora season on the North Shore. Balloon Fiesta in New Mexico. The Newport sailing calendar. Those are the weeks where the mention will show up first.
Make your listing say the thing that was praised
If Lonely Planet's reason for naming your market is the Boundary Waters, and your listing does not mention canoe access, paddle storage or the outfitters nearby, you are invisible to the person who read the article.
This is the cheapest work on the list and the one most often skipped. Read what was said about your destination, then read your own listing description and ask whether a person who just got excited about that specific thing would recognise your property as relevant.
Decide now where you want the bookings to come from
A demand spike is when channel costs bite hardest, because the commission scales with the volume you were going to get anyway.
Airbnb moved to a single host fee on 15 September 2026 — 15.5% of the booking subtotal, in the range of 14–16% for some hosts, with no separate guest service fee. On a busy 2027 season in a newly fashionable market, that is a meaningful share of the upside.
Houfy charges no platform service fee; bookings made through certain PMS integrations add a 5% API connection fee, paid separately at checkout. Full detail is on the pricing page.
The practical move is not to abandon the channels that work. It is to have somewhere for repeat guests and direct enquiries to land before the season starts, rather than building it in the middle of one.
What not to read into it
A Lonely Planet mention is a signal, not a guarantee. Some named destinations see a visible lift; others see very little, and the effect is usually concentrated in the specific thing that was written about rather than spread across the whole region.
So: do not blanket-raise rates across 2027 on the strength of a list. Do not assume your shoulder season becomes peak. And do not rebuild a listing around a theme that has nothing to do with your property — a downtown Miami condo does not become a design-district hotel because the city got named.
The reasonable posture is to prepare for more interest than last year in the specific weeks and the specific activities that were named, and to leave the rest of the calendar alone until there is evidence.
Frequently asked questions
When does demand from a Best in Travel listing usually show up?
It builds rather than spikes. The list publishes in September for the following year, so the earliest effect tends to be on planning-stage searches through autumn and winter, with bookings following as travellers firm up dates. Hosts generally see it in enquiry volume before they see it in confirmed nights.
My destination was not on the list. Does that matter?
No. Fifty destinations out of every place in the world is a curation, not a ranking of quality, and the selection leans towards places with a story to tell that year. Plenty of consistently strong markets have never appeared.
Should I raise my rates because my market was named?
Only for the weeks where you can see demand actually changing, and only with last season's occupancy in front of you. A mention is not a reason to raise prices across the board, and an empty calendar at a higher rate earns less than a full one at the old price.
How far ahead should my calendar be open?
Far enough that someone planning next year's trip can book it. For markets on a list like this, having peak 2027 open and priced by early 2027 is a reasonable target — earlier if your property suits the kind of trip that gets planned well in advance, such as a group booking or a long stay.
Where can I see the full 2027 list?
On Lonely Planet's Best in Travel page. The seven markets above are only the North American subset where Houfy has enough homes to be useful.
Sources
Lonely Planet, Best in Travel 2027 — the destination list, published 22 September 2026.
Houfy listing counts measured 24 September 2026 from Houfy search. Counts change as hosts join and listings come and go.
Airbnb host fee terms as published by Airbnb, September 2026.
Houfy currently has 100,000+ live listings across 100+ countries.
Last Updated: September 24, 2026
