Last year’s protests against mass tourism in European cities like Venice, Barcelona and Lisbon look likely to be repeated in 2026. Locals are aggrieved and with good reasons, saying “over-tourism” is raising the cost of living, forcing them out of affordable housing and making their city centers dirty and unappealing.
So while there will never be any substitutes for cities like Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and those three above, there are always alternatives.
Nice, France
Sitting on the jaw-droppingly lovely Baie des Anges (Bay of the Angels), the capital of the Cóte d’Azur – which in recent years had been a bit, how shall we say, in the doldrums – is on a roll. Typified by Parisian chic but a notable absence of Gallic curtness or Proustian angst, France’s seventh largest city offers the best of all possible worlds. Culturally it’s unbeatable, with museums galore (the Matisse Museum; the Musée National Marc Chagall; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Nice (MAMAC), reopening in 2027 after a four-year refit; and the Villa Masséna museum, to name but four), while the city also boasts its own symphony orchestra and a world-class opera house. Sure, the city fills up in July and August but somehow Nice never feels overcrowded.
With five miles of fully-serviced (pebbly) beaches, you can get your cultural shots before lunch and spend the afternoon swimming and sunbathing. As for the food, it’s Provençal with a heavy Italian influence (Nice was an Italian territory until 1860), and this winning combination marks it out as one of the best food cities in France. Look out for local soca flatbread, made with chickpea flour; squeaky fresh shellfish; sophisticated bouillabaisse (fish soup) and exceptional pizzas – or pinsas, as they are known locally – not that you’ll easily miss them.
Getting there: Delta Airlines resumes its seasonal daily nonstop between John F. Kennedy International Airport and Nice in May.
Syracuse, Italy
You saw the second season of “White Lotus” and loved it, but you’re far too sensible to consider even visiting Taormina during the summer season. Should you need reminding, Taormina is the dreamy hilltop Sicilian town in the shadow of Mount Etna, where three generations of the Di Grasso family discovered things about one another they’d probably have preferred not to know and where, in the ocean below the hotel, the Tanya McQuoid-Hunt character, played by Jennifer Coolidge, met her unfortunate end.
Overrun with tourists in high season, as long-suffering locals bemoan acute water shortage, the smart money heads an hour south instead, to Syracuse and its beating historic heart, Ortigia. Actually an island reached via two short bridges from the mainland by car or on foot and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005, Ortigia is crammed with vast palaces and ancient temples, like the Temple of Apollo and the Cathedral of Syracuse, (itself a former Greek Temple), as well as being home to the Fountain of Arethusa, a natural spring in the center of the island. And Ortigia’s small harbor is so picturesque it could make the Terminator weep.
Another advantage to Ortigia is its proximity to the towns of Noto, Ragusa and Modica, stunning UNESCO-listed Baroque towns all rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake. Apart from its dramatic, inherent beauty, Modica is known for its chocolate – it’s Sicily’s chocolate capital – while Noto is home to what many have called the best gelato shop in all Italy, Dolceria Costanzo.
Getting there: Delta Airlines resumes its seasonal nonstop service between John F. Kennedy International Airport and Catania, Sicily on April 14.
Porto, Portugal
Over-tourism was said by locals to have been at least partly responsible for the 2025 funicular crash that killed 16 people in Lisbon. The 160-year-old Elevador de Gloria funicular was originally built to help the elderly navigate the Portuguese capital’s impossibly steep hills and locals get to work – not to cope with upwards of three million tourists a year that Lisbon is doing its best to play host to.
So while Lisbon will always beckon, if you’re hell-bent on Portugal, you might want to consider a visit to Porto instead.
Built on hills abutting the impressive Douro River just two miles inland from its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean, 2,000-year-old Porto is Portugal’s second largest city and a humdinger of an urban vacation spot. With architectural wonders including the Sé (Porto Cathedral); the 18th century Clérigos Church and its tower; the 19th-centuryPalacío de Bolsa, or Stock Exchange; and the São Bento station, with its ravishing blue azulejo tiles – one of the world’s most beautiful railway stations – Porto also features dramatic rivers views and is close to some stunning Atlantic beaches. And if you’re fearless and sound of heart, don’t miss crossing the Luis I Bridge, which crosses the Douro in the center of town on foot, an experience for which the word “vertigo” seems barely adequate.
But at the end of the day – or even the start of it, if you’re one of those locals who starts his or her day with a brandy-laced café com cheirinho – Porto means wine, especially the “Port” wine, to which it gives its name. The city’s historic wine cellars and lodges are situated in Vila Nova de Gaia, across the river from the main city, and visiting them is a thrilling – not to say deliciously bibulous – experience.
Getting there: TAP Portuguese Airlines and United Airlines both fly nonstop from Newark Liberty International Airport to Porto.
Málaga, Spain
When Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé sung “Barcelona,” which became the anthem of the 1992 Olympics – a landmark Olympic Games that led to the complete revitalization of Catalonia’s capital and Spain’s second largest city – they could little have imagined that 30 years on, Barcelona would be begging tourists to stay away.
Trust me, you don’t want to go to Barcelona in July or August, at least not if you value your sanity. Turn your thoughts instead to Málaga, Andalusia’s second largest city and one you should almost certainly have on your summer radar.
One of the oldest continuous inhabited cities in the world, magnificent Málaga had long played second or even third fiddle to the resort towns of the Costa del Sol, its name as a city only really known at all because it was the airport getaway to those sunny beaches of the south. Now though, that’s all changed, as the city has slowly been rediscovering its past glories, restoring its palaces, upgrading its museums and building new ones (there are now more than 30 of them in total) and, equally important, beefing up its luxury hotel inventory.
Yes, Málaga’s a gem, with wide boulevards and intimate, winding streets of honey-colored old stone. The birthplace of Pablo Picasso (the city has its own Museo Picasso) ,and increasingly recognized as a tech and financial hub, the city blends its rich cultural heritage with a new 21st century can-do attitude. Long gone are the days of Andalusian mañana.
And one more important point in its favor: In Spain’s deep south, with Morocco just a hop, skip and ferry ride away across the Strait of Gibraltar, Málaga enjoys 320 days of sunshine a year, with an average 190 hours of daily sunshine in February. Indeed, it’s one Europe’s top five sunniest cities, as perfect for a winter vacation as a summer one. Who needs Barcelona?
Getting there: Delta and KLM fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Málaga Costa del Sol Airport daily via Paris or Amsterdam. American Airlines and British Airways fly from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Málaga Costa del Sol Airport daily via London.
Jeremy Wayne is also a travel adviser with Superior Travel of New York. Contact him at jwayne@westfairinc.com.
