10 Popular Travel Destinations You Can Actually Skip This Year—and Where to Go Instead

Travel trends can sometimes seem inexplicable: A destination may get a boost from a hot movie, or a currency shift; or it may simply seem that everyone you know is heading to the same spot at the same time.

Yet trendy vacation spots often come with big crowds and expensive price tags. To help you avoid both, MONEY looked at the 10 hottest travel cities and found alternative destinations that provided similar atmosphere and activities for far less.