The metropolis’s footprint is rising too, with a 15-acre growth of White River State Park heading towards completion in July 2026 and the opening of Henry Street Bridge, a brand new gateway into the metropolis from the underserved west facet, by the finish of the yr, which will probably be marked by a placing design that features large rings over the bridge that mild up at evening. This new pedestrian and vehicular overpass crosses White River, the place now you can take pleasure in paddleboarding, kayaking, and canoeing after what has been roughly half a century of river cleanup, making Indy America’s latest river metropolis. Book a guided tour with or hire gear from Frank’s Paddlesports Livery to discover the metropolis by water.
Also in 2026, Tube Factory, an artist-run up to date artwork museum and group heart, will quadruple its footprint with a brand new, 40,000-square-foot area in a 125-year-old former dairy barn, permitting it to provide much more free programming, performances, and cultural collaborations. Alongside it, the Factory Arts District, Indy’s largest group of artists, is rising right into a powerhouse vacation spot for artwork, leisure, and nice memento purchasing too. Among the new openings there are Daisy Bar (an off-the-cuff however energetic complement to those that love daytime eating stalwart Milktooth), MVMT House Pilates studio, and Salt & Ash marketplace for regionally made presents. First Friday art walks, the place you’ll be able to take pleasure in dwell music, dancing, and interactive workshops, are all the time a enjoyable time right here as effectively. —Amber Gibson
Oahu
Go for: a brand new embrace of Hawaiian tradition, a significant surf second, and concrete openings
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It’s been greater than a century since Waikiki’s Moana Surfrider first opened its white-columned doorways to vacationers chasing the South Pacific dream, and in March 2026, to rejoice its a hundred and twenty fifth birthday, the “First Lady of Waikiki” will emerge from a significant renovation that preserves its Victorian bones whereas layering in new, design-forward particulars. The milestone is only one purpose the Hawaiian island of Oahu (house to its capital and most populous metropolis, Honolulu) feels significantly of the second, because it leans right into a cultural resurgence that celebrates its heritage with out slipping (an excessive amount of, anyway) into kitsch. Other causes to go to? Cirque du Soleil’s ʻAuana residency at the Outrigger Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel, an only-in-Hawaii efficiency that blends the firm’s theatrical spectacle with a hula lineage becoming its location (it debuted in December 2024 and can run by 2026). Up the coast, on the North Shore, skilled browsing marks its fiftieth anniversary in December 2026, when the World Surf League remaining returns to the sport’s holy floor of Banzai Pipeline, the place its historical past and mythos converge on one stretch of reef. Meanwhile, downtown Honolulu is buzzing: The Hawaii Theatre Center which celebrated 100 years in 2022, continues with its island-inspired live shows, retro cinema nights, and different leisure. And new nightlife spots like EP Bar, with its 3,000-strong vinyl library, and Yours Truly, a subterranean speakeasy hidden beneath a pretend submit workplace, channel Japanese hi-fi tradition and Prohibition-era discretion, respectively. In brief, Oahu in 2026 is about to usher in a brand new period for the island, one that gives a compelling expertise for any form of traveler. —John Wogan
Portland, Oregon
Go for: thrilling artwork and culinary initiatives that inform a contemporary story
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For just a few years now, this perpetually overcast city—with the prevailing drained picture of hipster Portlandia—has developed a thornier popularity. But in 2026 a sequence of main artwork, structure, and culinary initiatives conspire to inform a contemporary story about the City of Roses. Travelers will sense the metropolis’s plot twist the second they disembark at Portland International Airport, which, in early 2026, opens the remaining third of its new terminal, acclaimed for its award-winning mass-timber structure. Built with wooden sourced from close by forests and through tribal partnerships, the wavy ceiling extends over some two dozen native outlets and eating places. In the metropolis’s walkable downtown, the Portland Art Museum (PAM), the oldest artwork museum in the Pacific Northwest, completes a large growth in November 2025. With an extra 100,000 sq. toes, PAM will show almost 300 new main acquisitions and introduce new galleries, together with one devoted solely to Black artists. In a metropolis with considered one of the continent’s most acclaimed meals scenes, which has spawned stars equivalent to Gregory Gourdet of Kann, summer season 2026 will deliver but one more reason to rejoice the Willamette Valley’s bounty: the James Beard Public Market, which lastly comes to life after greater than a decade of planning begins and stops. The indoor-outdoor venue, crammed with small-scale growers and producers, will probably be one to rival Seattle’s Pike Place. For sports activities lovers there’s the new WNBA workforce, the Portland Fire, which is able to kick off its first season in May, drawing droves of followers to The Sports Bra. And whereas these developments sign Portland’s evolution, the metropolis’s soul stays intact—the place else would a sprawling bookstore (Powell’s), an city forest (Forest Park), and considered one of the nation’s longest-running drag venues (Darcelle XV) rank amongst the high sights? —JD Shadel
Read our complete guide to Portland right here.
Route 66
Go for: 100 years of the Mother Road
Neon lights are burning a little bit brighter alongside Route 66, the iconic US freeway that stretched between Chicago and Santa Monica, because it celebrates its centennial in 2026. While the contiguous freeway was decommissioned in 1985, sections of it have been preserved for historic curiosity. Along these, classic motel and diner indicators have been restored to their midcentury brilliance, together with greater than a dozen alongside Albuquerque’s 18-mile (the nation’s longest) city stretch. In St. Robert, Missouri, long-abandoned neon indicators have been polished and picked up in the just-opened Route 66 Neon Park. Celebrations are deliberate alongside the 2,448-mile route, from Springfield, Missouri, host of the Route 66 Centennial National Kick-Off in April, to Tulsa’s Capital Cruise in May, a world-record try for the largest-ever classic-car parade, and Amarillo’s 10-day-long Texas Route 66 Festival in June.