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The year 2013 is on its way out but are we really planning a blast to ring in the New Year? The good news is – Indians are still undeterred by the falling <keyword id="6355302" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Rupee">rupee</keyword> and looking forward to outbound travel in the coming holidays, just like they did this summer. But the way they travel is definitely changing, according to a senior executive of a Delhi-based <keyword id="6607315" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="OTA">OTA</keyword>. Overseas travel no longer means the ritual rush through <keyword id="6357117" type="COMPANY" weightage="80" keywordseo="bangkok">Bangkok</keyword> or <keyword id="6356662" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Singapore">Singapore</keyword> – the global destinations closest to home and perhaps the least expensive. Of course, these places are not yet marked off the list, but the experienced and the well-heeled seem to have caught the travel bug of a different kind. 
 <keyword id="1960912" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Offbeat-destinations">Offbeat destinations</keyword> are getting increasingly popular among Indians, says Saurabh Srivastava, vice-president (marketing &amp; product strategy) at ixigo.com, a travel planning site and search engine that aggregates and curates travel information to help consumers. 
 “Of the 2.5 million visitors coming to our site month on month, we see some very clear and emerging trends. While the <keyword id="1960914" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Regular-overseas-travellers">regular overseas travellers</keyword> are increasingly looking at offbeat destinations to try out something different, first-timers or those who haven’t ventured outside the country too much, are still looking at <keyword id="1960915" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Popular-destinations">popular destinations</keyword> like Bangkok, Singapore, <keyword id="8695" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Malaysia">Malaysia</keyword> and <keyword id="6355478" type="COUNTRY" weightage="80" keywordseo="Australia">Australia</keyword> – the main attractions being <keyword id="6396451" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="beaches">beaches</keyword>, <keyword id="60543" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Water-sports">water sports</keyword> and <keyword id="6368952" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="shopping">shopping</keyword>,” he observes. 
 We have talked to a number of <keyword id="722880" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="travel-agencies">travel agencies</keyword> and rounded up 12 out-of-the-ordinary (but up and coming) places that people are closely following (and booking) these holidays. Here is a quick look at each of them with a glimpse of the local flavour and the basic cost per person on a twin-sharing basis. However, costs are only indicative and are bound to change, depending on your <keyword id="472754" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tour-schedule">tour schedule</keyword>, quality of <keyword id="6358762" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Package">package</keyword>, customisation and service provider. Also, prices may fluctuate as dates get closer. 
 Try planning a holiday if you love these destinations too. Just remember, sometimes, the best travel happens farthest from <keyword id="823132" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="80" keywordseo="home-and-away">home and away</keyword> from your everyday ambience. Catch the sun on a <keyword id="1553372" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="foreign-soil">foreign soil</keyword> this New Year and bon voyage!

Want To Vacation Abroad? These 12 Places Are Creating The
Buzz These Holidays

<ul class="summary-list"><li>My family took trips around the world when I was growing up, and I learned so much.</li><li>I've continued traveling with my own family, and we prioritize spending money on trips. </li></ul>By the time I finished high school, I had already visited <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/visited-went-to-every-country-in-the-world-favorites-2023-11">well over a dozen countries</a>.My folks were never particularly well off, but any savings they did have were usually spent on travel and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/international-travel-with-young-kids-memories-2024-1">making lifelong memories</a>. I can still remember our first big overseas holiday — a trip to Bali in Indonesia when I was 10. I was mesmerized to see how the Balinese people lived, what they ate. I loved the exotic smells and the excitement of being in a foreign place.Over the years, my mom would pull me out of school for anywhere from two weeks to two months, and off we'd go on an adventure. When I was 14, we road-tripped in an old rental around Mexico checking out ancient Mayan ruins. As the years rolled by, there were trips to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Europe.Sometimes <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/travel-tips-from-woman-who-traveled-to-every-country-2022-12">during our travels</a>, my mom would tell me to get my mind off boys and take in the sights. I'm sure she sometimes wondered whether she was wasting her hard-earned cash on someone who might not be appreciating the grandeur of Petra in Jordan or the dismantling and reassembly of Abu Simbel in Egypt. But I did take it in, and I learned a lot.<div type="image" title="Melissa Noble and her family in London in 2018" height="720" width="960" msid="107529032" hostid="261" sizebytes="74058"></div><h2>I continued to travel once I had a family of my own</h2>In my 20s, I continued to tick countries off my ever-expanding <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/found-dad-bucket-list-went-to-complete-it-2023-7">bucket list</a>. I lived in Canada and London and traveled to dozens of countries. My boyfriend and I would work hard for several months doing odd jobs like waitressing or landscaping, then spend all our savings on seeing the world.Eight years ago, we had our first child, a son. Over the years, we've taken him all over the world with us. He's marveled at the views of Cape Town, South Africa, from Table Mountain, walked along the river Seine, and devoured a crepe near the Eiffel Tower. He's ridden a red <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-traveling-to-london-england">double-decker bus in London</a> and feasted on pancakes with the yummiest maple syrup on the planet in Canada.We've decided to prioritize travel over spending money on private schooling for our children. Like with my upbringing, we plan to send our kids to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-i-learned-teaching-in-public-school-for-23-years-2023-9">public schools</a> and spend any extra cash we have on a different sort of education for our children, one that we believe is invaluable. After all, traveling offers some of the best education there is.<div type="image" title="Melissa Noble and her family in Canada in 2019." height="960" width="720" msid="107529034" hostid="261" sizebytes="107836"></div><h2>My kids learn so much while we travel</h2>There's nothing like actually being there when you're learning about the history of a place. In France, our son walked around the clifftop village of Rocamadour, taking in the historic monuments. For centuries, pilgrims, kings, bishops, and nobles have visited its religious sites. In Canada, he learned all about the meaning behind inuksuit, the stone monuments erected by the Inuit people. My son was amazed by these incredible structures, which symbolize balance. Each stone plays a role in supporting the others.In Bali last year, we came face-to-face with the cheeky long-tailed macaques that call Ubud's Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary home. At one point, one of them leaped on my backpack and tried to steal it, which had our three children in hysterics. It's those experiences that you'd never get at home in the small Australian country town where we live.<div type="image" title="Melissa Noble and her family in Andorra in 2018." height="720" width="960" msid="107529035" hostid="261" sizebytes="58080"></div>These kinds of experiences repeatedly reaffirm our decision to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-places-to-visit-with-kids-and-adults-only-2023-10">prioritize travel for our children</a>. But traveling is not just about making long-lasting memories for us as a family or expanding our children's palates. It's about understanding the tapestry of cultures that make our world such a vibrant, captivating place. We want them to learn how to embrace and celebrate diversity, and how to show compassion to those who are less fortunate than us. For us, it's an investment.Even some of the most tedious things you experience while traveling can be educational. A massive delay for a flight, for example, or getting <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/south-africa-birth-certificates-children-travelers-enter-country-2023-12">stuck in an airport</a> can be a lesson in resilience and patience.My son has always been passionate about the orangutans' plight and the destruction of their habitats for palm-oil plantations, so a trip to Borneo to meet the orangutans will probably be our <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-family-vacation-destination-itinerary-kids-memories-2023-5">next big adventure</a>. We cannot wait.There's a quote by St. Augustine that goes like this: The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. Our children will be well versed in many chapters. In fact, we plan to show them the whole tome, one country at a time.

We spend most of our extra money traveling. We believe it's the best education for our kids.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a>Egypt can be a breathtaking and frustrating place to visit.</div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>After years of instability, tourists are starting to come back to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/egypt">Egypt</a>, a country that was once one of the premier destinations in the world, with gorgeous beaches, breathtaking desert landscapes, arguably, the greatest collection of ruins, temples, and artifacts in the world.</li><li>I decided to make the trip to Egypt this year after dreaming of visiting since I was a kid.</li><li>While the historical sights and scenery lived up to expectations, I found myself constantly frustrated by the feeling that I'd been taken advantage of by guides, that tour operators were cutting corners, or that people were outright lying to me. </li></ul>It had long been a dream of mine to visit Egypt. Sitting on the Mediterranean, the country is blessed with gorgeous beaches, breathtaking desert landscapes, a pleasant, warm winter climate, and, arguably, the greatest collection of ruins, temples, and artifacts in the world.But after the 2011 Arab Spring Revolution, the country seemed unstable and unsafe. Political turmoil, violence, and terror attacks put a visit to Egypt on the back burner for me. I wasn't the only one. In 2010, Egypt attracted 14.7 million visitors, the tourism industry employed <a href="http://www.hospitalitynewsmag.com/en/event/the-revival-of-egypts-tourism-industry/">around 12%</a> of the country's workforce, and made up a tenth of its GDP. In 2011, the year of the revolution, that number dropped to <a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/38306/Business/Economy/Egypt-tourist-numbers-fell-a-third-in--Official-st.aspx">10 million</a>. By 2014, revenue for Egypt's <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/29/egypt-tourism-revenue-falls-95-percent">top tourist sites had dropped 95%</a> from 2011, numbers so low the government speculated it might not be able to keep the sites open. Eight years on, the revolution has given way to a tenuous stability enforced by the quasi-democratic strongman presidency of Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, the jailing of dozens of journalists and activists, and occasional terror-related incidents in Sinai, outside Cairo, and on the western border with Libya.Last year, tourism <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-11-27/tourists-are-returning-egypt-after-years-staying-away">started to bounce back</a>. With the Egyptian pound trading with the dollar at 17-to-1 , those in the industry and the government are optimistic the industry is back on the upswing.With all that in mind, I decided to make the trip to Egypt this winter.<h2>Egypt is a beautiful, interesting, and frustrating place to visit </h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a>Dusk at the White Desert in western Egypt.</div></div></div>For the most part, it was enthralling. Visiting the Pyramids of Giza was awe-inspiring as I'd hoped. Luxor and Karnak Temples, the country's most famous ancient sites, were well-kept and tightly managed. The tomb paintings in the Valley Of The Kings, rich with yellows, blues, and reds from thousands of years ago, left my jaw on the floor. And yet, I couldn't wait to leave. By the day of my flight out, I was exhausted and frustrated. Dozens of tourists I met over my one month in the country expressed a similar feeling. The same joke was made repeatedly: "I love the Egypt of thousands of years ago, but I can't stand Egypt today."Nearly every tourist I spoke to was referring to the same issue. Throughout his or her trip, they'd felt taken advantage of by guides, had tours where operators cut corners, or were outright lied to. Such issues do not only happen in Egypt. But the frequency with which I - and others I spoke to - experienced these issues made me think it was more than my isolated experience or a few bad apples.<h2>I was constantly arguing to get things I'd already paid for</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a>The inside of a tomb at the Valley of the Kings.</div></div></div>Let me walk you through one of the dozen experiences that happened to me while in Egypt.I traveled to upper Egypt for a five-day tour to all the major sites in the region and a cruise up the Nile. I normally don't take tours, preferring to explore on my own. But Egypt's lack of infrastructure makes tours the easiest way to see the country - even for seasoned backpackers - and put money in the hands of regular Egyptians.The tour started off ominously when I arrived in Aswan, a small town that serves as a jumping off point. My local guide started the tour of the nearby Philae Temple five hours later than scheduled so he could add an additional traveler to our tour after their late arrival, leaving us with less than an hour to see the temple before it closed.The following day, I woke up at 4 a.m. to drive four hours with a different guide to Abu Simbel temple near the border with Sudan. When we got there, we were told we'd only have an hour to see it, rather than two hours as promised. The tour group argued until the guide relented.I'd woken up at 4 a.m. for that tour so we could drive back to Aswan in time to catch my Nile cruise ship before it sailed that afternoon. When we got back, another guide checked me into the cruise ship and reiterated that the ship would leave shortly after lunch so that we could see Kom Ombo Temple that evening.I went downstairs, had lunch, and then went to my room to relax while the boat sailed. An hour passed, then two, and then three. The sun was setting and the boat still hadn't sailed. In the lobby, I asked the cruise ship director why we hadn't sailed. He looked at me, confused. "We don't sail on Wednesdays. We sail on Thursdays," he said. When I complained that my guide had said we'd sail that day and that the itinerary was contingent upon that schedule, he shrugged. "I only manage the ship. I don't know about your tour company, but everyone in Aswan and Luxor knows we sail on Thursdays," he said.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a>The Abu Simbel temple near Egypt's border with Sudan.</div></div></div>Leaving aside that two different guides seemed to have lied to me, the cruise ship's itinerary meant I would have less than a day to see Luxor, the location of Egypt's most treasured archeological sites and the main reason I took the tour. My itinerary had called for two full days, already tight with what I planned to see.When I got to Luxor on Friday night, my guide there, a man named Reda, conceded that completing everything in the Luxor itinerary - a hot-air balloon ride and visits to Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, the Valley of the Kings, and Hatshetsupt Temple - in time for my afternoon bus on Saturday was likely impossible.He called his manager, who told me that it had been out of his control that the boat left a day late and he'd had no idea. When I told him the cruise ship director said every guide and company knows the boat sails from Aswan on Thursdays, he offered to put me up for a night in Luxor so I could get two days in the city as promised.Thankfully, I could afford to add a day to my itinerary. But I met many others on the cruise in a similar situation who had no such wiggle room. They were on meticulously planned one-week or 10-day vacations.<h2>The tug-of-war with tour guides turned a fun experience into an exasperating one</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/harrisonxjacobs">Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider</a>The Philae Temple at dusk.</div></div></div>I came to Egypt worrying about safety - a worry that I can say was mostly unfounded - but left exhausted by feeling cheated at every turn. Over the course of the month, I repeatedly had tours start hours after they were supposed to, watched itineraries change without notice, and heard I had significantly less time at a tourist site than I'd been told when booking, to the point that guides rushed me through temples I'd waited my whole life to experience. I had drivers try to drop me 45 minutes from my hotel because it was more convenient for them and tour operators lie about where our transportation was.At first, I thought a poorly managed tour company was to blame. But, as the incidents stacked up with different companies and guides, it began to feel like a pattern. Nearly every traveler I met on the cruise ship, in Aswan, in Cairo, and elsewhere described similar experiences to me, and they'd all booked with different companies or guides.The experience bummed me out.More than most countries I've visited, Egyptian tourism seemed to benefit locals, not just international conglomerates. The guides, drivers, inn owners, and tour operators were, from what I saw, always locals from the town or city. Most were exceptionally friendly and open, with a wealth of knowledge about their country and its history. I sympathize with those in Egypt suffering the post-Revolution economic downturn. I hope tourists return en masse to experience the many amazing landscapes, culture, and history the country has to offer. It would do wonders for helping the country - and its beleaguered people - get back on its feet.But I know that, while I'm the kind of traveler who has the flexibility to deal with those aggravations, others may go home feeling that visiting Egypt isn't worth the hassle. That's bad news for everybody.<ul class="read-more-links"><li>More <keyword id="6354692" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword> tips from Business Insider's international correspondent:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/travel-tip-find-healthy-good-cheap-food-2018-11">I use the same trick in any city I visit to make sure I find amazing food</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-use-couchsurfing-app-to-meet-locals-traveling-2018-1">Couchsurfing has a hidden feature that helped me have the wildest night in Tokyo partying until sunrise</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/multicity-flights-expedia-skyscanner-mistake-2018-10">I found out the hard way that one of the best strategies to save money on flights can end up costing you big time</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-travel-advice-skip-attractions-that-dont-interest-you-2018-10">The single best piece of advice I can give you for any trip you take</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/travel-advice-biggest-travel-mistakes-2018-10">I've traveled to more than 30 countries, and here are the dumbest mistakes I made on the road that I'll never make again</a></li></ul>This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-egyptian-tomb-mummies-and-relics-2017-9">Look inside a newly unearthed 15th century BC Egyptian tomb full of mummies and relics</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

I'm convinced Egypt could be the greatest tourist destination in the world if it weren't for a troubling pattern that nearly ruined my trip

You Searched For "Abu Simbel" and got 3 results

Want To Vacation Abroad? These 12 Places Are Creating The Buzz These Holidays

Sanghamitra Mandal

We spend most of our extra money traveling. We believe it's the best education for our kids.

Melissa Noble

I'm convinced Egypt could be the greatest tourist destination in the world if it weren't for a troubling pattern that nearly ruined my trip

Harrison Jacobs

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