Top 10 Set-Jetting Destinations Inspired by Hit TV Shows in 2026

Taormina is the most quantifiably documented set-jetting success story of the 2020s, a hillside Sicilian town whose tourism profile was transformed almost overnight by The White Lotus Season 2, which aired on HBO in late 2022 and continued to generate economic waves through 2026. The statistics are extraordinary: Google Trends recorded a 180 percent spike in searches for 'Taormina' between December 2021 and December 2022, while searches for 'where was The White Lotus filmed' and 'Sicily holidays' collectively surged over 5,000 percent in the same period. Hospitality research firm HVS tracked average daily hotel rates in Taormina exceeding €1,200 during peak season — an 80 percent real-terms increase from the 2018 baseline, before the show aired. The San Domenico Palace, a Four Seasons property occupying a restored 14th-century Dominican monastery, served as the show's central hotel location and became instantly recognisable to the show's 5 million US viewers. Room rates at the property now reach €2,500 per night during summer peak, with waiting lists extending months in advance. Tour operators across Sicily report that booking enquiries citing The White Lotus accounted for 18 to 24 percent of all new client contacts in 2023, a figure that remained elevated through 2025-2026 as the series maintained cultural currency through streaming and awards coverage. Beyond the San Domenico Palace, the show filmed at the Greek-Roman Theatre (dating to the 3rd century BC and still hosting live performances in 2026), Isola Bella nature reserve, and throughout Taormina's Via Teatro Greco shopping street. The town's positioning atop a 200-metre cliff above the Ionian Sea, with Mount Etna visible on clear days, gives the destination a visual drama that translates powerfully to both television screens and Instagram feeds — a combination that proves almost irresistible to the set-jetting traveller.

Paris needs no introduction as a travel destination, but Emily in Paris — Netflix's glossy comedy-drama series following American marketing executive Emily Cooper — has done something remarkable: it has measurably shifted why people are visiting a city that already attracted more tourists than any other on Earth. A 2024 survey by Ifop Group found that 38 percent of entertainment-driven tourists cited Emily in Paris as their reason for visiting, while a broader study noted that 10 percent of all Paris visitors in the survey period had traveled specifically due to film or television content — with Emily in Paris generating the highest single-show attribution of any series in Parisian tourism history. The show's most photographed location is Emily's apartment building at 1 Place de l'Estrapade in the 5th arrondissement, where a steady stream of visitors queue to recreate the balcony scenes visible in promotional material. Café de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain, Palais Royal gardens, the Eiffel Tower's Champ de Mars, and the Musée de l'Orangerie all feature prominently across Seasons 1 through 6. Netflix and the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau have collaborated directly on dedicated Emily in Paris tourism maps, with official walking tour routes available through the bureau's website since 2021. With Season 5 expanding the narrative to Rome and Season 6 (filming in Mykonos as of May 2026) continuing the franchise, Paris functions as the emotional and narrative anchor of the entire Emily in Paris travel ecosystem — the city that started it all and to which the series regularly returns. The sustained multi-season presence means Paris benefits from compounding set-jetting effects: each new season reactivates interest in the Paris locations while introducing viewers to new destinations in the franchise's expanding geography.

Rome entered the set-jetting conversation at speed. When Netflix announced that Emily in Paris Season 5 would expand significantly into the Italian capital — with filming at Hotel Eden (Via Ludovisi), Palazzo Fendi on Largo Goldoni, Piazza Costaguti in the Jewish Ghetto, the Trevi Fountain, and multiple Colosseum-adjacent locations — home-swap platforms recorded a 3,221 percent increase in wish-list additions for Roman properties in the weeks following the announcement. That figure, reported by home-swap platform HomeExchange in early 2025, is the single largest booking-intent spike associated with any set-jetting announcement in the platform's history. The Season 5 episodes, released in 2025, brought Emily Cooper and her circle to Rome in a narrative arc centred on Italian fashion and luxury hospitality — a framing that positions the city's high-end hotels, designer boutiques on Via Condotti, and Michelin-starred restaurants as aspirational targets for the show's affluent viewership. Hotel Eden, a Dorchester Collection property with panoramic terrace views across Rome's rooftops, reported a 40 percent increase in international enquiries in the quarter following the season's release. Palazzo Fendi, the brand's private luxury residence above the Via Condotti flagship store, became one of the most searched luxury accommodation options in Rome through late 2025. For 2026, Rome's set-jetting momentum is being sustained by the show's continued cultural presence — Season 6 filming in Mykonos keeps Emily in Paris in the weekly entertainment conversation, and streaming libraries continuously recirculate the Roman season to new viewers. The city's combination of 2,000 years of architectural history (the Colosseum dates to 72 AD, the Pantheon to 125 AD), a world-class restaurant scene, and the newly acquired Netflix glamour makes it one of the most compelling travel propositions in Europe.

Bath is the United Kingdom's premier Bridgerton destination, a Georgian city whose honey-coloured limestone architecture requires virtually no production design intervention to become the Regency-era London depicted in Netflix's hit period drama. Since Bridgerton's debut in December 2020, Bath's major Georgian streets — Abbey Green, Barton Street, the Royal Crescent, and Great Pulteney Street — have featured in every season, with the Royal Crescent's sweeping semicircle of 30 townhouses (completed 1774) serving as one of the show's most recognisable exterior locations. VisitBritain estimates that Bridgerton contributed to a measurable shift in inbound tourism to Bath and the surrounding Cotswolds region from 2021 onwards, with guided Bridgerton walking tours launching within months of the show's premiere. The Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story prequel (2023) expanded filming to include Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire (seat of the Duke of Marlborough, completed 1722), Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, and Hampton Court Palace — all of which now offer dedicated visitor experiences tied to the show. Bridgerton Season 4, which returned in January 2026, reinforced the UK filming base and prompted a fresh wave of bookings for Bath accommodation over the spring and summer 2026 seasons. The Cotswolds villages accessible from Bath — Lacock, Castle Combe, Bourton-on-the-Water — have also benefited from proximity to the filming ecosystem, with Lacock Abbey appearing in multiple period drama productions over three decades. For international visitors, the Bath-Cotswolds circuit represents the archetypal English countryside experience: afternoon tea, heritage estates, limestone villages, and Georgian architecture all within a 45-minute drive. The combination of Bridgerton's global audience (Netflix's most-watched English-language series in its debut week at 82 million households) and genuinely spectacular heritage assets places Bath firmly on any serious set-jetting itinerary for 2026.

Scotland's claim to set-jetting greatness rests on a single extraordinary statistic: VisitScotland estimated that Outlander — the Starz time-travel drama based on Diana Gabaldon's novel series — generated £161 million in screen tourism value for Scotland in 2023 alone, making it the single most economically impactful television series in any destination on this list measured against GDP. The show, which follows 20th-century nurse Claire Randall transported back to 1743 Jacobite Scotland, uses the Scottish landscape as a narrative character: Culloden Battlefield (site of the 1746 Jacobite defeat, maintained by the National Trust for Scotland), Clava Cairns (the inspiration for the fictional standing stones at Craigh na Dun), Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness, and Doune Castle in Stirlingshire all feature across the show's eight seasons. Outlander Season 8, the confirmed final season, premiered on Starz on March 7, 2026 — perfectly timed to drive spring and early summer tourism to Scottish Highlands destinations. VisitScotland launched a coordinated 'Outlander Lands' campaign tied to the final season, with dedicated itineraries covering the Inverness-to-Culloden route, Loch Ness shoreline walks, and Edinburgh's Royal Mile locations visible in the show's contemporary timeline. The Jacobite Festival in August 2026 expanded to include battlefield walks and historical re-enactments specifically marketed to international Outlander fans. Edinburgh itself functions as the urban anchor for Scotland's set-jetting offer: the capital appears in Outlander's 1960s sequences and independently attracts screen tourism through productions including Trainspotting, One Day (2024 Netflix adaptation), and multiple documentary series. Scotland's landscape photography — the Glencoe valley, the Cairngorms plateau, the Isle of Skye's Quiraing ridge — translates with extraordinary power to social media, creating organic amplification that extends the show's tourism impact well beyond its original viewership.

Mykonos occupies a unique position on this list: it is the only destination currently undergoing its set-jetting transformation in real time. Emily in Paris Season 6 began principal photography on the Greek island on May 18, 2026, with confirmed locations including Agios Sostis beach on the island's north coast, the iconic Kato Mili windmills overlooking Little Venice, the labyrinthine boutique-lined Matogianni Street, and the picturesque fishing harbour of Alefkandra (Little Venice). The Four Seasons Resort Mykonos, which opened in 2024 with infinity pools cantilevered over the Aegean, is widely expected to feature as a key accommodation location based on unit photography circulating online. The intelligence from the travel booking industry is already moving. Greek National Tourism Organisation data for May-June 2026 shows that enquiries for Mykonos in the autumn-winter 2026 and spring 2027 windows — traditionally shoulder-season periods for the island — are running 25-35 percent ahead of the equivalent 2025 period. This advance booking shift, before a single episode has aired, demonstrates the forecasting power of the Emily in Paris brand. The show's track record is explicit: Saint-Tropez (Season 2) sustained elevated summer bookings for three consecutive seasons; Rome (Season 5) recorded the 3,221 percent home-swap surge before transmission. Mykonos already attracts approximately 1.5 million visitors annually, making it one of the Aegean's busiest islands. Its combination of whitewashed Cycladic architecture, internationally recognised nightlife, high-end beach clubs (Scorpios, Alemagou), and accessible charter flight connections from 22 European cities positions it to absorb and benefit from the Netflix halo effect more effectively than smaller Greek islands with less existing tourism infrastructure. Season 6 is expected to begin streaming in late 2026 or early 2027, at which point the Mykonos set-jetting effect will become fully measurable.

The Dark Hedges in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, demonstrate set-jetting's power at its most concentrated: a single scene from Game of Thrones Season 2 (2012), in which Arya Stark flees King's Landing disguised as a boy, transformed a centuries-old avenue of beech trees planted by the Stuart family around 1775 into one of the most photographed natural sites in the entire United Kingdom. The tunnel of gnarled, interlaced branches stretching approximately 150 metres along Bregagh Road now generates an estimated 250,000 visitors annually, requiring Northern Ireland's Tourism Board to implement access management measures including parking restrictions and designated photography zones. Beyond the Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland's Game of Thrones footprint is extensive. Cushendun Caves on the Antrim Coast served as the cave where Melisandre gives birth to the shadow creature in Season 2; Murlough Bay near Fair Head provided exterior landscape shots throughout multiple seasons; the Tollymore Forest Park in County Down doubled as the Haunted Forest beyond the Wall in the very first episode (2011); and the Paint Hall Studios in Belfast's Titanic Quarter served as the show's primary production base for all eight seasons, generating an estimated £250 million in economic impact for Northern Ireland between 2011 and 2019, according to Invest Northern Ireland figures. Tourism Ireland markets the destination under the explicit Game of Thrones Trail branding, with an official map of 26 filming locations across Northern Ireland and the Republic. In 2026, with House of the Dragon continuing to air on HBO and new audiences discovering the original series through Max's streaming catalogue, Northern Ireland's medieval landscapes retain strong appeal for the international market. The coastal Causeway Route driving itinerary — combining the Giant's Causeway, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, and the Dark Hedges — is frequently cited as one of the most scenic one-day self-drives in Europe.

New York City's relationship with set-jetting is older and more layered than any other destination on this list — Sex and the City began creating Carrie Bradshaw tourism in 1998, Friends' Greenwich Village apartment building has been a visitor stop for 30 years — but in the 2025-2026 cycle, Succession stands as the prestige drama driving the city's most discerning set-jetting audience. HBO's drama, which concluded its four-season run in May 2023, followed the Roy family's dynastic struggle for control of a Rupert Murdoch-style media empire, filming extensively across Midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side. Key Succession filming locations in New York include One World Trade Center's observation deck (used for Roy family business scenes), the Lotte New York Palace Hotel (Park Avenue exterior shots), St. Ignatius Loyola Church on 84th Street (used for key funeral scenes), Jean-Georges restaurant at the Trump International Hotel on Central Park West (Logan Roy's dining preference), and the Waystar Royco offices filmed at 28 Liberty Street in the Financial District. Multiple walking tour operators now offer dedicated Succession itineraries, with TripAdvisor listings showing strong 4.5-to-5-star reviews and bookings running consistently through 2025 and into 2026, three years after the show concluded. New York's set-jetting value in 2026 is as a premium, post-series destination — a market segment that demonstrates how great television creates durable tourism assets even after production ends. The concentration of Succession locations in walkable Manhattan neighbourhoods, the accessibility of world-class restaurants and hotels featured on screen, and New York's inexhaustible appeal as a global city combine to sustain the Succession walking tour market well into the decade. For business travellers and luxury visitors already planning a New York trip, the show provides a curated lens through which to explore the city's power corridors.

Ireland's set-jetting credentials in 2026 rest primarily on Normal People, the Hulu and BBC Three adaptation of Sally Rooney's 2018 novel that became one of the most-discussed television events of the pandemic year (2020) and has sustained remarkable cultural longevity through streaming. The show follows Connell and Marianne from County Sligo to Trinity College Dublin, and the filming split between these two contrasting locations creates one of the most geographically coherent set-jetting journeys in Irish tourism. Trinity College Dublin, Ireland's oldest university (founded 1592), features extensively in the show's university sequences: the college's historic Front Square, the Robert Emmet Theatre, the Berkeley Library forecourt, and the college's cricket pitch all appear. Tourism Ireland reports that Dublin ranks first among Irish filmmaking destinations, with 104 separate film and television productions shot in the city, making it the most densely set-jetted capital city in Ireland by a significant margin. The Trinity College Book of Kells attraction, which predates Normal People by 1,200 years (the manuscript dates to approximately 800 AD), now attracts over 650,000 visitors annually and benefits from the college's renewed international visibility. County Sligo provides the show's rural Irish counterpoint: Tubbercurry (Connell's hometown exterior), Streedagh Beach (the Atlantic coastline featured in romantic scenes), and the distinctive silhouette of Ben Bulben mountain (associated with W.B. Yeats, who is buried at its foot) all feature in the series. Sligo Tourism has developed a dedicated Normal People location map for visitors, and the county's combination of prehistoric landscapes (Carrowmore megalithic cemetery, one of Ireland's largest, dates to 3,600 BC) and contemporary literary associations creates a multi-layered tourism proposition that extends well beyond fandom.

Taormina is the most quantifiably documented set-jetting success story of the 2020s, a hillside Sicilian town whose tourism profile was transformed almost overnight by The White Lotus Season 2, which aired on HBO in late 2022 and continued to generate economic waves through 2026. The statistics are extraordinary: Google Trends recorded a 180 percent spike in searches for 'Taormina' between December 2021 and December 2022, while searches for 'where was The White Lotus filmed' and 'Sicily holidays' collectively surged over 5,000 percent in the same period. Hospitality research firm HVS tracked average daily hotel rates in Taormina exceeding €1,200 during peak season — an 80 percent real-terms increase from the 2018 baseline, before the show aired. The San Domenico Palace, a Four Seasons property occupying a restored 14th-century Dominican monastery, served as the show's central hotel location and became instantly recognisable to the show's 5 million US viewers. Room rates at the property now reach €2,500 per night during summer peak, with waiting lists extending months in advance. Tour operators across Sicily report that booking enquiries citing The White Lotus accounted for 18 to 24 percent of all new client contacts in 2023, a figure that remained elevated through 2025-2026 as the series maintained cultural currency through streaming and awards coverage. Beyond the San Domenico Palace, the show filmed at the Greek-Roman Theatre (dating to the 3rd century BC and still hosting live performances in 2026), Isola Bella nature reserve, and throughout Taormina's Via Teatro Greco shopping street. The town's positioning atop a 200-metre cliff above the Ionian Sea, with Mount Etna visible on clear days, gives the destination a visual drama that translates powerfully to both television screens and Instagram feeds — a combination that proves almost irresistible to the set-jetting traveller.

Paris needs no introduction as a travel destination, but Emily in Paris — Netflix's glossy comedy-drama series following American marketing executive Emily Cooper — has done something remarkable: it has measurably shifted why people are visiting a city that already attracted more tourists than any other on Earth. A 2024 survey by Ifop Group found that 38 percent of entertainment-driven tourists cited Emily in Paris as their reason for visiting, while a broader study noted that 10 percent of all Paris visitors in the survey period had traveled specifically due to film or television content — with Emily in Paris generating the highest single-show attribution of any series in Parisian tourism history. The show's most photographed location is Emily's apartment building at 1 Place de l'Estrapade in the 5th arrondissement, where a steady stream of visitors queue to recreate the balcony scenes visible in promotional material. Café de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain, Palais Royal gardens, the Eiffel Tower's Champ de Mars, and the Musée de l'Orangerie all feature prominently across Seasons 1 through 6. Netflix and the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau have collaborated directly on dedicated Emily in Paris tourism maps, with official walking tour routes available through the bureau's website since 2021. With Season 5 expanding the narrative to Rome and Season 6 (filming in Mykonos as of May 2026) continuing the franchise, Paris functions as the emotional and narrative anchor of the entire Emily in Paris travel ecosystem — the city that started it all and to which the series regularly returns. The sustained multi-season presence means Paris benefits from compounding set-jetting effects: each new season reactivates interest in the Paris locations while introducing viewers to new destinations in the franchise's expanding geography.

Rome entered the set-jetting conversation at speed. When Netflix announced that Emily in Paris Season 5 would expand significantly into the Italian capital — with filming at Hotel Eden (Via Ludovisi), Palazzo Fendi on Largo Goldoni, Piazza Costaguti in the Jewish Ghetto, the Trevi Fountain, and multiple Colosseum-adjacent locations — home-swap platforms recorded a 3,221 percent increase in wish-list additions for Roman properties in the weeks following the announcement. That figure, reported by home-swap platform HomeExchange in early 2025, is the single largest booking-intent spike associated with any set-jetting announcement in the platform's history. The Season 5 episodes, released in 2025, brought Emily Cooper and her circle to Rome in a narrative arc centred on Italian fashion and luxury hospitality — a framing that positions the city's high-end hotels, designer boutiques on Via Condotti, and Michelin-starred restaurants as aspirational targets for the show's affluent viewership. Hotel Eden, a Dorchester Collection property with panoramic terrace views across Rome's rooftops, reported a 40 percent increase in international enquiries in the quarter following the season's release. Palazzo Fendi, the brand's private luxury residence above the Via Condotti flagship store, became one of the most searched luxury accommodation options in Rome through late 2025. For 2026, Rome's set-jetting momentum is being sustained by the show's continued cultural presence — Season 6 filming in Mykonos keeps Emily in Paris in the weekly entertainment conversation, and streaming libraries continuously recirculate the Roman season to new viewers. The city's combination of 2,000 years of architectural history (the Colosseum dates to 72 AD, the Pantheon to 125 AD), a world-class restaurant scene, and the newly acquired Netflix glamour makes it one of the most compelling travel propositions in Europe.

Bath is the United Kingdom's premier Bridgerton destination, a Georgian city whose honey-coloured limestone architecture requires virtually no production design intervention to become the Regency-era London depicted in Netflix's hit period drama. Since Bridgerton's debut in December 2020, Bath's major Georgian streets — Abbey Green, Barton Street, the Royal Crescent, and Great Pulteney Street — have featured in every season, with the Royal Crescent's sweeping semicircle of 30 townhouses (completed 1774) serving as one of the show's most recognisable exterior locations. VisitBritain estimates that Bridgerton contributed to a measurable shift in inbound tourism to Bath and the surrounding Cotswolds region from 2021 onwards, with guided Bridgerton walking tours launching within months of the show's premiere. The Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story prequel (2023) expanded filming to include Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire (seat of the Duke of Marlborough, completed 1722), Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, and Hampton Court Palace — all of which now offer dedicated visitor experiences tied to the show. Bridgerton Season 4, which returned in January 2026, reinforced the UK filming base and prompted a fresh wave of bookings for Bath accommodation over the spring and summer 2026 seasons. The Cotswolds villages accessible from Bath — Lacock, Castle Combe, Bourton-on-the-Water — have also benefited from proximity to the filming ecosystem, with Lacock Abbey appearing in multiple period drama productions over three decades. For international visitors, the Bath-Cotswolds circuit represents the archetypal English countryside experience: afternoon tea, heritage estates, limestone villages, and Georgian architecture all within a 45-minute drive. The combination of Bridgerton's global audience (Netflix's most-watched English-language series in its debut week at 82 million households) and genuinely spectacular heritage assets places Bath firmly on any serious set-jetting itinerary for 2026.

Scotland's claim to set-jetting greatness rests on a single extraordinary statistic: VisitScotland estimated that Outlander — the Starz time-travel drama based on Diana Gabaldon's novel series — generated £161 million in screen tourism value for Scotland in 2023 alone, making it the single most economically impactful television series in any destination on this list measured against GDP. The show, which follows 20th-century nurse Claire Randall transported back to 1743 Jacobite Scotland, uses the Scottish landscape as a narrative character: Culloden Battlefield (site of the 1746 Jacobite defeat, maintained by the National Trust for Scotland), Clava Cairns (the inspiration for the fictional standing stones at Craigh na Dun), Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness, and Doune Castle in Stirlingshire all feature across the show's eight seasons. Outlander Season 8, the confirmed final season, premiered on Starz on March 7, 2026 — perfectly timed to drive spring and early summer tourism to Scottish Highlands destinations. VisitScotland launched a coordinated 'Outlander Lands' campaign tied to the final season, with dedicated itineraries covering the Inverness-to-Culloden route, Loch Ness shoreline walks, and Edinburgh's Royal Mile locations visible in the show's contemporary timeline. The Jacobite Festival in August 2026 expanded to include battlefield walks and historical re-enactments specifically marketed to international Outlander fans. Edinburgh itself functions as the urban anchor for Scotland's set-jetting offer: the capital appears in Outlander's 1960s sequences and independently attracts screen tourism through productions including Trainspotting, One Day (2024 Netflix adaptation), and multiple documentary series. Scotland's landscape photography — the Glencoe valley, the Cairngorms plateau, the Isle of Skye's Quiraing ridge — translates with extraordinary power to social media, creating organic amplification that extends the show's tourism impact well beyond its original viewership.

Mykonos occupies a unique position on this list: it is the only destination currently undergoing its set-jetting transformation in real time. Emily in Paris Season 6 began principal photography on the Greek island on May 18, 2026, with confirmed locations including Agios Sostis beach on the island's north coast, the iconic Kato Mili windmills overlooking Little Venice, the labyrinthine boutique-lined Matogianni Street, and the picturesque fishing harbour of Alefkandra (Little Venice). The Four Seasons Resort Mykonos, which opened in 2024 with infinity pools cantilevered over the Aegean, is widely expected to feature as a key accommodation location based on unit photography circulating online. The intelligence from the travel booking industry is already moving. Greek National Tourism Organisation data for May-June 2026 shows that enquiries for Mykonos in the autumn-winter 2026 and spring 2027 windows — traditionally shoulder-season periods for the island — are running 25-35 percent ahead of the equivalent 2025 period. This advance booking shift, before a single episode has aired, demonstrates the forecasting power of the Emily in Paris brand. The show's track record is explicit: Saint-Tropez (Season 2) sustained elevated summer bookings for three consecutive seasons; Rome (Season 5) recorded the 3,221 percent home-swap surge before transmission. Mykonos already attracts approximately 1.5 million visitors annually, making it one of the Aegean's busiest islands. Its combination of whitewashed Cycladic architecture, internationally recognised nightlife, high-end beach clubs (Scorpios, Alemagou), and accessible charter flight connections from 22 European cities positions it to absorb and benefit from the Netflix halo effect more effectively than smaller Greek islands with less existing tourism infrastructure. Season 6 is expected to begin streaming in late 2026 or early 2027, at which point the Mykonos set-jetting effect will become fully measurable.

The Dark Hedges in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, demonstrate set-jetting's power at its most concentrated: a single scene from Game of Thrones Season 2 (2012), in which Arya Stark flees King's Landing disguised as a boy, transformed a centuries-old avenue of beech trees planted by the Stuart family around 1775 into one of the most photographed natural sites in the entire United Kingdom. The tunnel of gnarled, interlaced branches stretching approximately 150 metres along Bregagh Road now generates an estimated 250,000 visitors annually, requiring Northern Ireland's Tourism Board to implement access management measures including parking restrictions and designated photography zones. Beyond the Dark Hedges, Northern Ireland's Game of Thrones footprint is extensive. Cushendun Caves on the Antrim Coast served as the cave where Melisandre gives birth to the shadow creature in Season 2; Murlough Bay near Fair Head provided exterior landscape shots throughout multiple seasons; the Tollymore Forest Park in County Down doubled as the Haunted Forest beyond the Wall in the very first episode (2011); and the Paint Hall Studios in Belfast's Titanic Quarter served as the show's primary production base for all eight seasons, generating an estimated £250 million in economic impact for Northern Ireland between 2011 and 2019, according to Invest Northern Ireland figures. Tourism Ireland markets the destination under the explicit Game of Thrones Trail branding, with an official map of 26 filming locations across Northern Ireland and the Republic. In 2026, with House of the Dragon continuing to air on HBO and new audiences discovering the original series through Max's streaming catalogue, Northern Ireland's medieval landscapes retain strong appeal for the international market. The coastal Causeway Route driving itinerary — combining the Giant's Causeway, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, and the Dark Hedges — is frequently cited as one of the most scenic one-day self-drives in Europe.

New York City's relationship with set-jetting is older and more layered than any other destination on this list — Sex and the City began creating Carrie Bradshaw tourism in 1998, Friends' Greenwich Village apartment building has been a visitor stop for 30 years — but in the 2025-2026 cycle, Succession stands as the prestige drama driving the city's most discerning set-jetting audience. HBO's drama, which concluded its four-season run in May 2023, followed the Roy family's dynastic struggle for control of a Rupert Murdoch-style media empire, filming extensively across Midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side. Key Succession filming locations in New York include One World Trade Center's observation deck (used for Roy family business scenes), the Lotte New York Palace Hotel (Park Avenue exterior shots), St. Ignatius Loyola Church on 84th Street (used for key funeral scenes), Jean-Georges restaurant at the Trump International Hotel on Central Park West (Logan Roy's dining preference), and the Waystar Royco offices filmed at 28 Liberty Street in the Financial District. Multiple walking tour operators now offer dedicated Succession itineraries, with TripAdvisor listings showing strong 4.5-to-5-star reviews and bookings running consistently through 2025 and into 2026, three years after the show concluded. New York's set-jetting value in 2026 is as a premium, post-series destination — a market segment that demonstrates how great television creates durable tourism assets even after production ends. The concentration of Succession locations in walkable Manhattan neighbourhoods, the accessibility of world-class restaurants and hotels featured on screen, and New York's inexhaustible appeal as a global city combine to sustain the Succession walking tour market well into the decade. For business travellers and luxury visitors already planning a New York trip, the show provides a curated lens through which to explore the city's power corridors.

Ireland's set-jetting credentials in 2026 rest primarily on Normal People, the Hulu and BBC Three adaptation of Sally Rooney's 2018 novel that became one of the most-discussed television events of the pandemic year (2020) and has sustained remarkable cultural longevity through streaming. The show follows Connell and Marianne from County Sligo to Trinity College Dublin, and the filming split between these two contrasting locations creates one of the most geographically coherent set-jetting journeys in Irish tourism. Trinity College Dublin, Ireland's oldest university (founded 1592), features extensively in the show's university sequences: the college's historic Front Square, the Robert Emmet Theatre, the Berkeley Library forecourt, and the college's cricket pitch all appear. Tourism Ireland reports that Dublin ranks first among Irish filmmaking destinations, with 104 separate film and television productions shot in the city, making it the most densely set-jetted capital city in Ireland by a significant margin. The Trinity College Book of Kells attraction, which predates Normal People by 1,200 years (the manuscript dates to approximately 800 AD), now attracts over 650,000 visitors annually and benefits from the college's renewed international visibility. County Sligo provides the show's rural Irish counterpoint: Tubbercurry (Connell's hometown exterior), Streedagh Beach (the Atlantic coastline featured in romantic scenes), and the distinctive silhouette of Ben Bulben mountain (associated with W.B. Yeats, who is buried at its foot) all feature in the series. Sligo Tourism has developed a dedicated Normal People location map for visitors, and the county's combination of prehistoric landscapes (Carrowmore megalithic cemetery, one of Ireland's largest, dates to 3,600 BC) and contemporary literary associations creates a multi-layered tourism proposition that extends well beyond fandom.