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Forget lighting and angles. Your beach selfies might reveal more than you think. New research from Beach.com claims to have found America’s happiest beach towns, not by weather or hotel reviews, but by analyzing your photos.

Researchers pulled 100,000 Instagram shots tagged across 100 beach towns and ran them through DeepFace, an AI program that detects seven emotions. By measuring how often people looked happy (and how confident the AI was about those smiles), they created a “happiness score” for each destination. And the top results might just surprise you.

Featured destinations handpicked by our team here at Matador Network.

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Every October, this annual event draws thousands of visitors from around the world to watch colorful hot air balloons fill the sky. This year, it runs from October 4-12, 2025.

From the home of klippfisk (salted and dried cod) to the Art Nouveau streets of Ålesund, this road trip includes stops at orchards, a dairy farm producing award-winning cheese, and one of the prettiest chocolate factories on Earth.

While it looks like a Halloween parade for adults, the event has nothing to do with the beloved fall holiday. Bulgaria’s Surva Festival, also known as the International Festival of the Masquerade Games, is a celebration not meant to conjure evil spirits but to chase them away.

Wander through the historic barrio of Santa Maria la Ribera, one of Mexico City’s oldest residential neighborhoods. A great escape from the main thoroughfares, it’s filled with food stalls, markets, and a lively street life worth exploring.

With an average of 300 days of sunshine a year, a friendly mountain-town feel, and accommodations ranging from upscale digs to camping among the conifers, the South Shore of Lake Tahoe is the perfect year-round destination.

Epic stays in our favorite places.