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If your holidays are starting to feel suspiciously familiar, Dragonpass says the answer could be travelling more like a local
You’ve booked the flights, travelled hundreds or even thousands of miles and finally started to feel like you have properly escaped, only for the person you least expected to see to suddenly appear asking: “Oh my God, what are you doing here?” Somehow, despite being in another country, you bump into your old colleague, someone from school, your neighbour’s cousin or that person you vaguely know from the gym.
For travellers who would quite like their next holiday to feel a little less familiar, Dragonpass, the global travel and lifestyle platform serving more than 45 million members worldwide, is making the case for travelling more like a local, particularly when research suggests Brits have around a one-in-ten chance of bumping into someone they know in Greece, making it just one of those holiday destinations where getting away from it all may not necessarily mean getting away from everyone you know.
Perhaps that is not so surprising when so many of us are drawing inspiration from the same social feeds, recommendation algorithms and well-established holiday routes, often sending thousands of travellers towards the same beaches, neighbourhoods and restaurants. So, if you are wondering how far you actually need to travel before you stop seeing people from home, there may be another way to choose your next destination: look at where the people who actually live there are travelling.
Looking across travel activity from Dragonpass’ global network reveals a very different map from the one typically presented to international tourists, with Brazil providing a particularly striking example. Travel activity among Brazilian Dragonpass users grew by 46% during 2025, yet 69% of Brazilian usage takes place within Brazil itself, compared with 31% internationally. That domestic preference is reflected in where Brazilians are actually travelling. São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro still lead the list, but Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Porto Alegre, Recife, Fortaleza and Goiânia all feature prominently, while Lisbon is the only international city to make the overall top destinations.
For British travellers, the interesting part is not that these places are necessarily undiscovered, but that following the choices of people who know the country well can reveal a broader version of Brazil than the handful of destinations most commonly presented to overseas visitors, whether that means the food and cultural scene of Belo Horizonte, the beaches around Recife and Fortaleza or the landscapes and vineyards of the south. Travelling like a local, then, is less about finding somewhere nobody else has heard of and more about widening the map beyond the places international tourism tends to concentrate around.
So, if “Oh my God, what are you doing here?” has started becoming an unwanted holiday tradition, Dragonpass has the data to help. Forget following everyone from home and start following the locals instead.
About Dragonpass
Founded in 2005, Dragonpass is a global digital platform for loyalty, travel and lifestyle services, serving over 45 million members worldwide. The company works with more than 200 banks, card issuers and telecommunications providers, helping partners strengthen customer engagement through integrated, experience-led benefits.
