An independent guide

UnfamousPlaces

Small towns. Quiet corners. Unexpected stays.

Not a list of the world’s most instagrammed destinations. An editorial guide to the places that reward the traveller who looks slightly further — past the famous, past the obvious, into the places that have been quietly magnificent for centuries and will still be there long after the crowds move on.

17 destinations — Europe

The editorial position

The places worth going to are rarely the ones everyone has already been. They are the places that require a little more effort, a little more curiosity, a little more willingness to be somewhere that hasn’t been packaged for you.

Every destination in this guide was chosen because it has something genuinely extraordinary about it — a piece of history, a food culture, a landscape, a hotel — that most visitors to its country never find. Not because it is obscure for its own sake. Because it is better.

Current destinations

17 guides — Europe
Vipava Valley, Slovenia
01
Slovenia · Julian AlpsVipava Valley

Where the Adriatic meets the Alps, and the wine has no equal.

Mdina, Malta
02
Malta · MediterraneanMdina

The silent city. Three hundred residents inside walls that kept the Ottomans out.

Tampere, Finland
03
Finland · NordicTampere

Finland’s second city. Between two lakes, with saunas and the best food in the country.

Fez, Morocco
04
Morocco · North AfricaFez

The medieval city that Marrakech used to be before everyone found out about Marrakech.

Lošinj, Croatia
05
Croatia · AdriaticLošinj

The island that heals. Habsburg air cure resort. Dolphins in the bay.

Île de Cavallo, France
06
France · CorsicaÎle de Cavallo

You need a reservation to come ashore. Pink granite. Turquoise water. Forty residents.

Gothenburg, Sweden
07
Sweden · ScandinaviaGothenburg

More Michelin stars per capita than Stockholm. An archipelago on the doorstep.

Alentejo, Portugal
08
Portugal · Southern InteriorAlentejo

Vast cork plains, white hilltop villages, and the finest olive oil in Europe.

Ithaca, Greece
09
Greece · Ionian IslandsIthaca

Hope the voyage is a long one. Odysseus’s island, quietly magnificent.

Trentino, Italy
10
Italy · Northern AlpsTrentino

Northern Italy that looks like Austria, eats like neither, and has eight Michelin stars.

Perast, Montenegro
11
Montenegro · Bay of KotorPerast

Three hundred people. Seventeen churches. Two miraculous islands in the bay.

Northern Albania
12
Albania · Accursed MountainsNorthern Albania

The last genuinely wild corner of Europe. Bears in the forests. Rivers of glacial turquoise.

Minho, Portugal
13
Portugal · The Green NorthMinho

The birthplace of Portugal. Vinho verde, Roman bridges, solares in the Lima Valley.

Bad Gastein, Austria
14
Austria · Salzburg ProvinceBad Gastein

Belle Époque spa resort. A waterfall through the town. Three grand hotels just reopened.

Lesachtal, Carinthia
15
Austria · CarinthiaLesachtal

Austria’s last valley. UNESCO sourdough bread. The wood for Venice’s gondolas grows here.

Samos, Greece
16
Greece · Eastern AegeanSamos

Pythagoras. Aristarchus. Epicurus. Aesop. The island of four geniuses.

Galicia, Spain
17
Spain · Atlantic NorthwestGalicia

The other Spain. Celtic, green, and home to the finest seafood in Europe.

18
Coming next A new destination

The list grows when somewhere earns its place.