Ever booked a holiday, excited to get away from home, before turning up to the hotel and realising everyone and, often literally, their nan seems to have had the exact same destination inspo?
Some of the world’s best loved holiday destinations are becoming overrun with tourists they can’t accommodate. In some places like Barcelona and Mallorca tourists are being asked to leave, and there are serious consequences for local people and their livelihoods. On top of that, having to fight people off for a spot on the beach sucks. That’s why more and more of us are turning off the beaten track and opting for less popular spots.
And luckily, one of the world’s best underrated travel destinations, as chosen by us, is right here in the UK. Time Out editors have travelled across the world and seen the good, the bad, and the ‘why is no one else talking about this?’ in every country, so the places which made it into this list had to really impress. And impress is exactly what Bwlch Mountain did.
This oft-overlooked Welsh mountain has everything you need for an idyllic, crowd-free holiday. There are plenty of tiny little towns dotted around the valleys below, full of ‘small cafes, lively pubs during football and ridiculously charming locals’ you can stay in, but the landscape is the main attraction.
Bwlch Mountain is known as having some of the best views in Wales, which is no small feat. Time Out’s Daniela Toporek describes the scenes as ‘lush’ and ‘windswept’, adding that ‘it’s quiet and cathartic, aside from the wind whistling through valleys below, and if you take a night drive, the sky sparkles with stars’. In fact, the whole area is a designated Dark Sky Discovery Site, so it’s perfect for stargazers and amateur astronomers.
Toporek recommends a stay in The Cardiff Arms Hotel in nearby town of Treorchy, which she says had ‘warm staff and one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever had the luxury to lay my head on’. Midweek stays at the Cardiff Arms begin at £99 a night, with weekends starting at £119 – you can have a look at what’s on offer on the hotel’s website. It is only a 20 minute drive, or a gorgeous 90 minute hike, from Bwlch Mountain itself.
No other British destinations made it into our list, but there are plenty in Europe including Carry-le-Rouet, Marseilles’ cool younger sibling, Flåm, a Norwegian town which Time Out’s travel writer Liv Kelly described as ‘incomprehensibly beautiful’, a Greek island called Karpathos, and plenty more. If you want to go further afield, though, we’ve got that covered too – holiday to Antarctica, anyone?
The 33 most underrated travel destinations in the world.
Planning your staycations
If you’re still hoping on the hunt for a perfect summer getaway but don’t fancy going on a hike, here’s our favourite places in the UK to visit. But you deserve to have fun too – here’s some tree houses you can rent out for something a little different. We’ve also got guides to the country’s cosiest cabins, and Britain's most underrated travel destinations.
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