TOP 10 Quiet Alternatives to Crowded Resorts

Anyone who has ever stood in a queue to climb the walls of Dubrovnik or searched for a free spot on a Santorini beach knows that popularity can effectively destroy the very thing we go to a place for. These alternatives exist — more beautiful, cheaper and calmer. All you have to do is change the address.

Why popular resorts stop working

Fifteen years ago Dubrovnik was the pearl of the Adriatic, visited by architecture enthusiasts and lovers of Dalmatian history. Today it's a theme-park city through which up to 10,000 tourists pass daily — in a place with barely 1,800 permanent residents within the medieval walls. The city authorities have introduced entry limits at the most besieged points, taxis sit in jams from dawn, and accommodation prices in the centre through July and August reach €333–556 a night for a room that off-season costs four times less. It's hard to talk about rest in such conditions. It's hard to talk about travel at all, when the whole logistics come down to crowd management. If you want the broader case for swapping a famous resort for a calmer, cheaper one, our piece on why you should forget Egypt for a cheaper, safer country makes exactly this argument on a national scale.

The problem isn't confined to Croatia. Santorini takes in over 2 million tourists a year against an island population of barely 15,000. In August, at the famous viewpoint in Oia, several thousand people watch the sunset at once, having come here specifically for that one photo. Hotels with a pool overlooking the caldera are a cost of around €444–1,111 a night, and a table in a decent restaurant without a week's advance booking is practically unattainable. On Mykonos the situation is analogous, and in places more extreme — cocktail prices in the bars by Paradise beach regularly reach €18–27 a drink, accommodation standards are sometimes inversely proportional to the price, and simply being in this place long ago became a product for sale, not travel in any sensible meaning of the word.

You don't have to go abroad, though, to experience the effect firsthand. Poland's own Zakopane in July is a phenomenon most domestic travellers know from experience: the main road from Kraków jams up by Friday midday, on the Krupówki promenade it's hard to squeeze between stalls selling mountain cheese and Made in China souvenirs, and a smoked oscypek cheese costs as much as a proper lunch in central Kraków. The cable-car queue for Kasprowy Wierch on an August Saturday can mean over two hours' wait even after buying a ticket online in advance. Accommodation in decent guesthouses reaches €89–155 a night — a level unthinkable in the Polish mountains a decade ago, but which no longer surprises anyone, because everyone has had time to get used to it. It's one of the most symptomatic phenomena in tourism: a place that hasn't increased its capacity handles several times more traffic than years ago, and the result is the overloading of everything — roads, trails, restaurants and the patience of the tourists themselves.

The mechanism is always the same, regardless of latitude. A place gains popularity — often thanks to a single photo that spreads on social media — lands in rankings and guidebooks, the first waves of tourists appear, prices rise, infrastructure begins to overload, and local authenticity gradually evaporates, replaced by chain bars, souvenir stalls and hotels built solely for capacity, not for quality of stay. A traveller arriving in Dubrovnik today no longer sees the place that made the city famous — they see its commercialised version, served by a tourism industry running at full tilt, geared to turnover, not experience.

It's worth noting that overtourism isn't a marginal phenomenon. According to World Tourism Organization data, over 60% of tourist traffic in Europe concentrates in just a dozen or so destinations, which make up less than 5% of available directions. The remaining 95% of places handle the rest of travellers — and often do it far better. Without queues, without crowds at every monument, without restaurants geared solely to tourists who'll leave tomorrow and never return anyway. In such places service is better, because they care about their reputation. Food is more authentic, because the venue won't survive on dishes tailored to a collective palate. And prices are lower, because the market isn't yet red-hot.

The paradox is that there's really no point giving up beautiful places. The point is changing the address. The Adriatic is long, the Aegean has hundreds of islands, Spain isn't only Barcelona and the Costa Brava, and the mountains don't end at the Tatras. In each case there's an alternative that offers similar landscapes, comparable cuisine and climate — at a fraction of the crush and often at a much lower budget. Sometimes that alternative is an hour's drive from the crowded original. Sometimes two hours' flight. But it always requires a conscious choice: breaking away from the list of places you "have to see" and replacing it with a list of places you genuinely want to be.

What you'll find in a quiet alternative (and what you won't lose)

The first objection that comes up in any conversation about lesser-known destinations is always similar: that it'll be boring, that there's nothing to do, that the tourist infrastructure is poor, or that you simply don't know how to get there. That belief is understandable — if a place isn't popular, maybe that's because there's no reason to go? Yet the reality is exactly the opposite. Most quiet alternatives aren't unknown because they're worse. They're unknown because they never landed, at the right moment, on the right photo in the right social channel. The mechanism of popularity in tourism has little to do with the quality of a place and a great deal to do with algorithms and herd thinking.

Take a concrete example. Milos and Santorini lie in the same archipelago, separated by a few hours' ferry, both of volcanic origin and with spectacular beaches. Except that Milos takes in a few hundred thousand tourists a year, and Santorini — over two million. The difference doesn't stem from the quality of the landscape, because the one on Milos is equally dramatic, and in places more raw and therefore more interesting. It stems from a history of popularity that feeds itself: the more people go, the more photos online, the more next-in-line. Quiet alternatives drop out of that loop — and that is their greatest advantage, not a flaw.

In practice, by choosing less-besieged places, you gain concrete things that in crowded resorts long ago stopped being obvious:

• Access to the beach or attraction without fighting for a spot — in calm places you don't set out a sunlounger at 7 a.m. to still have a sea view rather than your neighbour's back by 10.
• Restaurants that cook for guests, not for the crowd — in places with moderate tourist traffic, venues don't have to optimise the menu for mass turnover, so the food is usually better and cheaper.
• Accommodation at real prices — the difference between the cost of a stay on Santorini and on Milos at peak season can be 60–70% for a comparable standard. That's not a marginal saving — it's the difference between a trip that's possible and one that isn't for an average budget.
• Contact with a local culture that isn't yet a spectacle — in places not besieged by tourists, residents aren't tired of visitors and don't treat them solely as a source of income to be squeezed in season.
• Infrastructure running at normal capacity — queues, occupied taxis, broken booking systems, overflowing car parks — these are phenomena characteristic of overtourism, not of travel as such.
• The possibility of spontaneity — in Dubrovnik or Barcelona, without a week's advance booking you won't get into half the places worth seeing. In a quiet alternative, a decision to go sightseeing made in the morning works in the afternoon.

Budget is a separate matter. The price differences between crowded resorts and their quiet counterparts are large enough that they often decide whether a trip is on the cards at all. A week in Amsterdam for two with central accommodation, normal food and museum entries is a cost of around €1,333–2,000. A comparable stay in Ghent or Utrecht, at a similar standard, comes in at €778–1,111. Not because Ghent is worse than Amsterdam — it's simply less in the spotlight, so the hotels, restaurants and local services have no reason to dictate prices calculated for tourists willing to pay just to be in an iconic place.

It's also worth dispelling the myth about accessibility. Some travellers assume lesser-known places are hard to reach — no direct flights, poor connections, complicated logistics. That's untrue in the vast majority of the cases described in this article. Valencia has direct connections from major European cities. Montenegro is served by Ryanair and Wizz Air from several airports. Zanzibar has regular charters. Szczyrk and the Bieszczady are reachable by car or bus from any larger city. The logistical argument against quiet alternatives rarely survives a confrontation with the flight schedule.

There's one more thing increasingly hard to find in crowded resorts that remains surprisingly available in calmer places: a sense of discovery. Not in the romantic sense — no one is suggesting Piran is undiscovered, given it has its own Instagram accounts and TripAdvisor reviews. It's about something else: the feeling that you're going there by choice, not because everyone does. That the restaurant you end up in isn't the first result in Google Maps for "best pizza nearby", but a place found by chance or recommended by your apartment's owner. That the photo taken on the beach or by a monument isn't a copy of a thousand identical shots from the same angle, because there's no crowd queuing to be photographed. It sounds like a detail, but in practice it decides whether you come back from a trip rested or merely with a box ticked on the map.

Travel light: Peli bags and backpacks

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Instead of Santorini — Milos and Sifnos (Greece)

For years Santorini was a synonym for the Greek summer: white houses with blue domes, wine from local vines growing in volcanic ash, the sunset over the caldera watched from a terrace with a glass in hand. That image still exists — except that today you have to share it with two million other tourists a year, and access to it costs more and more and requires more and more planning. Hotels with a caldera view in July and August are booked months ahead, and prices start at levels that for most travellers mean the edge of a trip's viability. Meanwhile, in the same Cyclades archipelago, a few hours' ferry from Santorini, lie two islands that offer everything Santorini no longer gives: space, calm and reasonable prices.

Milos – an island from a different story

Milos is a volcanic island, like Santorini, but its landscape is completely different — more raw, more varied and therefore more photogenic in a way that needs no filters. The island's most famous beach, Sarakiniko, looks like a lunar landscape: white, wind-smoothed rocks dropping straight into intensely turquoise water. There are no parasols or sunloungers to rent here, no beach bar, no entry queue. You arrive, leave your scooter by the road and walk down. In July you'll find a few dozen people there. On Santorini at the same time there'll be several thousand at every popular beach.

Milos has over 70 beaches of different characters — from family coves with fine sand to wild ones reachable only by boat. Tsigrado, Firiplaka, Paleochori with geothermal hot springs on the sea floor — each is different and none is besieged to a degree that would prevent normal use. The village of Klima, with its colourful syrmata — traditional fishermen's houses with boat garages where the cellar would be — is one of the island's most characteristic sights, one most tourists visiting Greece have never heard of.

Getting there from Europe is entirely realistic. The most convenient option is a flight to Athens (direct connections from many European cities, prices from €67–133 return when booked early), then a ferry from the port of Piraeus. A fast ferry reaches Milos in about 3.5 hours, a traditional one in 5–6 hours but for a lower ticket price. Accommodation costs are clearly lower than on Santorini: a decent apartment or studio for two in July is €78–133 a night, not — as on Santorini — €333–667. Food in the local tavernas in Adamas or Pollonia costs what Greek cuisine should: lunch for two with wine comes in at €22–36.

Sifnos – for those after flavour

Sifnos has a completely different character from Milos — calmer, more intimate, famed for something you'll seek in vain on Santorini: authentic Aegean cuisine. Sifnos is regarded as the culinary capital of the Cyclades, and that's not a marketing slogan. The island produced many well-known Greek chefs, and local dishes — revithada (a chickpea dish baked overnight in clay pots), mastelo (lamb with wine and rosemary) or the local cheeses — are worth the trip in themselves. Restaurants on Sifnos cook seasonally and locally not because a trend dictates it, but because that's how it's always been here.

The island has a charming capital — Apollonia — with narrow lanes, little churches and cafes where you can sit for hours without the feeling that someone is waiting for your table. The seaside village of Kamares is the main port, calm and free of touristic excess. Kastro — a medieval settlement on a rock overlooking the Aegean — is one of the more beautiful viewpoints in all the Cyclades, and a photo taken there doesn't yet have a million copies online. The island is small enough to get to know thoroughly in a week, and rich enough in detail that a week won't be enough.

Getting to Sifnos is similar to Milos: flight to Athens, then a ferry from Piraeus. The crossing is about 2.5–3 hours by fast catamaran. Accommodation is a little pricier than on Milos due to the island's growing popularity among Greeks and Italians, but still well below Santorini levels — a good apartment in July is €89–155 a night. Worth booking ahead, because the island is small and bed capacity limited.

If you already have standard Greece behind you — Athens, Crete, maybe Rhodes — and want to see what the Cyclades really are before the next wave of Instagram popularity floods them, Milos and Sifnos are a choice you'll find hard to regret later. Especially when you're sitting in a taverna on Sifnos in the evening, eating revithada that matured in the oven all the previous night, and no one behind you is waiting for the table.

Instead of Dubrovnik — Kotor and Budva (Montenegro)

For years Dubrovnik defended its title as the most beautiful city on the Adriatic, and still does — but only in photos now. In reality the city has fallen victim to its own fame to a degree hard to overstate. Croatia's authorities have officially limited the number of cruise ships that can dock simultaneously in the port, because at peak season passengers from the cruise ships alone added over ten thousand people a day to the city — to a population of barely 2,000 within the walls. Entry to the walls today costs around €35 per person (Croatia has used the euro since 2023, so older kuna prices are out of date), the ticket queue can run over an hour, and in the narrow lanes of the Old Town in August you don't so much stroll as shove. Three hours' drive south, across the border, lies a country that offers what Dubrovnik can no longer give.

Kotor – the Middle Ages without queues

Kotor is one of those cities where using the word "charming" is neither exaggeration nor cliché — because it's hard to find another word for a Venetian medieval centre wedged between the vertical walls of the Bokelj mountains and the calm waters of the bay. The Bay of Kotor is often called the only natural fjord on the Adriatic, though geologists prefer the term "submerged river valley" — either way, the view from the defensive walls over the winding waters surrounded by mountains is one of the more dramatic landscapes you can see in this part of Europe, and it requires no queuing.

Kotor's Old Town has been on the UNESCO list since 1979. Medieval churches, Venetian palaces, squares with cafes where coffee costs €1–2 — not €4–7 as in Dubrovnik — and the characteristic cats that have been the city's informal symbol for centuries and have their own museum. The climb to the Fortress of St John above the town is about 1,350 steps and a view that repays every effort: the whole bay spread out like a map, old roofs below, mountains all around. Entry to the fortress is around €15 in season. In Dubrovnik you'd pay several times more for a worse view from the walls.

Getting there from Europe is realistic and increasingly easy. Ryanair and Wizz Air run connections to Tivat — an airport about 25 minutes by car from Kotor — from several European cities. Return ticket prices, booked a few months ahead, start from €89–155. It's worth checking the Ryanair cabin-baggage dimensions and tips before you book, since gate fees can quietly undo a cheap fare. You can also fly to Dubrovnik — there are more connections — and cross the border from there by bus or taxi, which takes around 2.5–3 hours in total. Accommodation in Kotor in July is around €56–111 a night for a decent apartment for two, and food in local restaurants outside the Old Town is surprisingly cheap — lunch for two with wine comes in at €18–29.

Budva – a beach with a view of the fort

Budva lies 25 kilometres south of Kotor and is a completely different place — more dynamic, geared to beaches and nightlife, but still on a scale that doesn't overwhelm. Budva's Old Town is a small Venetian old quarter on a peninsula, ringed by defensive walls running straight into the sea — one of the postcard views of the whole Adriatic, far less known than it should be. The Citadel fortress with a view of the beach and the Adriatic costs a pittance and takes about an hour to see, after which you can head straight down to the sand.

The beaches around Budva are varied. Mogren Beach, reached through a tunnel carved in the rock, is one of the prettier small beaches on the whole Montenegrin coast. Slovenska Plaza is a longer, more family stretch with full infrastructure. For those who want it calmer — Sveti Stefan, a few kilometres further south, is a small islet linked to the mainland by a causeway, with one of the more recognisable silhouettes on the entire Adriatic. Around the island are free public beaches, though the hotel on the island itself is in the luxury category.

Budva also offers something Kotor doesn't have on the same scale: active nightlife. Bars, clubs and restaurants run late, and in summer the city draws crowds of younger tourists from across the Balkans and Eastern Europe. So it isn't a place for those seeking quiet — but if you want to combine beach, history and evening animation on a budget far lower than the Croatian Riviera, Budva is hard to beat. A week's stay for two with flight, good-apartment accommodation and normal food comes in at €889–1,333 — for a similar standard in Dubrovnik you'd pay €2,000–3,111.

Montenegro as a destination has one more advantage rarely mentioned: a variety of landscape in a small area. From Kotor or Budva you can reach, within an hour, the Lovćen National Park with a view of the whole bay from above, Lake Skadar — one of the largest lakes in the Balkans — or head towards Durmitor and the canyon of the Tara river, the deepest canyon in Europe. That makes Montenegro not just a beach destination but a destination for travellers who want more than a sunlounger and the sea — without paying French-Riviera prices for it.

Cabin cases for the budget-airline flight

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Instead of Barcelona — Valencia and Girona (Spain)

For a few years now Barcelona has been sending signals hard to ignore. In 2024 the city's residents took to the streets with banners and water pistols aimed at tourists — not as an art stunt, but as an expression of genuine frustration. The city authorities have restricted new licences for tourist apartments, raised taxes for visitors and announced further regulations. This isn't a city that's glad of tourists — it's a city that's had enough of them and says so in an increasingly undiplomatic way. Add the numbers: over 12 million tourists a year in a city of 1.6 million residents, accommodation prices in the centre exceeding €178–333 a night for an average hotel, crowds on La Rambla around the clock and pickpockets working with an efficiency many legal industries might envy. Two hours' drive south and barely a hundred kilometres north lie cities that don't need Barcelona to be interesting.

Valencia – Spain's second city that's finally waiting for you

For years Valencia functioned in the shadow of Barcelona and Madrid, treated by foreign tourists as an optional add-on rather than a destination in itself. That's changing — slowly but clearly — and it's worth getting there before the change is complete. Today Valencia is a city where you can function normally as a tourist: find a restaurant table without a booking, enter a museum without a queue and pay €1.20–1.50 for a coffee at the bar, rather than the tourist-euro that in Barcelona means three times as much. If this is your first independent trip south, our comparison of Italy or Spain for a first trip abroad is a useful companion read.

The architectural focus is the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias — a complex designed by Santiago Calatrava that looks like frames from a sci-fi film: futuristic white structures reflected in shallow pools, an oceanarium, a planetarium and an opera house in one place. Simply walking through the complex on foot and looking at the architecture is free and takes a few hours. The city also has an Old Town with a Gothic cathedral where a reliquary considered by the Catholic Church to be the Holy Grail is kept — and that's not tourist exaggeration but the Vatican's official position. The La Lonja de la Seda silk exchange, on the UNESCO list, is one of the most beautiful secular Gothic buildings in Europe and has no queue beside it.

Valencia's beaches are a separate chapter. Playa de la Malvarrosa and the neighbouring Playa de las Arenas stretch right by the city, are well connected by tram and aren't besieged to a degree that would prevent normal use of the sea. That matters, because in Barcelona the city beaches in August are an experience comparable to a packed city beach on a bank-holiday weekend — beautiful in theory, unbearable in practice. On top of that, Valencia is the birthplace of paella — not the seafood version served to tourists in resorts, but the original, with chicken, rabbit and beans, cooked over wood in huge flat pans. Lunch for two in a good restaurant with paella, wine and dessert is a cost of €18–29 — roughly half what you'd pay for worse food in a tourist restaurant on La Rambla.

Accommodation is clearly cheaper than in Barcelona. A good hotel in central Valencia in July is €67–122 a night, an apartment for two — €44–84. Direct flights from Europe are run by Ryanair and Wizz Air from many cities, with return prices booked ahead starting from €78–144.

Girona – a city that doesn't need fame

Girona is a special case: a city known above all to Game of Thrones fans, who recognise its lanes as Braavos and King's Landing from season six, but visited by a fraction of the tourists who at the same time throng a hundred kilometres south in Barcelona. It's a paradox hard to explain, because Girona is an absolutely first-class city — with one of the best-preserved medieval old towns in all of Spain, an impressive cathedral with the steps Cersei Lannister ran down, and colourful houses by the river Onyar that are one of the more characteristic sights of Catalan architecture.

Girona's defensive walls, which you can walk along with a view of the city and surroundings, are open free of charge. The Jewish quarter of El Call is one of the best preserved in Europe — narrow stone lanes, steps and nooks leading up between medieval houses. The Museum of Jewish History sits in a building that served various functions over the centuries and is one of the more interesting small museums in this part of Europe. The Cathedral of Santa Maria has the widest Gothic nave in the world — wider than Notre-Dame in Paris — and has no hundred-person ticket queue beside it.

Getting to Girona from Europe is more convenient than it might seem. Ryanair serves Girona-Costa Brava airport directly from several cities, and ticket prices are among the lowest to all of Spain — €56–111 return when booked early isn't rare. Alternatively you can fly to Barcelona and reach Girona by train in about 40 minutes for a dozen or so euros. Accommodation in Girona is €44–89 a night for a good central hotel, and food in local restaurants outside the touristy area by the cathedral is cheap even by Spanish standards.

Valencia and Girona are two different experiences united by one thing: both are a better version of what most tourists seek in Barcelona, and neither yet has enough tourists to start profiting at the expense of quality. It's a window that remains open — but not forever. Valencia already appears in rankings of the best European cities to live in and attracts more and more digital nomads and long-term residents. In a few years it may be too late for Valencia without queues. It isn't yet.

Instead of Mykonos — Naxos and Paros (Greece)

Mykonos earned its reputation honestly — windmills, the white lanes of Chora, beaches with clear water and a nightlife that for decades drew people from all over the world. The problem is that this reputation long ago outgrew the island's capacity and turned it into something hard to call travel in any sensible sense. Mykonos today is one of the most expensive islands in the Mediterranean — and not in a "slightly pricier than home" way, but with prices that compete without blinking with Dubai and Milan. A night in a decent hotel with a pool in July is a cost of €400–889. A sunlounger on Paradise beach — famous, loud, obligatory — costs €33–67 per person and includes no drink. Dinner in a restaurant by the port is a bill that, with two people and a bottle of local wine, exceeds €111 effortlessly. On top of that comes a specific atmosphere: Mykonos today attracts above all people who want to be seen spending money — and if that's not your reason to travel, the island doesn't have much more to offer. Fortunately the Cyclades are a large archipelago.

Naxos – the island that doesn't need tourists (but takes them)

Naxos is the largest island of the Cyclades and the only one that's fully self-sufficient — it produces its own food, has its own drinking-water sources and doesn't depend on tourism to the degree its smaller neighbours do. That translates directly into the traveller's experience: prices in local shops and tavernas are lower than on most other islands, and the food is better, because it comes from the island, not from a mainland cold store. Naxos potatoes, graviera cheese, citrus and local wines are everyday products on Naxos, not a tourist attraction.

Naxos's beaches are among the longest and most beautiful in the Cyclades. Agios Prokopios and the neighbouring Agia Anna form a continuous strip of white sand with shallow, turquoise water — ideal for families with children. Further south, Plaka stretches for several kilometres almost without buildings, and in midsummer you can still find a calm patch for yourself on it. Mikri Vigla and Kastraki are cult spots among windsurfers and kitesurfers because of the steady Meltemi winds — but even there the atmosphere is relaxed, far from the show business of Mykonos's beaches.

The island's capital, Chora Naxos, has its own 13th-century Venetian fortress, a labyrinth of lanes in the Castro district and the characteristic Portara — the gate of an ancient temple of Apollo standing on a rocky islet linked to the port by a causeway. It's one of the more photogenic monuments in all the Cyclades, free to access at any time of day or night. The sunset watched from the Portara, when the gate is drawn against the heated sky, is a view that competes with the famous Santorini spectacle — except without the crowd of several thousand jostling on a wall.

Accommodation on Naxos is clearly more affordable than on Mykonos. A good apartment for two in July is €62–111 a night, and lunch in a taverna by the port — €18–27 for two with wine. Getting there from Europe runs via Athens, from where ferries leave Piraeus.

Paros – the compromise that suits everyone

Paros lies between Naxos and Mykonos — literally and figuratively. Geographically it's the middle island of this part of the Cyclades, and in character it sits somewhere between the calm of Naxos and the infrastructure availability that Mykonos provides in excess. That makes Paros an island where almost every type of traveller will find something — and which doesn't drain the wallet as aggressively as its more famous neighbour.

The island's main settlement, Parikia, has a charming old town with white lanes and blue shutters, the early-Christian Ekatontapyliani basilica from the 4th century — one of the best preserved in Greece — and a calm port where half the island sits in the evenings. Naoussa on the north coast is a former fishing village turned fashionable spot with good restaurants and bars, but still without the soap opera the centre of Mykonos serves up. The Venetian fortress at the entrance to Naoussa's port, with restaurants on boats moored inside, is one of the prettier sights of this part of the Aegean.

Paros also has great infrastructure for water sports — Pounta on the west coast is one of the most important windsurfing centres in Europe, and the wind conditions here are predictable and steady for most of the season. For those who want to explore more than one island, Paros is an ideal base: Antiparos is a dozen or so minutes away by ferry and even calmer, and from the port in Parikia ferries leave for most of the Cyclades.

The practical journey from Europe to Paros and Naxos is similar, and worth planning ahead, because ferry connections can fill up at peak season:

• Flight to Athens — direct connections from many European cities; prices from €67–133 return when booked ahead.
• Transfer to Piraeus — the M1 metro line or the airport express, about 40–60 minutes, cost €3–10.
• Ferry from Piraeus to Paros — fast catamaran: about 3 hours, traditional ferry: 5–6 hours; tickets from €40–80 return depending on operator and class.
• Paros–Naxos ferry — if you plan both islands, the connection between them takes about 45 minutes and costs a dozen or so euros.
• Ferry ticket booking — worth doing through platforms such as Ferryhopper or directly with operators Seajets and Blue Star Ferries, ideally 4–6 weeks before travel at peak season.

The cost of accommodation on Paros in July is €67–122 a night for an apartment for two in a good location — roughly six times less than on Mykonos for a comparable standard. Food in Naoussa is a little pricier than on Naxos due to the island's growing popularity, but still far from Mykonos extravagance: lunch for two with wine is €22–36. Paros and Naxos together give what most travellers to Greece are after — calm, sea, authentic cuisine and a landscape that needs no filters. Without a price that needs a loan.

Light cases for island-hopping by ferry

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Instead of Zakopane — Szczyrk and the Bieszczady (Poland)

Zakopane has a problem it created itself over decades of being Poland's only mountain resort with nationwide recognition. The town has fallen victim to its own success in a way felt every July and August by several hundred thousand tourists at once. The Zakopianka — national road 47 from Kraków — is one of the most stressful road stretches in Poland in summer: jams start at Friday midday and don't end until Sunday evening, and the journey from Kraków can take 3–4 hours instead of the standard 100 minutes. On the Krupówki promenade on an August Saturday the air temperature is thirty degrees, the crowd is as dense as at a concert, and the retail offer consists mainly of cheeses, mulled wine and souvenirs with as much in common with mountain culture as a plastic knight has with Wawel Castle. Accommodation in decent guesthouses reaches €89–155 a night for two, and in better hotels comfortably exceeds €222. On top of that the cable-car queue for Kasprowy Wierch in August can run over two hours even with an online ticket bought in advance, because the number of would-be visitors simply exceeds the lift's capacity.

The mountains don't end at the Tatras. That sentence sounds like a truism, but the behaviour of most tourists suggests it isn't common knowledge. The Beskidy, the Bieszczady and the Sudetes offer mountain landscapes, trails and air without queues, jams and prices that have started to compete with Alpine resorts.

Szczyrk – no queues and a view of the Beskidy

Szczyrk is the largest ski town in the Polish Beskidy and for years functioned mainly as a winter sports centre. In summer the town long remained in Zakopane's shadow — a lack of developed summer infrastructure, lower recognition and a more modest dining scene meant travellers chose the Tatras almost automatically. That changed when the Szczyrk Mountain Resort expanded its year-round infrastructure, opening summer bike trails, a rope park and a gondola to Skrzyczne — the highest peak of the Silesian Beskids, rising 1,257 metres above sea level.

From the gondola to Skrzyczne a view stretches over the whole Beskidy, and in good weather you can make out the Tatras to the south and Babia Góra to the east. A cable-car ticket costs about €13–18 per person return — several times less than the ride up Kasprowy Wierch, without a comparable queue and with a similarly satisfying view. The summit is also reachable on foot by a trail that, even in mid-season, isn't crowded to a degree that prevents normal movement.

Around Szczyrk the network of walking and cycling trails is well developed. The Main Beskid Trail leads over Skrzyczne towards Barania Góra and beyond — one of the most beautiful mountain stretches in the Polish Beskidy, with views of broad ridges and valleys not blocked by a crowd. In summer Szczyrk also has a bike park with trails for various skill levels, which draws a growing number of mountain bikers from across the country.

Accommodation in Szczyrk is clearly cheaper than in Zakopane. A good guesthouse or apartment for two in July is a cost of €44–84 a night — for a comparable standard often half the price of Zakopane at peak season. Food in local restaurants is decent and reasonably priced: lunch for two with drinks comes in at €18–29. The journey from the Silesian cities takes about 45–60 minutes, from Kraków about 1.5 hours, and from farther afield you can take a direct train to Bielsko-Biała and reach the place by bus or taxi in another 30–40 minutes. There are no jams on the Zakopianka, no frustration and no sense that you're going there because everyone goes.

The Bieszczady – for those who want quiet

The Bieszczady are a completely different travel philosophy — a place that works on the opposite principle to most resorts. The further from the main roads, the better. The less infrastructure, the more of what you come here for. The Bieszczady have no queues, no crowds at the trails, no promenade of stalls. What they have instead are the połoniny — broad, grassy ridges above the tree line, from which you can see Ukraine, Slovakia and dozens of kilometres of undulating, wild landscape — and that particular silence you can hear when the wind catches its breath for a moment.

Połonina Wetlińska and Połonina Caryńska are the most-visited ridges, but even they, midweek in August, aren't crowded in a way that spoils the experience. The trail from Ustrzyki Górne to Tarnica — the highest peak of the Bieszczady, 1,346 metres — leads through a landscape that in good weather looks like a film set rather than a queue for a popular attraction. At the Chatka Puchatka shelter on Połonina Wetlińska you can stop for the night without a month's advance booking — something practically impossible in decent places in Zakopane in July.

The Bieszczady also have something the Tatras don't offer: wildlife within sight. Bison, bears, wolves, lynxes and wildcats live here in numbers unmatched anywhere else in the country, and the chance of meeting a bison by the road between Ustrzyki Dolne and Cisna is surprisingly high, especially at dawn and dusk. The Bieszczady National Park covers the wildest part of the area and requires an entry ticket — about €2 per person — but it's one of the cheapest national-park entries in the country.

Accommodation in the Bieszczady is varied: from shelters and mountain huts serving żurek soup and oscypek by the fire to intimate guesthouses and farm stays in Lesko, Ustrzyki Dolne and the surrounding area. Prices are among the lowest in the Polish mountains — a good night for two is €33–62, often with breakfast. Reaching them by car from Rzeszów takes about 1.5–2 hours, from Kraków about 3.5 hours, from Warsaw about 4.5 hours. The Bieszczady aren't a destination for a spontaneous weekend dash — they require planning and a longer stay to feel what it's about. But those who come back, come back regularly.

Instead of the Maldives — Sri Lanka and Zanzibar (far-flung directions)

For years the Maldives were a synonym for inaccessible luxury — a place you dream of but which for the average traveller remained beyond budget. That changed in the middle of the last decade, when cheaper accommodation options appeared on the local islands and flight prices fell a little. The effect was predictable: the Maldives became a mass destination while keeping luxury prices, a combination especially unfavourable for the tourist. Today a week's stay for two in an overwater bungalow with full board and a boat transfer from the airport is a cost of around €5,556–11,111 — and that assuming you fly with budget airlines via a connection, not directly. Cheaper options on the local islands are possible, but come with limitations few expect before departure: a ban on alcohol on the Muslim islands, the need to take a boat to specially designated beaches for tourists in more modest attire, infrastructure far from the brochure pictures. The Maldives as a dream and the Maldives as a reality are two different places. Sri Lanka and Zanzibar offer something the Maldives can't give at any budget: real variety of experience.

Sri Lanka – the island that doesn't bore

Sri Lanka is one of those directions hard to describe in a single sentence, because the island is too varied to fit a formula. In an area smaller than Poland sit the ancient fortress of Sigiriya on a basalt rock rising vertically 200 metres above the jungle, the tea plantations of Nuwara Eliya bathed in mist at over 1,800 metres, elephants bathing in a river in Minneriya National Park, the southern surf beaches at Unawatuna and Mirissa, and the Buddhist rock temples of Dambulla, whose history reaches back to the 1st century BC. This isn't an island where you lie down. It's an island where you drive, look and eat — because Sri Lankan cuisine, based on curry, coconut milk and fresh fish, is one of the most interesting in all of South Asia.

For the European traveller Sri Lanka is genuinely affordable in a way the Maldives never will be. A flight from Europe via Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi to Colombo costs €444–778 return when booked several months ahead. A night in a good boutique hotel or guesthouse is €33–78 a night for two — and that in places with a pool, breakfast and a view of a tropical garden. Food is surprisingly cheap: lunch in a local restaurant for two is €7–13, even in tourist towns. A week's stay for two, including flight, good-standard accommodation, meals and internal transport, comes in realistically at €1,778–2,889 — for an experience many times richer than a week on a Maldivian atoll.

The optimal season depends on the part of the island. The west and south coasts — where most beaches and tourist attractions concentrate — are best from November to March, when the monsoon is active on the eastern side. The east coast, including the beaches of Trincomalee and Arugam Bay (a wild, authentic surf culture), peaks from May to September. That means Sri Lanka has no single bad season — it has two good seasons in different places, which gives planning flexibility unattainable for an island without such geographical variety.

Zanzibar – an African rest at the price of Greece

Zanzibar is an archipelago off the east coast of Africa, administratively part of Tanzania, which for centuries was a centre of the spice trade and Arab cultural influence — influences still visible today in the architecture, cuisine and rhythm of island life. Stone Town, the archipelago's capital, is one of the best-preserved Swahili port cities in the world, on the UNESCO list, with narrow lanes, carved wooden doors and the scent of cloves drifting over the market by the port. You can walk here for hours and not hit the same spot twice.

Zanzibar's beaches are among the most beautiful in the Indian Ocean — the east coast, including Paje, Jambiani and Matemwe, has bright coral sand and water in colours that look edited in photos and are real in life. The coral reefs off the east coast are in good condition and offer snorkelling straight from the beach without needing a boat. Swimming with dolphins off the west coast near Kizimkazi is an activity that, with the right operator, isn't a theme-park show but a meeting with wild animals in their own environment.

The cost of a stay on Zanzibar is surprisingly affordable for a destination that looks luxurious in photos. Tour operators offer direct charters through most of the season, and prices for a week's all-inclusive package for two start from €1,333–1,778 — though it's worth knowing that hotels outside the all-inclusive packages, booked independently, often give better quality at a lower price. A good hotel with a pool by the beach is €67–133 a night for two, and food outside the hotel — fresh seafood, local curry and Swahili specialties at the night market in Stone Town — is cheap and excellent.

Sri Lanka and Zanzibar are directions united by one feature: they give more than the photos promise and cost less than the imagination suggests. The Maldives work the opposite way — they look just like the photos, but only if you spend as much as the most expensive option in the brochure suggests. For someone who wants a real far-flung experience without a holiday loan, the choice is simple.

Protect your camera gear for the far-flung trip

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Peli 1500 Protector Case

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Peli 1637 Air Case Photography Gear

Instead of Amsterdam — Ghent and Utrecht (Western Europe)

Amsterdam has a problem that has been growing for years and in 2025 and 2026 took the form of concrete regulations, not just declarations. The city authorities introduced a ban on new cruise ships docking in the centre, limited the number of nights in tourist apartments to 30 a year and announced further restrictions on mass tourism. This isn't anti-tourist policy — it's a reaction to a situation in which the city stopped functioning normally. Amsterdam takes in over 20 million visitors a year against a population of 900,000. The red-light district is gradually being moved out of the centre, some coffeeshops have closed, and moving along some streets around Leidseplein and Rembrandtplein on a weekend evening requires the same technique as at a standing concert. Accommodation in the centre in season is a cost of €156–333 a night for an average hotel, and a ticket to the Rijksmuseum has to be booked at least a week ahead, because same-day tickets are usually sold out. Two hours by train south lies a city that has canals, monuments and Belgian beer — and none of these problems.

Ghent – more Belgian than Bruges

Ghent is a city that for years lost the battle for tourists' attention to Bruges — and that's its greatest advantage. Bruges is beautiful and knows it perfectly well: crowds by the Markt, queues for chips, organised guided cycle tours gliding through every lane. Ghent is bigger, less obvious and therefore more authentic. The city houses one of the most important paintings in the history of European art in Sint-Baafskathedraal: the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck, completed in 1432, restored after centuries and presented today in museum conditions inside the church. The entry ticket costs about €11 and there's no hour-long queue.

Ghent's centre is compact and perfect for exploring on foot. Gravensteen — the medieval castle of the Counts of Flanders, standing in the middle of the city with a moat and battlements — looks like a fantasy set and costs about €10 to enter. Graslei and Korenlei are two quays on either side of the Leie canal, lined with medieval guild houses — one of the most beautiful urban views in Belgium, without a crowd photographing on phones. In the evenings the quays turn into a row of bars and restaurants where mostly students and residents sit, because Ghent is a university city with one of the largest universities in Belgium and has a matching rhythm of life: lively, but without touristic artifice.

Belgian cuisine and beer are taken seriously in Ghent — not as a tourist attraction but as everyday practice. Waterzooi, the traditional Ghent stew of chicken or fish in a creamy broth, is served in dozens of restaurants in the centre, and prices are clearly lower than in Bruges: lunch for two with beer is a cost of €22–36. Belgian abbey beers — Trappist, Dubbel, Tripel — are available in every decent bar at prices that need no psychological preparation: €3–6 for a beer that in France or the Netherlands would cost twice as much.

Getting there from Europe is simple, if rarely direct. The most convenient is to fly to Brussels — direct flights from several cities from €67–133 return — and from there by train to Ghent in about 30 minutes. You can also fly to Amsterdam and take the train via Antwerp, which takes about 2.5 hours in total. Accommodation in Ghent is clearly cheaper than in Amsterdam: a good central hotel is €78–133 a night, an apartment for two — €56–100.

Utrecht – Amsterdam 20 years ago

Utrecht lies 30 minutes by train from Amsterdam and is the fourth-largest city in the Netherlands — but behaves like a city that doesn't know it should be famous. Utrecht's canals are older than Amsterdam's and have one feature Amsterdam lacks: two-level wharves, where the lower level, right by the water, is occupied by cafes, restaurants and bars with terraces opening directly onto the canal. It's one of the most characteristic and photographed urban views in the Netherlands — and surprisingly little known outside the country.

Utrecht's centre is compact and pedestrian-friendly. The Dom Tower — the Gothic cathedral tower, the tallest in the Netherlands, rising 112 metres — dominates the city skyline and offers a view of the whole country in good weather. Climbing the tower is only possible with a guide and costs about €10. The Centraal Museum holds the largest collection of works by Gerrit Rietveld, creator of the iconic chair and a house on the UNESCO list — and to see it, you only need to book a ticket a day ahead, not a week. The Rietveld Schröder House, a dozen or so minutes' walk from the centre, is one of the more important works of modernist architecture in Europe and can be visited in small groups, without a crowd.

Utrecht is a university city — Utrecht University is one of the largest in the Netherlands with over 30,000 students — which gives the city an energy and gastronomic variety you'll seek in vain in tourist centres. Restaurants by the canals serve cuisines from around the world at prices fitted to a student budget, which for a tourist means that lunch for two with wine or beer is a cost of €20–33 — in a comparable location in Amsterdam you'd pay €44–67. Accommodation is correspondingly cheaper: a good central hotel is €89–155 a night, which against Amsterdam prices of €156–333 for a comparable standard makes a real difference to a weekend trip's budget.

A weekend in Ghent or Utrecht for two — two nights, travel, food, museum entries and beer in the evenings — is a total cost of around €556–889. A comparable weekend in Amsterdam with a similar programme is €1,000–1,556. The difference doesn't come from Ghent or Utrecht being worse — it comes from them not yet having a brand that lets them dictate prices regardless of value. It's a window slowly closing: Utrecht appears in more and more rankings of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and Ghent draws ever more weekend tourists from France and Britain. But for now — compared with Amsterdam — it's still a different city. Calmer, cheaper and more itself.

Instead of Prague — Olomouc and Český Krumlov (Czech Republic)

Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in Central Europe and has no intention of hiding it — nor of hiding that it's perfectly aware of the fact and prices every square metre of its old town accordingly. Charles Bridge in August is an experience hard to describe as sightseeing: the crowd is so dense that moving slowly is physically impossible, and photographing anything without other people's heads in the frame requires either rising before dawn or Photoshop. The Hradčany castle district is better managed for tourist traffic, but the queue to enter the main route at peak season can run over an hour. Accommodation in the centre — within walking distance of the Old Town — costs €133–267 a night in July for an average hotel, and prices in restaurants by the main attractions long ago detached from Czech reality and approached Western European levels: lunch for two by the Old Town Square with beer and goulash soup is a cost of €33–56. The Czech Republic, however, has two places that offer what Prague long ago stopped being able to give: history without queues and atmosphere without performance.

Olomouc – the Czech city travellers drive past

Olomouc is a city most foreign visitors know only by name — if at all. It lies in Moravia, halfway between Prague and Ostrava, and is the sixth-largest city in the Czech Republic, while also being one of the best-preserved historic centres in the whole country. For centuries it was the capital of Moravia and the seat of an archbishopric, which left marks in the urban fabric disproportionately rich for a city of this size: six Baroque fountains on the main square, of which the Hercules and Neptune fountains are among the largest Baroque fountains in Central Europe, a Romanesque cathedral, a Renaissance town hall with an astronomical clock and whole quarters of houses untouched by mass renovation for tourism.

Olomouc's centre is compact and walkable in a day, but rich enough in detail that two days give a fuller picture. The Holy Trinity Column on the main square is a Baroque monument on the UNESCO list since 2000 — one of the largest Baroque monuments in Central Europe, standing 35 metres tall and surrounded by groups of figures of saints. It stands in the middle of the square, free to access, with no entry gate or queue. The Cathedral of St Wenceslas, with its Romanesque crypt and Gothic naves, is one of the more important churches in Moravia, entry free, the interior calm even in mid-season.

Olomouc is a university city — Palacký University, one of the oldest in Central Europe, educates tens of thousands of students here — which translates directly into atmosphere and prices. Cafes, bars and restaurants run at academic rates: coffee costs €2–3, beer €2–3, lunch for two with a drink €13–22. That's a price level simply unattainable in Prague in a decent venue near the centre. The local speciality — olomoucké tvarůžky, a pungent matured cheese — has been produced around the city since the Middle Ages and can be bought in any grocery for a euro or two. It isn't for everyone, but it's authentic in a way tourist products in Prague long ago stopped being.

Getting there from Europe is simple and fast. From the nearer border cities Olomouc is about 2 hours by car; coach connections are run by, among others, FlixBus, and by train via Ostrava you reach the place without much effort. Accommodation is among the cheapest in the Czech historic cities: a good central hotel is €44–84 a night for two, an apartment — €33–62.

Český Krumlov – a fairy tale with an instruction manual

Český Krumlov is a town where using the word "fairy-tale" isn't journalistic overreach — because it's hard to find another term for a medieval town encircled by a loop of the Vltava river, with a Renaissance castle raised on a rock above the river bend, a tower painted with trompe-l'œil frescoes and Baroque gardens descending the slope in terraces. Český Krumlov has been on the UNESCO list since 1992 and is one of the best-preserved castle-and-town complexes in Central Europe. It's also one of those attractions that fall victim to their own beauty: in July and August the town of 13,000 permanent residents takes in up to a million tourists a year, a large share of them arriving for a single day by coach from Prague or Vienna.

That makes the choice of when to visit more important here than for most other places described in this article. Český Krumlov outside peak season is a completely different experience from midsummer — calmer, cheaper and giving a real chance to feel the place without the crowd. Here's when to come to avoid the worst of the crush:

• May and the first half of June — the town is already open for tourism, the castle accessible, the weather often very good, and the number of tourists a fraction of the August peak. Accommodation 30–40% cheaper than in July.
• September — one of the best months: temperatures still pleasant, crowds clearly smaller, the river fit for kayaking, the surrounding forests beginning to change colour.
• October — autumn in southern Bohemia is beautiful, the town returns to its normal rhythm, some attractions have shorter hours, but the castle is usually still open until the end of the month.
• December — the Christmas market — Český Krumlov in December draws tourists, but on a controlled scale; the atmosphere is exceptional, and the town lit up for the holidays looks like a set for a film adaptation of Dickens.

The castle in Český Krumlov itself is the second-largest castle in the Czech Republic after Prague Castle and offers several tour routes at different prices — from €7 to €18 per person depending on the route. The castle tower, which you can climb separately for a few euros, gives the best view of the Vltava bend and the town's roofs — one of those views people come from the other end of Europe to see. A kayaking trip down the Vltava through the bend skirting the town is an activity offered by several rental places by the river, and is one of the more pleasant ways to see the castle's silhouette from the water — a ticket for a few-kilometre stretch is €9–16 per person.

Getting there from Europe is a little longer than to Olomouc, but still realistic for a long weekend. From the nearer cities it's about 3.5–4 hours by car. By bus via Prague or Linz is possible, but requires a change. Accommodation in the town is surprisingly varied in price: cheap hostel rooms start from €18–27 per person, decent central hotels are €67–122 a night for two, and at peak season it's worth booking at least a month ahead, because the town's bed capacity is limited. Off-season — a week's advance booking is enough, and prices are correspondingly lower.

For the road trip: larger checked cases

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Peli Air 1595TRVL Travel Suitcase – Black

Peli Air 1595TRVL Travel Suitcase – Indigo

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Instead of the French Riviera — the Slovenian Riviera and Istria

The Côte d'Azur functions in the collective imagination as a synonym for Mediterranean luxury — Nice, Cannes, Antibes, Monaco — and that image is essentially true, which means it's also essentially inaccessible to anyone without a budget to match a short yacht charter. A week in Nice for two with central accommodation, normal restaurant food and museum entries is a cost of around €2,667–4,444 — and that without any extravagance, no Monte Carlo casino and no Michelin-starred dinner. The beaches in Nice are mostly paid and pebbly. Cannes has the beautiful Promenade de la Croisette, but the beaches by the hotels are reserved for guests, and the public stretches are crowded and lacking the infrastructure you'd expect at such prices. Monaco is a separate case — a micro-state built solely on the display of wealth, where merely entering the casino requires appropriate dress, and a coffee at the bar costs as much as lunch in Valencia. The Adriatic offers an alternative with a Mediterranean climate, blue water and stone towns — at costs that require no special financial preparation.

The Slovenian Riviera – the Adriatic on a human scale

The Slovenian Riviera is a term that sounds like a marketing invention but describes something entirely real: a 47-kilometre stretch of Slovenia's Adriatic coast between Italy and Croatia, with three main towns — Koper, Izola and Piran — and a few smaller fishing settlements between them. It's the smallest sea coast in Europe belonging to a single country, which paradoxically is its advantage: everything here is close, the scale is human, and the tourist infrastructure is developed exactly as much as needed, no more.

Piran is the most beautiful of the three towns and one of the best-preserved Venetian port towns on the whole Adriatic — better preserved than most similar places in Italy itself, because for centuries it stayed off the main trade and tourist routes. Narrow lanes climbing towards the Church of St George on the hill, Gothic and Renaissance houses by the port, defensive walls with a view of the bay and of Italy across the sea — all accessible without tickets, without queues and without the feeling of being part of a mass spectacle. In the evenings on the main square — Piazza Tartini, named after the violinist and composer Giuseppe Tartini born here — half the town sits for a coffee or a glass of local wine, and tourists mix with residents in proportions that don't upset the balance.

Izola is less popular than Piran and therefore worth separate attention. It's an active fishing port with a stone old town on a peninsula, restaurants serving fresh fish straight from local fishermen and beaches where in mid-July you can still lie without fighting for a spot. Koper, meanwhile, is the region's administrative centre and has extensive transport connections — this is where ferries from Venice arrive and the easiest place to reach other parts of the Slovenian coast.

The climate of the Slovenian Riviera is Mediterranean in the full sense of the word: summer dry and hot, July and August air temperatures regularly over 30 degrees, the Adriatic reaching 26–28 degrees. The vegetation — olives, figs, lavender and rosemary — is identical to the Italian Istria across the border. The only difference between Piran and a similar-sized town on the French Riviera is price and crowds: a night in a good apartment in Piran in July is €56–100 a night for two, lunch with seafood and local wine — €22–36.

Getting there from Europe is simple and fast. Direct flights to Ljubljana (run by LOT and Wizz Air from several cities) cost €67–133 return when booked early, and from the airport to Piran or Izola is about an hour by car hired locally or by bus via Koper. Alternatively you can fly to Trieste or Venice and reach it from there by bus or taxi — an option often cheaper, since flights to the Italian airports are sometimes more competitively priced.

Istria – a peninsula in no hurry

Istria is the largest peninsula of the Adriatic, divided between Croatia and Italy — the Croatian part is clearly larger and more developed for tourism, the Italian (Trieste and surroundings) remains almost unknown beyond local travellers. Croatian Istria has several towns long on the tourist map: Rovinj, Poreč, Pula — but even they, compared with Dubrovnik or Split, keep a scale and atmosphere that allow normal functioning through most of the season. If hilltop towns and overlooked corners are your thing, the same spirit runs through our piece on Tuscany's curiosities and overlooked places across the water in Italy.

Rovinj is a port town with a characteristic silhouette — the Church of St Euphemia on the hill with its slender bell tower dominates a cluster of colourful houses dropping towards the sea — which is one of the most photographed sights of the Croatian coast. In midsummer Rovinj is crowded, but not in a way comparable to Dubrovnik: you can find a table in a good restaurant without a week's advance booking and enter the church without queuing. Pula, meanwhile, has something no other town on this coast has: an ancient Roman amphitheatre from the 1st century AD, one of the six largest in the world, preserved in a state that lets you tour its interior and sit on the original stone steps. The entry ticket is about €13–18.

Istria also has an extensive network of cycling and walking trails through the peninsula's interior — hills covered with vineyards and olive groves, medieval hilltop towns like Motovun, Grožnjan and Oprtalj, truffles gathered in the oak forests around Buzet that reach the tables of local restaurants and are one of the reasons Istrian cuisine is regarded as one of the better in this part of Europe. Malvazija — the local white wine — and Teran — a red from the heavy, limestone soils of the Karst — are products worth drinking in their place of origin rather than seeking out in shops back home.

The Slovenian Riviera and Istria are coasts that give the same sun, the same blue water and the same Mediterranean rhythm as the Côte d'Azur — without prices that have you counting every meal and wondering whether you can afford a second coffee. They're also realistically accessible from Europe logistically: Pula has direct flights from several cities via Ryanair, which means a week's trip or a long weekend requires no complicated planning. Istria outside July and August — in May, June and September — is exceptionally pleasant: the beaches are free, the restaurants open, prices lower by 20–35%, and the water temperature still allows swimming. That's the moment in the season worth catching, before Istria itself becomes another crowded resort on the Adriatic list.

How to choose your quiet alternative — a practical guide

Reading about specific places is pleasant, but it isn't enough to make a good decision about a trip. Every traveller has different priorities, a different budget and a different tolerance for compromise — and no list of alternatives replaces your own analysis of what you're after and what you want to avoid. Part of the problem with overtourism is that places which are a quiet alternative today may in a few years become the new Dubrovnik. Milos appears more and more often in English-language rankings of the most beautiful Mediterranean islands. Ghent draws growing numbers of weekend tourists from France and Britain. Český Krumlov already takes in a million tourists a year against 13,000 residents — which means the window of calm is open here conditionally and seasonally, not all year. The ability to assess places yourself for crowds and authenticity is therefore more important than any specific list — because the list ages, while the method remains.

The first and most important rule is simple: the number of social-media photos is inversely proportional to the calm of a place. Search the name of a town on Instagram and check how many posts have been tagged there. Santorini has over 10 million posts with the location tag. Milos — a few hundred thousand. Sifnos — a few tens of thousands. That difference is a direct indicator of how besieged a place is by tourists geared to photographing rather than being there. The point isn't that Instagram is evil — it's that the number of hashtags is a free, available tool for measuring popularity that works faster than reading reviews.

It's also worth using tools most travellers ignore. Google Trends lets you check how interest in searching for a place has changed over time — if the graph rises sharply over the last two years, that's a sign the place is in a popularisation phase and in two or three seasons may look completely different. Seasonal comments on travel forums — such as TripAdvisor, Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree or local forums — often contain information about how much a place has changed over the past years and when exactly it gets crowded. It's worth seeking comments from different years and comparing, not just reading the latest. Airport data and flight schedules are another indicator: if budget airlines are only just starting to open direct connections to a place, it means demand is rising and the town is in transition from niche to popular. And once you've narrowed it down, the right bag matters too — it's worth thinking through whether hard or soft luggage suits the kind of trip you're planning.

Practical criteria for assessing a potential quiet alternative before you decide to book:

• The ratio of tourists to residents — places where tourists at peak season vastly outnumber permanent residents lose authenticity and raise prices. Look for places where these proportions are close, or where residents still make up the majority.
• The presence of local customers in restaurants — the simplest test of quality and authenticity: if a restaurant near the centre is eaten in mainly by tourists while locals go elsewhere, that's a sign the kitchen is geared to a collective visitor palate, not local tradition.
• Prices off the main tourist street — in every town there's a street for tourists and a street for residents. If the price difference between them is 20–30%, the town is healthy. If it's 200–300%, the centre has been completely taken over by the tourism industry.
• Availability of accommodation at short notice — check at peak season whether you can book a room a week ahead at a reasonable price. If everything is taken two months ahead or available only at extreme prices, the place is overloaded.
• Attraction opening hours and the need to book — in crowded places entry to most attractions requires booking weeks ahead. In quiet alternatives you buy a ticket at the desk on the same day. It's a simple measure of accessibility.
• Reviews in the local language versus reviews in English — if on Google Maps a restaurant's or hotel's reviews are 90% in English or German and almost none in the local language, it means the place serves tourists only. Venues with mixed-language reviews are usually more authentic and better.

There's one more aspect of choosing a quiet alternative rarely stated outright: your own readiness to give up external validation. Travelling to lesser-known places means friends often don't know where you've been, that Instagram photos don't gather as many likes as a shot from Santorini, and that to the question "what did you do on holiday" you have to spend a moment explaining where Sifnos or Olomouc even is. It sounds like a joke, but it's a real factor in many people's travel decisions — and it's worth being honest with yourself about how far your own holiday choices are dictated by genuine preferences and how far by a need for social validation through a recognisable place-brand.

It's also worth remembering that quiet alternatives aren't a static resource waiting to be discovered indefinitely. The cycle of a place's popularisation usually lasts five to ten years: discovery by niche travellers, appearance in English-language travel media, rising interest, the first cheap flights, rising accommodation prices, peak-season crowds, regulars complaining about the changes, the search for the next alternative. Milos was a quieter alternative to Santorini five years ago to a greater degree than today. Paros was calmer than it is now. This cycle won't stop — but you can consciously stay ahead of it by choosing places at its beginning rather than its end. The best quiet alternative is the one everyone will say, in three years, you should have visited earlier — and to find it, you have to search for yourself, not wait for it to appear on its own on a list of popular destinations.