What’s an underrated region/town in your country that deserves more recognition?
June 23, 2025
Tell me about your hidden gems so I can avoid touristy places.
22 comments
Several places –
Somerset. Wells for the cathedral, Glastonbury for the hippie alternative town, Bath for Roman baths and elegant Georgian buildings, and Minehead for coastal beauty.
Ilfracombe in Devon. It was popular with domestic tourists, but was one of the seaside towns that took a hit after package holidays abroad became common. The town centre isn’t the best, but the waterfront is fine and the coastal scenery there is so dramatic.
Yorkshire. Iconic sites like the Piece Hall, Whitby Abbey, Ribblehead Viaduct, York Minster etc.
Leeds has good shopping, nightlife, pretty architecture, and regenerated areas. York is amazing, though very touristy. The coast is dramatic. You’ll find cliffs, massive beaches, the greenest grass, fresh air, colourful wildflowers, historic villages/towns like Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay nestled into the coast.
Durham city is another one. Beautiful architecture, iconic cathedral and castle, walkable.
Franeker. It’s a small but charming Frisian city, home to a regional museum and more importantly, a working planetarium from the late 18th century that’s a world heritage site. Most tourism in Friesland focuses on the lakes or the islands so this is a nice city trip in between.
The High Coast in Sweden. It’s actually an UNESCO world heritage. The ice from the latest ice age pushed down the land a lot, but after it melted the land has been rising ever since, like a sponge. So like the name tells you, the coast is very high. But since it’s pretty far north not a lot of tourists make it. Usually tourists just go for the south of Sweden, with Stockholm being the northest point they visit, so the two thirds of Swedens landmass above that largely goes unvisited. Actually I would recommend the entirety of “Norrland”, which is what the region above Stockholm is called, for amazing nature. Only 2 million people out of Swedens 10 million lives in Norrland, so it’s very sparsely populated, which is why there is just so much nature.
For the most part, anywhere in the Netherlands apart from the big central cities. Instead of Amsterdam, Rotterdam or The Hague, go to Haarlem, Maastricht or Enschede. If you like historical places, look no further than the Hanseatic cities on and near the IJssel (Arnhem/Nijmegen, Doesburg, Zutphen, Deventer, Zwolle to name a couple). If you like nature, go to the Veluwe.
While I have not visited places like Friesland or Brabant enough to give specific recommendations, there surely are some great places out there as well.
Most of Italy has a lot of tourism… it’s quite hard to find ‘hidden gems’ or underrated places.
There are certainly plenty of small towns and villages which Italian tourists might visit but foreigners don’t,or at least not in big numbers.
I’d say somewhere like Urbino,in the Marche… absolutely beautiful,it gets a reasonable amount of tourism but the kind of place you never see anyone listing on their itineraries on the travel subs.
Most tourists only have a week or two in Italy and when you have Rome, Florence and Venice as ‘rivals’ you could also say that most of the rest of the country is underrated I guess…
Scotland:
Aberdeen is worth a few days, it is a special place, but make sure you head there in the summer when you can expect sun (I know, hard task planning!) the plenty of murals (street art) alone make it a fun place to explore.
Perth is a great city for a day, most people drive round it on the way to the Highlands, but the city centre is lovely, Scone palace is worth a visit as well.
The Borders – talk about ‘driving round/through’, there’s loads of great visitor destinations, charming towns (Kelso, Melrose, Jedburgh) and a gorgeous coast with St Abbs, Cove Harbour and North Berwick. Not to mention easy access into the heart of Edinburgh with the new Borders railway.
Cornwall and Devon get a lot of recognition, but nearby Dorset is nice as well. It’s beginning to get a bit “Instagrammed” these days though.
Up north, while the Lake District is rightly famous, Northumberland is lesser known and every bit as stunning, especially on the coast.
I have recently visited the twin towns of Wetzlar and Gießen, pretty much in the middle of Germany.
There are beautiful half-timbered houses, a nice river landscape with beer gardens, some unique museums (a photography museum in Wetzlar, home of Leica, and a mathematics museum in Gießen), and surprisingly these towns weren’t full of tourists at all, despite the warm season and the additional bank holiday.
To be honest most of it. Stockholm and other main cities gets all the attention.
And Stockholm is nice, dont get me wrong. But there is plenty more places to visit.
Yvoire in France, near Switzerland, on the shore of Lake Geneva, is listed among the Most Beautiful Villages of France. While you’re there, you must try the perch fillet, a local specialty !
All the interior that is not Madrid. You have great places of nature and mountains, lots of Medieval towns, castles and lots lots lots of history.
Bonn. It was the capital of Germany for almost 50 years. It’s at the Rhein, it has lots of museums, a very nice inner city, it has Haribo with their factory and a flagship store there and other big companies like the Deutsche Post or Telekom and…people seem to forget about it, because Köln is literally next door. Even people of Bonn prefer Köln for their clubs or their football. Many football fans from Bonn prefer the 1. FC Köln over their local Bonner SC, meaning Bonn is one of the largest cities in Germany that never had a team in the Bundesliga. At least they have a good Basketball team.
Except for western Turkey, either the places are cool but people are not. Or people are cool but nothing much to see.
Definitely not mine. Go away, nothing to do or see here.
Three of my very well-travelled Swedish mates couldn’t decide where to go on Holiday, so they spread a map of Europe on the floor, each threw a dart over their shoulder, and went to the place in between the darts. It was Duisburg, a city in Germany most known for heavy industry (Steel, Iron, Chemicals) & being the kind of place people escape from, not to. First night there, they were playing pool in a local bar, and a bunch of locals who couldn’t quite believe they’d gone there on Holiday invited them back to their homes, fed them local food, told them (and took them to) loads of hidden gems, and they all had a great time.
Places that are not in Copenhagen or metropolitan area.
Copenhagen is nice, but it’s not really *Danish* anymore. It’s a very international city. For “Real” Denmark, try going 30 min by train to places like Køge or Roskilde, or an hour to places like Odense, Vordingborg, Kalundborg. All smaller, *Danish* towns.
Ireland is fairly heavily touristed all over, but I really like some of the Midlands. Some of the woods, forts, hills and ruins around Laois, Meath and Westmeath are super nice. Like Fore Abbey, Rock of Dunamaise, Loughcrew and Trim
Obligatory Molise! shout out.
That said, for Italy I would say Abruzzo and its magnificent national parks and beautiful medieval towns, but also great skiing resorts and nice beaches on the sea.
Alsace region in the east of France by the german border. Lots of very picturesque villages surromded by wine hills. And during christmas every villages has their houses enlighted and decorated it is truly magical.
Metz, France is super underrated and good place for food or architecture lovers. It’s close to border of Luxembourg/Germany. The cathedral is stunning and has the most stain glass in the world.
Sussex – it’s never really talked about as a UK holiday destination (outside of Brighton), but it has a lot to offer.
The South Downs (including the Seven Sisters), plenty of interesting, historic towns (Hastings, Rye, Lewes, Chichester, Arundel etc.), the best weather in the UK, everything about Brighton etc.
Literally any part except for Baku. Tourists rarely visit other cities in Azerbaijan.
22 comments
Several places –
Somerset. Wells for the cathedral, Glastonbury for the hippie alternative town, Bath for Roman baths and elegant Georgian buildings, and Minehead for coastal beauty.
Ilfracombe in Devon. It was popular with domestic tourists, but was one of the seaside towns that took a hit after package holidays abroad became common. The town centre isn’t the best, but the waterfront is fine and the coastal scenery there is so dramatic.
Yorkshire. Iconic sites like the Piece Hall, Whitby Abbey, Ribblehead Viaduct, York Minster etc.
Leeds has good shopping, nightlife, pretty architecture, and regenerated areas. York is amazing, though very touristy. The coast is dramatic. You’ll find cliffs, massive beaches, the greenest grass, fresh air, colourful wildflowers, historic villages/towns like Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay nestled into the coast.
Durham city is another one. Beautiful architecture, iconic cathedral and castle, walkable.
Franeker. It’s a small but charming Frisian city, home to a regional museum and more importantly, a working planetarium from the late 18th century that’s a world heritage site. Most tourism in Friesland focuses on the lakes or the islands so this is a nice city trip in between.
The High Coast in Sweden. It’s actually an UNESCO world heritage. The ice from the latest ice age pushed down the land a lot, but after it melted the land has been rising ever since, like a sponge. So like the name tells you, the coast is very high. But since it’s pretty far north not a lot of tourists make it. Usually tourists just go for the south of Sweden, with Stockholm being the northest point they visit, so the two thirds of Swedens landmass above that largely goes unvisited. Actually I would recommend the entirety of “Norrland”, which is what the region above Stockholm is called, for amazing nature. Only 2 million people out of Swedens 10 million lives in Norrland, so it’s very sparsely populated, which is why there is just so much nature.
For the most part, anywhere in the Netherlands apart from the big central cities. Instead of Amsterdam, Rotterdam or The Hague, go to Haarlem, Maastricht or Enschede. If you like historical places, look no further than the Hanseatic cities on and near the IJssel (Arnhem/Nijmegen, Doesburg, Zutphen, Deventer, Zwolle to name a couple). If you like nature, go to the Veluwe.
While I have not visited places like Friesland or Brabant enough to give specific recommendations, there surely are some great places out there as well.
Most of Italy has a lot of tourism… it’s quite hard to find ‘hidden gems’ or underrated places.
There are certainly plenty of small towns and villages which Italian tourists might visit but foreigners don’t,or at least not in big numbers.
I’d say somewhere like Urbino,in the Marche… absolutely beautiful,it gets a reasonable amount of tourism but the kind of place you never see anyone listing on their itineraries on the travel subs.
Most tourists only have a week or two in Italy and when you have Rome, Florence and Venice as ‘rivals’ you could also say that most of the rest of the country is underrated I guess…
Scotland:
Aberdeen is worth a few days, it is a special place, but make sure you head there in the summer when you can expect sun (I know, hard task planning!) the plenty of murals (street art) alone make it a fun place to explore.
Perth is a great city for a day, most people drive round it on the way to the Highlands, but the city centre is lovely, Scone palace is worth a visit as well.
The Borders – talk about ‘driving round/through’, there’s loads of great visitor destinations, charming towns (Kelso, Melrose, Jedburgh) and a gorgeous coast with St Abbs, Cove Harbour and North Berwick. Not to mention easy access into the heart of Edinburgh with the new Borders railway.
Cornwall and Devon get a lot of recognition, but nearby Dorset is nice as well. It’s beginning to get a bit “Instagrammed” these days though.
Up north, while the Lake District is rightly famous, Northumberland is lesser known and every bit as stunning, especially on the coast.
I have recently visited the twin towns of Wetzlar and Gießen, pretty much in the middle of Germany.
There are beautiful half-timbered houses, a nice river landscape with beer gardens, some unique museums (a photography museum in Wetzlar, home of Leica, and a mathematics museum in Gießen), and surprisingly these towns weren’t full of tourists at all, despite the warm season and the additional bank holiday.
To be honest most of it. Stockholm and other main cities gets all the attention.
And Stockholm is nice, dont get me wrong. But there is plenty more places to visit.
Yvoire in France, near Switzerland, on the shore of Lake Geneva, is listed among the Most Beautiful Villages of France. While you’re there, you must try the perch fillet, a local specialty !
All the interior that is not Madrid. You have great places of nature and mountains, lots of Medieval towns, castles and lots lots lots of history.
Bonn. It was the capital of Germany for almost 50 years. It’s at the Rhein, it has lots of museums, a very nice inner city, it has Haribo with their factory and a flagship store there and other big companies like the Deutsche Post or Telekom and…people seem to forget about it, because Köln is literally next door. Even people of Bonn prefer Köln for their clubs or their football. Many football fans from Bonn prefer the 1. FC Köln over their local Bonner SC, meaning Bonn is one of the largest cities in Germany that never had a team in the Bundesliga. At least they have a good Basketball team.
Except for western Turkey, either the places are cool but people are not. Or people are cool but nothing much to see.
Definitely not mine. Go away, nothing to do or see here.
Three of my very well-travelled Swedish mates couldn’t decide where to go on Holiday, so they spread a map of Europe on the floor, each threw a dart over their shoulder, and went to the place in between the darts. It was Duisburg, a city in Germany most known for heavy industry (Steel, Iron, Chemicals) & being the kind of place people escape from, not to. First night there, they were playing pool in a local bar, and a bunch of locals who couldn’t quite believe they’d gone there on Holiday invited them back to their homes, fed them local food, told them (and took them to) loads of hidden gems, and they all had a great time.
Places that are not in Copenhagen or metropolitan area.
Copenhagen is nice, but it’s not really *Danish* anymore. It’s a very international city. For “Real” Denmark, try going 30 min by train to places like Køge or Roskilde, or an hour to places like Odense, Vordingborg, Kalundborg. All smaller, *Danish* towns.
Ireland is fairly heavily touristed all over, but I really like some of the Midlands. Some of the woods, forts, hills and ruins around Laois, Meath and Westmeath are super nice. Like Fore Abbey, Rock of Dunamaise, Loughcrew and Trim
Obligatory Molise! shout out.
That said, for Italy I would say Abruzzo and its magnificent national parks and beautiful medieval towns, but also great skiing resorts and nice beaches on the sea.
Alsace region in the east of France by the german border. Lots of very picturesque villages surromded by wine hills. And during christmas every villages has their houses enlighted and decorated it is truly magical.
Metz, France is super underrated and good place for food or architecture lovers. It’s close to border of Luxembourg/Germany. The cathedral is stunning and has the most stain glass in the world.
Sussex – it’s never really talked about as a UK holiday destination (outside of Brighton), but it has a lot to offer.
The South Downs (including the Seven Sisters), plenty of interesting, historic towns (Hastings, Rye, Lewes, Chichester, Arundel etc.), the best weather in the UK, everything about Brighton etc.
Literally any part except for Baku. Tourists rarely visit other cities in Azerbaijan.