Sometimes, you’ve got to go against the grain. As the issue of overtourism continues to gain pace, it’s time to rethink where we travel. Enter Intrepid’s annual Not Hot List, which encourages travelers to visit lesser-trodden parts of the world, and—most importantly—where communities can genuinely see the benefits of tourism.
Perhaps you’ve been to Croatia—but have you heard of Vis? And maybe you’ve hiked around the US, but do you know about Romania’s new trail?
If you’re looking for travel inspiration that sits outside the normal guidebook inclusions, Intrepid’s Not Hot List 2026 highlights 10 cities, regions, islands and countries where tourism is desirable and desired. Produced by Intrepid’s global team, local experts in 27 cities around the world, and travel trend forecasting agency Globetrender, the 2026 list mixes alternative spots in popular countries alongside overlooked or emerging destinations.
The 10 places were selected broadly on three key criteria: Less-visited–Low awareness and visitor numbers compared with nearby or similar destinations; Tourism readiness—what is the potential for tourism to contribute positively, bearing in mind infrastructure readiness, community benefit and sustainable growth plans; and Topicality—major events, new infrastructure, or cultural milestones taking place in 2026 that make it relevant now.
To celebrate the Not Hot List 2026, 10 writers who’ve already visited these ‘not hot’ places tell us about their time there, and why they love them.
At the heart of Sierra Leone’s tourism transformation is Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary, part of the new UNESCO-designated Gola-Tiwai Complex together with Gola Rainforest National Park. Home to diverse primate populations, it collaborates with eight local communities who reinvest tourism revenue into community development.
Sarah Marshall: “An environment so wild it left me trembling with excitement.”
“Guided by torchlight, I slipped silently into a wooden canoe. At 5am, most people were still sleeping, but the dense rainforests of Sierra Leone’s Tiwai Island were buzzing, squealing and humming with life.
Paddling through shallow channels trickling from the Moa River, we scanned swampy banks for the pygmy hippo, an elusive nocturnal creature found only in a handful of locations across West Africa. Although our search was unsuccessful, being in an environment so wild left me trembling with excitement, wondering what might lie beyond the next waterway or forest trail.
Besides, there was so much more to discover from a roll call of species that recently earned the island a UNESCO World Heritage listing. During walks in the forest, I clocked multiple primates scampering through treetops and felt a rush of wind as hornbills glided overhead.
My most meaningful interactions, however, were with communities on the mainland belonging to the Tiwai Heritage Trail. Before taking a boat to reach the fluvial wildlife sanctuary, I watched masked dancers perform and listened to stories of hope, survival and ambition in a country eager to move on from memories of Civil War.
In the same village, I bumped into a Belgian couple who’d had better luck with the pygmy hippos. Proof that somewhere at the end of a torchlight, rewards do lie ahead.”
Sarah Marshall is an award-winning freelance travel writer based in London, and for 17 years, was the travel editor at PA Media. With a passion for traveling in Africa, wildlife conservation and community tourism, her stories have been published in National Geographic Traveller, Sunday Times, the Telegraph, Conde Nast Traveller and Travel Africa magazine.
With mountainous terrain covering over 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan, the Tien Shan Mountain Range stretches across China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Community tourism, staying in community-run yurts and meeting nomadic families is part of the experience, and central to this is the Kyrgyz Nomad Trail, a 1,243-miles (2.000-kilometer) grassroots trekking network.
Olly Beckett: “These mountains feel like a wonderfully wild place, a true frontier.”
“In search of trails in Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan mountains with dramatic scenery, easy access and few other people, I bounced along a rough track in a beaten-up Mercedes taxi towards the village of Jyrgalan in far-eastern Kyrgyzstan.
Just beyond Jyrgalan’s small—and very active—coal mines, the paths I followed beyond Tulpar Tash rock and Kok Bel waterfall disappeared into grass or snow. They had, however, been comprehensively mapped and so it was no great challenge to continue. This was why I’d traveled to Central Asia: To gaze in awe at peaks rising over 16,404 feet (5,000 meters) and all the way up to 24.,400 feet (7,439 meters).
I had this scenery all to myself, but Jyrgalan may soon change. Speaking with some off-duty miners, I learned that a ski resort is being built here, a development that these tough men welcomed as it would provide their children with safer and better-paid jobs.
In my cozy Scandi-design lodge, the staff told me I was the first guest for three months. These mountains feel like a wonderfully wild place, a true frontier. But my hikes were adventuring for amateurs and rich reward for anyone seeking trails less traveled.”
Olly Beckett is the editor of Mountains Magazine and a freelance travel writer with bylines in publications including National Geographic, Fodor’s and Travel + Leisure. He has visited mountains on every continent, hiking, cycling, skiing or, more often than not, just staring up at them in awe.
In Mexico’s lesser-visited highlands outside Oaxaca is a pioneering Indigenous-led tourism project. Pueblos Mancomunados has been going for 30+ years as a cooperative of eight self-governing Zapotec villages, sharing profits and limiting visitor numbers.
Zanny Merullo Steffgen: “I was accompanied not only by a knowledgeable local guide but also a representative from each of the communities we passed through.”
“I’m decidedly not a morning person, but sunrise from La Calavera overlook outside of the community of Llano Grande was well worth the middle-of-the-night wakeup call and short trek through the forest. Wrapped in a blanket, hot chocolate in hand, I watched as the layers of sacred mountains on the horizon seemed to print stripes of orange and yellow out into the sky.
There was no more cathartic way to wrap up a multi-day hike through the mountainous Sierra Norte outside of Oaxaca City. As a guest of the region’s self-governing cooperative of Zapotec communities, I’d experienced my first-ever temazcal traditional sweat lodge, learned to turn handmade chocolate into mole [traditional Mexican sauce) in the kitchen of the sweet Doña Rufina, taken a workshop on traditional plant medicine, and trekked a pre-Hispanic route through a forest eerily draped in Spanish moss.
During each leg of the journey, I was accompanied not only by a knowledgeable local guide but also a representative from each of the communities we passed through. Such direct contact with locals—part of the unique approach to ecotourism practiced by the cooperative—truly brought the land and its complex history to life.”
Zanny Merullo Steffgen is a chronically ill freelance writer and former Cambodia expat. Currently based in Colorado in the US, she writes full-time, focusing on stories about responsible travel. Her writing has appeared in Business Insider, Scuba Diving Magazine, Bluedot Living, Fodor’s and other publications.
In response to growing crowds in Dubrovnik and Hvar, Croatia is turning the spotlight to alternative destinations. Vis Island is one, with new walking and cycling trails opening alongside the Museum of Issa in 2026. With no airports or cruise stops and modest, locally-owned accommodation, it’s a place of secluded coves and caves, traditional villages and family-run accommodation.
Mary Novakovich: “This is Vis: Swimming and snorkeling in the clear waters of pebbly Srebrna beach, and drinking crisp white vugava wine.”
“Far-flung Vis, the furthest inhabited island from Croatia’s mainland, has a way to go before it catches up with the tourism boom seen elsewhere in the Adriatic, thanks to years of isolation when it was a Yugoslav military base. The exception is the neighboring island of Biševo, home to the insanely popular Blue Cave and queues of boats waiting their turn for their allotted 10 minutes inside. That’s not Vis.
This is Vis: Kayaking along its southern coast into the narrow gap between two towering cliffs guarding the sheltered pebbles that make up its most beautiful beach, Stiniva. Vis is watching the sun go down while eating octopus stew on the romantic terrace of Konoba Dalmatino in the tiny village of Rukavac. Vis is swimming and snorkeling in the clear waters of pebbly Srebrna beach, and drinking crisp white vugava wine made in countless vineyards in fertile valleys.
Vis is hiking towards the island’s highest peak, Mount Hum, passing the complex of caves in which future Yugoslav president Tito and his partisans hid during the last years of the Second World War. Vis is walking along the harbor past colorful fishing boats in pretty Komiža, or past sailing boats in Venetian Vis Town. That’s the Vis I love.”
Mary Novakovich is an award-winning travel journalist whose travelogue, ‘My Family and Other Enemies: Life and Travels in Croatia’s Hinterland’, won the British Guild of Travel Writers Travel Narrative Book of the Year and was also shortlisted for the Stanford Travel Book of the Year.
Southeastern Anatolia has undergone a revival after the 2023 earthquake, with investment in heritage restoration, cultural tourism and sustainable travel. The Liberation Museum will reopen in Şanlıurfa in 2026, while the birthplace of baklava, Gazientep, is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. A high-speed train will connect the two. Intrepid’s new 11-day Eastern Turkey Explorer trip includes making baklava with local artisans and a street food tour.
Lisa Morrow: “Visiting each place is an adventure and keeps me coming back.”
“When I first visited Şanlıurfa in 2001, Göbeklitepe [archaeological site just outside the city) was still being dug up. Inside the clamor of Şanlıurfa’s bazaar, worry bead-twirling men bedecked in lavender puşu, traditional headscarves, noisily sipped strong tea through sugar cubes held between their teeth.
On my fourth visit, I finally saw Göbeklitepe up-close—the archaeological find that changed how we think about history left me speechless, much like looking into the huge piercing eyes of Zeugma Girl in Gaziantep, displayed in the world’s largest mosaic museum. She’s made up of hundreds of intricate pieces of colored glass, as varied as the types of baklava for which Gaziantep, a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, is rightly famous.
Eating through the region’s specialties is a highlight, as is wandering the narrow laneways of a former Armenian neighborhood, discovering mosques with a distinctly Syrian design flair and my favorite, coming across a previously unnoticed curly-haired Hittite statue to swoon over in the Archaeological Museum. Visiting each place is an adventure and keeps me coming back.”
Lisa Morrow is an Australian-born author and travel writer who’s lived in Istanbul and other parts of Turkey for almost 15 years. She has a master’s degree in sociology, has written five books on Turkey, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, BBC Travel, Fodors, CNN Travel, World Nomads, The Smart Set, Hyperallergic and more.
Home to 26 major tribes and over 100 sub-tribes, this remote region in northeastern India is drawing travelers looking for community-led eco-tourism. With a new airport in Itanagar, upgraded roads and more accommodation, Arunachal Pradesh‘s rainforests, snow-capped Himalayan peaks and ancient monasteries have never been more accessible. As the first place in India to see the sun, 2026 will also see the inaugural five-day ‘Sunrise Festival’ take place in Dong village.
Shivya Nath: “Celebrations are rooted in the community—not performative for tourism.”
“The first thing I noticed was the tall filtration tower, made from large leaves held together with natural ropes and twigs, connected to a tall bamboo stem. A handful of women were gathered in the tent, soaking rice, roasting it, sealing the fermentation pot with leaves, extracting the liquid from the tower. They were chatting, laughing, humming unfamiliar tunes.
When I entered shyly, they welcomed me like an old friend and filled a bamboo stem with the fermented whitish liquid for me to try. Not the chai ubiquitous across India, this was ‘apong’—a potent rice wine brewed by women of the Galo tribe in Arunachal Pradesh’s Darka village during the Mopin Festival.
To partake in this agricultural celebration in India’s remote northeast, we had journeyed on a ferry across the mighty Brahmaputra River, and driven long hours from neighboring Assam into densely forested Arunachal Pradesh.
We slept in thatched grass huts, heard the hypnotic chanting of shamans late into the night (calming the spirit of animals to be sacrificed the next day), learnt about a self-sustainable way of life from Galo elders, and witnessed Galo women pay tribute to Mopin-Ane, the goddess of prosperity, in the ritual Popir dance. Unlike many parts of the country, these celebrations are rooted in the community—not performative for tourism, but conscious travelers are welcome to participate!”
Shivya Nath is an award-winning travel writer, author and sustainable tourism consultant who grew up in the Indian Himalayas. She pursued a nomadic life for nearly seven years, living with remote communities around the world, and writing stories at the intersection of travel, the environment and local communities.
Dubbed the ‘Camino of the East’, Romania’s new long-distance walking trail has been designed to connect travelers to lesser-known communities and share the economic benefits of tourism more widely in an underrated European destination.
Monica Suma: “A trail connecting travelers to remote villages, Europe’s last primeval forests and 12 UNESCO World Heritage sites is astonishing.”
“Fittingly dubbed as ‘the road that unites’, Romania’s award-winning, 870-mile (1,400-kilometer) long-distance trail excels at many things. But it’s the power of community that stands out. When the Terra Borza Teutonica addition of 106 miles (170 kilometers) was inaugurated in Zărnești in June 2025, a thousand people showed up to walk Via Transilvanica’s new segment. I was there, surrounded by regular folks—avid hikers—but also journalists, public figures, princes, foreign diplomats, EU officials and the Tășuleasa Social team [trail founders].
A trail connecting travelers to remote villages, Europe’s last primeval forests and 12 UNESCO World Heritage sites is astonishing. But meeting villagers living off the land, welcoming you with home-cooked meals at a family guesthouse and farm-grown produce is sustainable tourism at its best and the bedrock of Romanian culture.
The sculpted, uniquely crafted, andesite milestones signaling every mile makes an art lover like me truly appreciate the designs along the way—and witnessing the unveiling of the newest milestone by Bran Castle, linked to the Dracula legend, made it even more special. It marked 150 years since Queen Marie’s birth, a lifelong promoter of Romanian heritage, showcasing her crown.
Monica Suma is a freelance travel writer, editor and Lonely Planet guidebook author based in her native Bucharest, Romania, following a decade in New York City. A speaker of four languages, her work has been published in TIME, Nat Geo, airBaltic, Essentialist, BBC Travel and CNN Travel.
With its surf beaches, active volcanoes and ancient Mayan ruins, El Salvador is emerging as one of the world’s fastest-growing travel destinations, thanks to an effective crackdown on crime. But beyond the beaches and a couple of hours from the capital San Salvador is the 22-mile (36-kilometer) scenic Ruta de las Flores through the western highlands, connecting five colonial-era towns, and known for coffee plantations, waterfalls, murals, food markets and mountain air.
Laura French: “Finding undiscovered spots like this can be rare in today’s world, but that was the real magic of El Salvador for me.”
“I didn’t know what to expect when I went to El Salvador. But I found flower-bedecked villages, tumbling waterfalls, aquamarine lakes and stark volcanic landscapes. That combination was at its best on the Ruta de las Flores, a 22-mile stretch of smooth, winding road through the country’s western highlands, stringing together five colonial-era towns. I drove between them by moped, wind in the hair, mountains billowing around, stopping at eclectic markets and historic coffee fincas.
Every town had its quaint market square and a church built by the Spanish colonialists, set between cobbled, hilly streets; I especially loved Concepcíon de Ataco—all sleepy charm and tranquil garden cafes—and Juayúa, which packs out on Saturdays with a weekly food festival.
Feeling adventurous one day, I booked a ‘seven waterfalls’ hike with a local guide that had me scaling various rockfaces as curtains of water crashed down in the jungle. But it was the unexpected finds, discovered on half-accidental diversions, that really charmed me; Los Ausoles, where clouds of geothermal steam burst out from the earth; Santa Teresa hot springs, where I dipped into bath-warm pools, sulphur rising from the rock; and Cascada La Golondrinera, a tucked-away waterfall etched into marbled cliffs, and no-one around.
Finding undiscovered spots like this can be rare in today’s world, but that was the real magic of El Salvador for me. It isn’t yet touristy enough for it to be overrun, and you feel like you’re constantly discovering something new.”
Laura French is a UK-based freelance travel writer with a passion for all things outdoors. She has written for National Geographic Traveller, Wanderlust, Rough Guides, The Independent, The Telegraph, The i Paper, Culture Trip, Lonely Planet and others, and was formerly deputy features editor at Travel Weekly UK.
Newly dubbed the European Capital of Culture, the coastal city of Oulu, just below the Arctic Circle in Finland, has a year-long program championing Arctic nature, creative innovation and Indigenous heritage such as Arctic Food Lab events to celebrate the traditions and possibilities of northern gastronomy, and soundscapes and hands-on workshops rooted in nature-based living from the Sámi people, the EU’s only Indigenous population.
Dhruti Shah: “Oulu is definitely one for nature lovers. There are forests and parks everywhere and it’s so easy to walk from urban to wilderness in one smooth move.”
“It’s fair to say Oulu in northern Finland is a place where you can get out of your comfort zone, experiment, and embrace your inner geek all at the same time. It’s where I first cycled in winter snow, played in my first air guitar jam session ahead of the World Air Guitar Championships, and became obsessed with blueberry juice.
Situated 124 miles (200 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle in the region of Northern Ostrobothnia, Oulu is definitely one for nature lovers. There are forests and parks everywhere and it’s so easy to walk from urban to wilderness in one smooth move. Your lungs will also thank you as the city tops the European Environment Agency’s charts for air quality. I definitely praised the clear skies in my first ever encounter with the mind-blowing Northern Lights during a tour with award-winning photographer Thomas Kast.
I recommend a quick visit to see the Kivisydän underground car park and civil defence shelter, just for the way it’s carved out of stunning natural rock—there are even plans to use it as an exhibition space. But when you’re ready to relax, head for a sauna at Koivurannan Saunalautta on the Oulujoki River. After you’ve warmed up, you can take a dip into an ice hole if you’re brave enough…”
Dhruti Shah is an award-winning journalist and former BBC staffer who has written for The Guardian, The New Humanitarian, New Humanist and The Washington Post. Focusing on unearthing stories about belonging and lifting underrepresented figures, she’s also the author of nature-based financial literacy book ‘Bear Markets and Beyond’.
With its ancient bristlecone pines, snow-fed alpine lakes and some of the darkest skies in America, Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada remains a national park that’s largely untouched by mass tourism. But as the park gains recognition, it faces proposed federal budget cuts which would slash national park funding by over a third, while rising entry fees for foreign visitors risk making destinations like Great Basin less accessible.
Miyo McGinn: “Head outside at night—the stars there were some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
“Great Basin is the least-visited national park in the contiguous US. And after spending a few nights there this summer I am here to tell you that it’s worthy of a lot more of our time and attention. Apparently, most visitors go for the limestone cave system, but I’m afraid of being underground and instead opted to explore the park’s higher-altitude offerings, which are gorgeous in their own right.
The highlight was a six-ish mile hike to the moraine of the only glacier in Nevada and the southernmost glacier in the US. On the way up, the trail passes through a grove of bristlecone pines, which are the oldest living beings on Earth and can only be found in small pockets of the southwest.
The view from 13,064-foot Wheeler Peak, the park’s high point, was also incredible. But whether you choose to spend your days at Great Basin above ground or below, definitely head outside at night—the stars there were some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
Miyo McGinn is Adventure.com’s US National Parks Correspondent and a freelance writer, fact-checker, and editor with bylines in Outside, Grist, and High Country News. When she’s not on the road in her campervan, you can find her skiing, hiking, and swimming in the mountains and ocean near her home in Seattle, Washington.
****
Adventure.com strives to be a low-emissions travel publication. We are powered by, but editorially independent of, Intrepid Travel, the world’s largest travel B Corp, who help ensure Adventure.com maintains high standards of sustainability in our work and activities. You can visit our sustainability page or read our Contributor Impact Guidelines for more information.
Hailing from all across the globe, Adventure.com's team of editors is at the forefront of what's happening (and what's not-so-happening) in the world of travel and adventure.
