Alsace |
| Wow, it’s hilarious to see what Americans think is off the beaten path. Not a single one of these places is! |
Please enlighten us with your suggestions. |
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Please don’t think I am a troll but Russia, at least st Pete and Moscow.
Was there in 2019 and it blew me away. Hopefully there is still going back to what was. |
The topic isn’t “off the beaten path,” it’s underrated. Sorry about your reading comprehension skills. |
| I was traveling in Europe once and came across a quaint little town known as Paris. Beautiful architecture, outstanding restaurants, and extraordinary museums with unmatched art collections. Plus they have a Disneyland. Would highly recommend it to anyone looking for something different. |
Ah, yes, the “traveler” who hates tourists and views travel destinations as commodities that lose value when they are in high supply has entered the chat. |
| Namibia |
| Syria |
It’s not one of the “hot” places in Western Europe people always seem to hit first - Paris, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona etc. I went all over most of Europe with my family as a teen and Portugal just wasn’t on the radar. Also had a 20s something cousin recently spend a month in Spain and just a day or so in Lisbon and was annoyed we didn’t rave about Lisbon more so she would’ve spent more time there, which she thought was way better than Spain. |
+1 to Oman. No idea who LiLo is though |
| Montenegro but inland, mountains, river canyons, etc. The coast is amazing but not "off the beaten path." |
Air Portugal started offering cheap flights several years ago and it's been a super hot destination with Americans since then. It's up there with Iceland as travel fads. Even my un-hip retired inlaws have been there. |
Just got back from Portugal. Portugal has less "tourist attractions" than most other Western European countries. Portugal's food is not nearly renowned as it's neighbor, Spain. It's top beach region, the Algarve, is said to be populated by trashy Brits on package holiday. There are not stunning mountain areas for hiking, like the Alps. Portugal is a poor country, and appears a bit shabby in places. In some places, like Porto and the Azores, you can't flush your toilet paper. I somehow found RT tickets to Portugal from IAD for late June for under $500 on multiple airlines (it was under $400 on one of them), so despite never having given a though of going to Portugal, snapped up the tickets and planned a vacation. And you know what? It far exceeded expectations. We discovered that less "tourist attractions" means less tourist traps. For that reason, Lisbon was a gem. The food was good enough, and it was cheap. The Algarve had it's fair share of Brits, but we were selective in where we stayed and went. The shabbiness didn't bother us...we're used to it....the people were super friendly and it was safe. That matters much more than shabbiness. Sure, we didn't get a spectacular hike in, but the hikes in the Algarve and Sao Miguel were nice. And as long as you have a bidet and a god shower, the toilet paper thing doesn't matter. Two of the three of us are begging to go back there next year. |
Or a place like Brussels (or DC!), which everyone says is boring and therefore is "rated" poorly. |