UNDER THE RADAR TRIPS
WORDS: ORLA THOMAS. PHOTOGRAPH: STEFANO POLITI MARKOVINA / AWL IMAGES
With overtourism rarely out of the headlines and cities such as Bruges, Barcelona and Venice considering capping visitor numbers, there’s a new trend – undertourism, or going to places that get hardly any tourists, precisely because they don’t. Tour operator Intrepid has responded by appointing a chief purpose officer, Leigh Barnes, whose role is to look beyond profits and improve the diversity and sustainability of the trips the company offers.
For visitor and visited alike, it’s win-win, says Leigh. ‘In an undertouristed destination you have better interaction with locals and a genuine warmth that can be missing from busier places,’ he says. ‘It’s also about cash dispersion – getting money into local communities that need it most. Tourism can be a lifeline for rural areas in need of a sustainable revenue source.’
Often it’s not which country or city you’re visiting, but where you go within it that matters. Indonesia is a nation of 17 ,000 islands, but the vast majority of tourists visit only one: Bali. Leigh suggests Sulawesi (pictured) instead: ‘There’s amazing trekking through the evergreen valleys and bamboo forests of the Tana Toraja region, and you can stay in traditional villages.’ Intrepid have used figures from the World Tourism Organisation to identify other countries with low tourism density (where annual visitors number 20 per cent or less of the local population), and plenty to offer visitors in search of new adventures. Our favourites are: Moldova, known for its wine and unspoiled countryside, Tajikistan, with its mountainous terrain and welcoming villages making it a good, off-beat choice for hikers, and Mongolia, which offers the stark beauty of the steppe and a chance to experience the nomadic way of life.