Month by month, the least crowded destinations to visit. Choose when you travel and we'll tell you where to go.
On the border between Piedmont and Liguria, the Alta Via del Sale runs above 2,000 metres along an ancient military gravel road between Italy and France. Open only in the short summer window and with limited entry, it remains one of the wildest and most silent high-altitude routes in the Alps.
Almost deserted
In the province of Pordenone, High Route number 6 crosses the Friulian Dolomites, the wildest and most rugged of the entire Dolomite range, with no ski lifts at all. The huts are few and far apart, and encounters on the trails rarer still: it is the realm of solitude in the high mountains.
Almost deserted
Looking for an alternative to Neuschwanstein? Here are 13 fairy-tale castles and fortresses in Italy and Europe, without the queues of 6,000 visitors a day.
Almost deserted
A vast highland of primeval forests and crystalline lakes above 1,000 metres, where summers are cool and winters bring skiing among ancient larch pines. Calabria's mountain secret.
Almost deserted
In the Belluno Dolomites National Park, the Cimonega group is an isolated corner of the Vette Feltrine, watched over by the Feltre-Bodo bivouac. It is one of the few places in the Dolomites where solitude is truly guaranteed, far from the great tourist flows.
Almost deserted
Between the Po Valley and the Varaita Valley, in the Cottian Alps of the Cuneo area, a multi-day circuit around the pyramid of Monviso, crossing over into France. High-altitude trails and refuges light years away from the beach and city tourism of summer.
Almost deserted
Sauris (Zahre) is a German-speaking linguistic island in the Carnic Alps, in the province of Udine, reachable only through a narrow gorge: getting there takes time, and that is exactly what keeps it far from the crowds. A loop among a turquoise lake, alpine huts and ham, in the heart of one of Friuli's most secluded valleys.
Almost deserted
In a village with an almost-unknown Romanesque castle, they produce Arnad DOP lard, cured in wooden containers with alpine herbs according to a centuries-old recipe.
Almost deserted
Bakkehuset, the Rahbeks' home in Frederiksberg: period rooms, a historic garden and the literary salons frequented by H.C. Andersen.
Almost deserted
Tapia pisada walls, artisan workshops, a pre-Columbian trail and silence: Barichara is Colombia's most beautiful borgo and its least crowded.
Almost deserted
Bienno in Valle Camonica: water-powered forges still in use, artisan workshops and Renaissance frescoes in one of Italy's most beautiful borgos.
Almost deserted
Biertan's UNESCO fortified church in Transylvania: medieval bastions, watchtowers, and a room where quarreling couples were locked in to make peace.
Almost deserted