Orvieto cathedral rising above the town's rooftops, Umbria

Orvieto — Umbria · Italy →Photo: bluejayphoto / iStock

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99 places carrying our editorial line — every one of them genuinely undertouristed, every one of them with a named editor and a real local voice.

Austria

1 destination →

A village and chapel above steep hay meadows in the Lesachtal

1.0 / 10

Kärnten (Carinthia) · Austria

Lesachtal

One of the Alps' most unspoilt valleys: mountain farms, a UNESCO bread-making tradition, water mills and a pilgrimage basilica, with no through-traffic.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Slow Food Trails

Bulgaria

1 destination →

A river winding through forested gorges of the central Rhodopes

1.5 / 10

Yuzhen tsentralen (South Central) · Bulgaria

Rhodope Mountains (Central Rhodopes)

Bulgaria's green mountain south: Pomak villages, the bagpipe heartland of Shiroka Laka, the Trigrad gorge where myth sends Orpheus into the underworld.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Sacred Landscapes

Ireland

1 destination →

2.0 / 10

Cavan · Ireland

Cavan

The Lakeland County: 365 lakes scattered through drumlin country, with the source of the Shannon hidden on a mountain along the Northern Ireland border.

Mountain Villages Without Cars The Forgotten Coasts

Italy

4 destinations →

Castel Savoia in winter at Gressoney-Saint-Jean, Aosta Valley

3.0 / 10

Valle d'Aosta · Italy

Gressoney and the Walser Lys Valley

The upper Lys Valley, where a medieval German-speaking people settled under Monte Rosa and still speak their own alpine tongue.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Border Country

Piazza San Benedetto in Norcia, at the foot of the Monti Sibillini in Umbria.

2.1 / 10

Umbria · Italy

Norcia & Monti Sibillini

Saint Benedict's hometown under the Sibillini ridge, rebuilding since the 2016 earthquake; the Castelluccio lentils still flower every July.

Monastic Europe Slow Food Trails

3.0 / 10

Friuli-Venezia Giulia · Italy

Sappada / Plodn

A German-speaking Dolomite village of fifteen hamlets, where the Piave river is born and the Carnival masks have been carved from the same wood for centuries.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Border Country

The Tratturo Magno drovers' road climbing towards the ruins of Peltuinum, Abruzzo

1.5 / 10

Abruzzo · Italy

Tratturo Magno

Italy's greatest droving road: 244 km of grass highway from L'Aquila to Foggia, anchored at Castel del Monte, shepherd capital of the Gran Sasso.

Transhumance Routes Mountain Villages Without Cars

Romania

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A carved wooden monastery church in Maramureș, flowers in the foreground

2.0 / 10

Nord-Vest · Romania

Maramureș

Romania's living peasant north: UNESCO wooden churches, carved gates, the painted Merry Cemetery, and a forestry steam train up the Vaser valley.

Craft Villages Mountain Villages Without Cars

Slovenia

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Aerial view of the Kolpa river and a small weir near Metlika, Bela Krajina

1.8 / 10

Bela krajina · Jugovzhodna Slovenija · Slovenia

Kolpa (Bela Krajina)

Slovenia's clear-water river border with Croatia: swimming and kayak descents through birch-forest country in the country's forgotten southern corner.

Mountain Villages Without Cars Border Country