Voices, methodology, news.
Long-form pieces and short field notes from the people building the platform. New writing roughly every two weeks.
Alternatives to the Cliffs of Moher: quieter Atlantic cliffs and peninsulas in Ireland
The Cliffs of Moher had about 1.5 million visitors in 2025, more than the whole of County Clare gets in overnight tourists. The west coast has other cliffs, peninsulas and islands. Some are a bus ride from Ennis.
By Robert Ranzi
Alternatives to Venice: five quieter towns on the northern Adriatic
Fewer than 48,000 people live in Venice's historic centre, which recorded 9.1 million overnight stays in 2023, before counting day-trippers. Canals, Byzantine gold and the lion of St Mark can all be found a train or bus ride away.
By Robert Ranzi
Tuscany without the crowds: five quieter alternatives to Florence
In the first ten months of 2025 Florence counted 9.7 million overnight stays, and about eight million day-trippers come on top each year. The Renaissance art, hill towns and green valleys people come for are also a train ride away, on two lines out of the city.
By Robert Ranzi
Alternatives to Český Krumlov: six Czech towns without the crowds
About 13,000 people live in Český Krumlov, and local estimates put visitors at around two million a year. If what you want is an intact old town with a square and a chateau, Bohemia and Moravia have several. Start with Telč.
By Robert Ranzi
Alternatives to Lake Bled: five quieter corners of the Slovenian Alps
Bled had 1.15 million overnight stays in 2024. About eight thousand people live there. The lake, the island church and the castle on the cliff all have equivalents elsewhere in Slovenia, mostly a valley or two away.
By Robert Ranzi
Dubrovnik without the cruise ships: the quiet Adriatic, top to bottom.
Dubrovnik alternatives along the same sea: Venetian Koper, grand Trieste, lagoon-town Comacchio, mosaic-filled Ravenna and the complete brick walls of Corinaldo — most of them on one regional rail line.
By Robert Ranzi
Instead of Santorini: five places with the light, without the queue.
Santorini alternatives, taken seriously: Faial's real volcano in the Azores, Møn's white cliffs over turquoise water, Salento's Greek-speaking white villages, Delphi's light, and Specchia's golden-hour evenings.
By Robert Ranzi
Quieter than Hallstatt: five mining towns and mountain valleys.
Looking for Hallstatt alternatives? Five quieter places with the same DNA — UNESCO mining towns Banská Štiavnica and Idrija, village-sized Špania Dolina, and the unspoilt alpine valleys of the Lesachtal and Solčavsko.
By Robert Ranzi
Nice to Tuscany by train: the Côte d'Azur door.
The fourth Door to Italy crosses at Ventimiglia, rides the Riviera di Ponente to Genoa, then turns inland — Lunigiana and Garfagnana instead of the Cinque Terre queue. Eight days on regional rails.
By Robert Ranzi
Quieter than the Cinque Terre: five Italian alternatives.
Looking for Cinque Terre alternatives? Five quieter places in Italy that deliver what you actually came for — car-free Monte Isola, the canals of Comacchio, Sardinia’s Sinis peninsula, Specchia in Salento and vertical Castelmezzano.
By Robert Ranzi
Ljubljana to Trieste and down the Adriatic: the Karst door.
Villa Opicina is the second Trieste door: two regional trains a day from Ljubljana, a tram that came back after nine years, and a trunk that runs down the Adriatic to the sheep roads of Abruzzo.
By Robert Ranzi
Munich to Umbria by train: the Brenner door, taken slowly.
Door number two serves the largest audience in the program and the most complicated crossing: the Italia in Tour pass does not work until south of Bolzano. The honest way from Munich to Umbria, in seven days.
By Robert Ranzi
Europe doesn't have too many tourists. It has too few destinations.
Every summer the same headlines return: Venice overrun, Barcelona in revolt, the Greek islands buckling under cruise ships. The instinct is to conclude that Europe is full. It isn't.
By Robert Ranzi
Europe still has language islands. A field guide to the seven the platform now covers.
A continent everyone thinks they know still holds at least a dozen working minority-language enclaves. Seven now have destination pages: Miranda do Douro, four Alpine German communities, the displaced Lemko of the Polish Beskid Niski, and the Aromanian edge at Trikala.
By Robert Ranzi
The German language islands of the Alps
In the Italian Alps, ten or twelve communities still speak languages their ancestors brought south from Bavaria, the Tyrol and Valais in the Middle Ages. They are not dialects of standard German. They are older than standard German, and most of them will be gone within a generation.
By Robert Ranzi
The EU's first Sustainable Tourism Strategy: what it actually means for travellers
Commissioner Tzitzikostas's long-promised strategy is nearly here, and the European Parliament's transport committee has already told the Commission exactly what it wants inside. Here is what is real, what is still coming, and why it matters if you are planning a trip to Europe.
By Robert Ranzi
The mayors of disappearing villages: portraits from three countries
In Basilicata, the Auvergne and the Albanian Alps, the people in charge of places almost no one visits.
By Robert Ranzi
Vienna to Ravenna by train: Italy's Carinthian door.
A twelve-month editorial program built around the seven railway crossings into Italy. The first door opens at Tarvisio Boscoverde and the trunk runs all the way to Ravenna.
By Robert Ranzi
A 59 euro case for the other Italy.
Trenitalia just put five days of regional rail on sale for 59 euro. No high-speed, no Lombardy, no Cinque Terre, no Bolzano. The exclusions are the editorial filter.
By Robert Ranzi