How To Shift Your Travel Bucket List Off The Beaten Track

Forget the bucket list. Tread a path truly unexplored for a soul-satisfying adventure instead, says Francisca Kellett.

Try the Anti-Atlas mountains for a path less travelled with Intrepid Travel

Curating An Off The Beaten Track Bucket List

What’s on your bucket list? Gilgit-Baltistan? Maldonado? The Anti-Atlas? No, I didn’t think so. Bucket list destinations are depressingly familiar: Machu Picchu, Bali, Venice… But who can blame us? These ‘aspirational’ go-tos are all either visually gorgeous or culturally fascinating – or both – and travel companies, press articles and social media are constantly telling us that these really are the places we must visit.

‘It’s lazy marketing,’ says Jarrod Kyte, product and impact director at Steppes Travel. ‘And the countries promoted don’t need those extra visitor numbers – far from it.’ Thankfully, he says, there is a push back against traditional well-worn tourist trails, with in-the-know travellers opting instead for what he calls ‘untold stories’ – trips that go against the usual Instagram-influenced must-visit lists.

‘It’s an antidote to overtourism, helping to alleviate the pressure points and spread out tourist revenue,’ says Jarrod. ‘And they give clients a much more fulfilling experience.’ Who, after all, wants to queue for a selfie on Venice’s Grand Canal, or peer over other tourists’ shoulders to get a glimpse of a Unesco world heritage site?

Travel by train on the Deccan Odyssey in India with Steppes Travel, hosted by none other than William Dalrymple

Take Turkey, says Jarrod. ‘The country is vast, so why do people only focus on 10 percent of it?’ Instead, Steppes arranges in-depth journeys by train, road and boat through the east of the country, a ravishingly beautiful, relatively undiscovered area that’s incredibly rich in history and home to gorgeous family-run lodges, serving delicious food and a warm welcome. The sites, he says, are off the chart, including Göbekli Tepe, the oldest temple in the world, and the ancient, imposing statues of Mount Nemrut, described by author and historian William Dalrymple as just as impressive as the Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat – but with none of the crowds.

Dalrymple is one of the experts used by Steppes to bring lesser-known areas to life, such as on the eight-day private train journey on board the Deccan Odyssey in India, travelling through Maharashtra and discovering below-the-radar stories such as the country’s growing wine industry, and the Unesco world heritage sites of Ajanta and Ellora, with their intricate rock-cut cave temples.

Intrepid Travel has a similarly strong stance against obvious bucket list destinations, instead publishing an annual ‘Not Hot List’. According to Intrepid Travel’s Erica Kritikides, the point of the list is to shine a light on those lesser-known places ‘where tourism can bring outstretched benefits to the host communities’. It includes both alternative regions in popular countries such as Morocco – head to the Anti-Atlas mountains for a tourist-free switch up from the busy Atlas mountains, for example – and emerging destinations you might not have heard of, such as Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan or Maldonado in Uruguay.

Take two wheels rather than four in the Côa Valley in Portugal with The Slow Cyclist

Or consider The Slow Cyclist, which offers e-bike journeys to alternative destinations with a focus on sedate (as the name suggests) travel, encompassing comfortable, locally owned accommodation en route. Highlights include a trip through the little-visited Côa Valley in Portugal, an area of oak forests, rugged gorges, hilltop villages, and one of Europe’s largest and most ambitious rewilding projects.

Part of the appeal of visiting these destinations is, of course, the quiet. ‘We’ve seen a number of travellers looking for places to soak in the rare luxury of genuine, unfettered silence,’ says Tom Marchant, co-founder of luxury tour operator Black Tomato. That quest for stillness is only strengthening, he says, with clients requesting a lingering break from their normal, hectic lives. ‘We’re seeing record numbers of people, from families to solo travellers, clearing out of their respective cities for longer, often taking month-long resets.’ An example is Black Tomato’s journey to New Zealand to discover an alternative to the northern lights – the aurora australis, or southern lights. The trip includes traversing the world’s largest international dark sky reserve – a 4,300 sq/kms expanse including Mount Cook, Lake Pukaki and much of the Southern Alps – accompanied by expert astronomy guides, and staying in luxury, off-the-map lodges along the way.

If your heart is set on a particular personal bucket list place – such as the Seychelles – you can opt for a trip that has genuine positive impact. Seas4Life, for example, focuses on ocean safaris on the outer islands, far from the big resorts, on boats used for scientific research. Guests are guided by experts to conservation projects, as well as helping gather vital data, all while swanning around an extraordinary tropical archipelago.

Avoid Kruger and head to Samara in Great Karoo with Journeys with Purpose

Or if a South African safari has always been top of your wishlist, you can side-step hotspots such as Kruger National Park and instead plump for the far more peaceful – but no less dramatic – Great Karoo, travelling with Journeys with Purpose and staying at Samara. Run by mother-daughter team Sarah and Isabelle Tompkins, Samara invites guests to join a master tracker to see cheetahs and giraffes on foot, and contribute both to the reserve’s black rhino reintroduction project and to the local community through Vuyani Safe Haven.

What these trips have in common is a sense of exclusivity in its most literal sense, where you might be one of only a handful of people exploring an area, or even have it to yourself. And if that isn’t bucket list aspirational, then what is?