This Hidden Island Was Simply Named the No. 1 Underrated Vacation spot for 2026

Overtourism is more and more high of thoughts, however one firm helps steer vacationers away from crowded cities by itemizing one of the best lesser-known locations.

Tour firm Intrepid Journey launched its “Not Scorching Checklist” for 2026, highlighting hidden gems that see fewer worldwide vacationers, however function new investments and improved infrastructure, the corporate shared with Journey + Leisure. These lesser visited spots embrace locations like Tiwai Island in Sierra Leone, which was the highest underrated vacation spot for 2026.

Famend for its primate inhabitants, wealthy Gola Forest, and 2025 inscription as a UNESCO World Heritage website, the island is ripe to welcome guests. Intrepid, which runs an 8-day tour within the nation, mentioned Sierra Leone as an entire solely welcomed 60,000 worldwide in a single day guests in 2024.

“We all know that 80 p.c of vacationers go to simply 10 p.c of the world’s tourism locations and we acknowledge that we now have a job to play in influencing that. The choice standards for our Not Scorching Checklist displays an strategy to tourism that we’ve lengthy championed,” Erica Kritikides, the final supervisor of experiences at Intrepid Journey, mentioned in a press release shared with T+L. “Whereas some locations obtain thousands and thousands—even tens of thousands and thousands—of holiday makers annually, many lesser-known locations go just about unnoticed by vacationers.”

Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan Mountain Vary took the second spot on the checklist, described by the journey firm as a “trekker’s paradise.” The mountains are house to the Kyrgyz Nomad Path, a greater than 1,200-mile-long route that expanded this 12 months. Intrepid’s 10-day tour explores the high-altitude routes whereas staying in community-run yurts for an genuine expertise.

Mexico’s Sierra Norte got here in third on the checklist, positioned in what the corporate referred to as “Mexico’s less-visited highlands.” That is the place the Pueblos Mancomunados sits, a cooperative of eight self-governing Zapotec villages, now simpler to achieve due to the opening of the Barranca Larga–Ventanilla freeway.

Kritikides mentioned a “key consideration once we’re growing journeys is how we will unfold the financial advantages of tourism extra broadly and the way our presence in a vacation spot can positively impression the communities we’re visiting.”

To compile the checklist, Intrepid thought-about locations that had been less-visited with decrease consciousness, demonstrated tourism readiness with new initiatives, and had specific relevance in 2026.

That is Intrepid’s full checklist of “not scorching” locations for 2026.

1. Tiwai Island, Sierra Leone
2. Tien Shan Mountain Vary, Kyrgyzstan
3. Sierra Norte, Mexico
4. Vis Island, Croatia
5. Gaziantep, Turkey
6. Arunachal Pradesh, India
7. By way of Transilvanica, Romania
8. Ruta de las Flores, El Salvador
9. Oulu, Finland
10. Nice Basin Nationwide Park, Nevada, United States