There’s nothing quite like flying off to a town that’s a bit off-road and realizing it’s an absolute gem in bloom. And, likewise, there are few things as disappointing as going to a trendy city and realizing that all the hype is just hot air. But that’s the trip, we guess. Finding out if you think a place is overrated or underrated is part of the fun.
But if you want to take some of that serendipity out of the process, a study by a luggage storage company Bounce has established a ranking of the most underrated city breaks in the world. The study looked at destinations and ranked them based on the amount of things to do, the proportion of those things rated five stars, and the number of annual international visitors.
What if a city is full of top notch stuff but doesn’t get many visitors? Well, Bounce thinks that’s underrated.
The top of the Bounce study is Rhodes in Greece, thanks in large part to its bucket of Unesco World Heritage Sites and its well-preserved medieval center. Despite being doused in sunshine and offering a treasure trove of history stuffRhodes receives only a few million visitors a year.
Tied for second are Marrakesh in Moroccowhich is getting ahead thanks to its impressive number of five stars, and the Portuguese city of Portwhich (despite a tourism boom in recent years) still receives surprisingly few visitors – only about 2.49 million or so – per year.
Interestingly, however, Bounce’s study didn’t just focus on underrated cities. It also rated destinations that attract tons of visitors but don’t get many five-star reviews, also revealing the world’s most overrated city breaks.
The top of the overstated stack is Paris, which suffers in rankings because relatively few – just 19% – of its many attractions are rated five stars. The French capital is followed by New York and Londonwho waver for similar reasons.
Of course, it’s worth mentioning that the more attractions and visitors a city has, the more likely you are to get unhappy reviews. People, huh?
Either way, here’s Bounce’s list of the world’s ten most underrated urban getaways.
- RhodesGreece
- MarrakeshMorocco
- PortPortugal
- HeraklionGreece
- Rio de JaneiroBrazil
- KrakowPoland
- LimaPeru
- HonoluluUNITED STATES
- HurghadaEgypt
- NiceFrance
And here is the list of the most overrated destinations in the study.
- ParisFrance
- New YorkUNITED STATES
- LondonUK
- IstanbulTurkey
- MilanoItaly
- ViennaAustria
- Los AngelesUNITED STATES
- AntalyaTurkey
- RomeItaly
- amsterdamNetherlands
If you want to know more, you can read the full Bounce study here.
did you see that these are the greenest cities in Europe in 2022?
More: the new rules you need to know before visiting Europe’s beaches this summer.
Comments are closed.