I've been thinking about the rise of "destination dupes"—the travel trend where you skip the famous place for its lesser-known alternative. Porto instead of Lisbon. Slovenia instead of Switzerland. Albania instead of Greece.
On paper, it sounds like slow travel values: fewer crowds, more connection, less consumption. But I've noticed something in myself. Sometimes I'm drawn to the obscure place not because it's meaningful to me, but because saying "I went to Albania" signals something that "I went to Italy" doesn't.
That's not slow travel. That's just status-seeking in hiking boots.
Here's where it gets complicated though. If you've been to Italy five times, maybe Slovenia is the right next step. When I was a student in Italy, I couldn't afford to ski there—Slovenia was the budget move. That wasn't adventure glory seeking, that was practical. And after you've seen Tuscany and Umbria and the Dolomites, the Slovenian Alps offer something genuinely different, not just contrarian.
But I'd also ask: have you really seen the Western canon if you've never been to Rome? There are travelers skipping the Colosseum for Tirana who've never actually stood in the Forum. The beaten path exists because some places are foundational. Italy still has villages I'll never reach.
Maybe the honest framework is this: go to Rome before you "discover" alternatives to it. Return to places you love until they become relationships, not stories. And when you choose the obscure place, ask yourself—am I going because it calls to me, or because it sounds better at dinner parties?
Sometimes a familiar piazza and an afternoon with nowhere to be is enough. And sometimes the next village over in a country you already love is slower travel than a flight to somewhere you've never heard of.
If you haven't been to Portugal, I just don't see how to skip Lisbon and feel you know Portgual. If you haven't been to Spain, not seeing Barcelona or Madrid to only go to Taragona (as much as I love it) is short changing the first time travel. So many articles are trending about destination dupes. Italy if you haven't been to the Amalfi could you go to Puglia, Cinque Terrre, Tropea, Portofino? Certainly. For those who haven't traveled should we over hype the off the beaten path as always better?
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