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- Written by: Mike Walker
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Active Traveller 2026/27
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A month ago, I visited Seiser Alm: the high-alpine pasture, flanked by the dramatic peaks of the Dolomites, that’s become one of the most famous tourist attractions in Italy. Unfortunately, like many of the country’s best-known sites (Venice, San Gimignano, the Amalfi Coast), Seiser Alm has now become something of a poster child for the pitfalls of over-tourism.
I’m lucky enough to live close by, so I could visit during the off-season, when the hotels are shut and the place is largely empty. But in summer, despite cars being banned from the plateau, there are always long queues for the cable car, and the walking trails are unpleasantly rammed. The valley I visited the following weekend, by contrast (which also offers beautiful walks and breathtaking views over the Dolomites) attracts just a fraction of the visitors. Sarntal is just an hour’s drive away from Seiser Alm. And yet this “secret” valley is almost unknown, even to locals from the surrounding Süd-Tirol.
It’s a pattern that you see repeated elsewhere in Italy, and indeed, all around the world. Tourists will flock to the same Instagram-friendly spot, ignoring the attractions of similar, less-crowded sites nearby. This issue focuses on several lesser-known alternatives to world-famous destinations.
When Martin Bissig headed off on a mountain bike trip to Patagonia (p.54), he gave the Torres del Paine a swerve. Sophie Nicholson dodged the crowds in the Dolomites by running the Alta Via (p.40), and when Will Renwick flew into Dubrovnik, he didn’t even visit the historic Croatian city—instead, exploring the near-deserted hills and islands around it (p.48). The truth is that beauty is never confined to the most celebrated corners of a country: Dan Milner even found it in the oil-soaked scrapyards of Kathmandu (p.74).
And while seeing the headline attraction leaves you with the same selfie as everyone else, exploring lesser-known alternatives often leads to a more authentic, unfiltered experience. Which is exactly what I found in Sarntal. But we’ll keep that between us, agreed?
See you out there.
- Tristan Kennedy, Editor
Active Traveller 2025/26
Just before we sent this issue to the printers, a press release landed in my inbox with huge news from the world of conservation. Using techniques reminiscent of Jurassic Park, an American company called Colossal Biosciences had apparently achieved the impossible by bringing back the dire wolf—a species that had been extinct for over 12,000 years. The choice to revive an animal that features heavily in Game of Thrones was a deliberate one. Colossal knew the internet would lose its mind, and even went as far as to arrange a photoshoot with George R. R. Martin, author of the GoT books.
Reading the flurry of news reports that followed, I felt conflicted. It was slightly depressing that the world’s top geneticists felt compelled to specifically select a meme-able species for de-extinction. But Colossal depends on investor funding, and the publicity was invaluable. At the same time, their science was genuinely game-changing. The new gene-editing techniques they’d developed were already being used to in the conservation of other species, including critically-endangered red wolves.
Similar questions about how to strike a balance between commercial imperatives and conservation goals underpin Stuart Kenny’s story about bears in this issue (p.40) and Natalie Berry’s article about the Galápagos (p.60),
She found that many of the creatures that inspired Darwin’s original theories of evolution and extinction are now endangered. As elsewhere, visitors often negatively impact the very wildlife they’ve come to see. And yet the income they bring helps fund conservation, and provides powerful financial incentives to protect animal habitats. In the face of the ongoing climate crisis and what scientists are calling the sixth mass extinction event, it’s easy to despair. Travel can seem like just another contributing factor. But the protection of biodiversity is one area where tourism can actually have a hugely positive impact. Of course, it has to be done right. But if we can bring back a 12,000-year-old wolf from the dead, finding the right balance shouldn’t be beyond us. We might be in dire straits, but the dire wolf gives me hope.
- Tristan Kennedy, Editor
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