The Intrepid 2027 Not Hot List has arrived, and it is, as ever, the kind of document worth reading slowly over coffee rather than scanning on a phone. Ten destinations. Ten places that sit, at this precise moment, on the right side of the line between undiscovered and discovered, places where, the travel and touring company argues, a visitor’s presence can still generate outsized positive impact rather than merely adding to an existing footprint.
Developed from the insights of Intrepid‘s global network of local leaders and destination experts, the list has been published annually since 2018. In that time it has surfaced places that subsequently entered the mainstream conversation: Kyrgyzstan appeared here before it became a fixture in adventure travel features; Uruguay before the South American moment fully arrived. The 2027 edition, then, is worth taking seriously.
The Intrepid 2027 Not Hot List in Full
The ten destinations are: Samburu National Reserve in Kenya; Mestia, Georgia; the Northern Highlands of Jordan; Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada; Alonnisos, Greece; Dili, Timor-Leste; the Pekoe Trail, Sri Lanka; Liepāja, Latvia; Carretera Austral, Chile; and Dalsland, Sweden. It is a list that rewards a second look. Alonnisos sits in the Sporades, quieter and more deliberately protected than its Cycladic cousins. Liepāja is a Latvian port city with an art nouveau quarter and a music culture that has nothing to do with the capital. Dalsland, in western Sweden, is lake country of a particular, resinous kind. These are not consolation prizes for people who couldn’t get a table in Positano. They are genuinely different propositions.
The logic behind the selection is consistent with what the list has always done: find the places where tourism infrastructure is ready but the crowds are not yet there, and where the local economy will feel the benefit of new arrivals. Samburu National Reserve in Kenya, for instance, sits north of the more visited Maasai Mara, with a distinct landscape and wildlife population that rewards the slight extra effort of getting there. The Pekoe Trail in Sri Lanka (a long-distance walking route threading through tea country) is the kind of slow-travel proposition that has grown in appeal as travellers reconsider what a holiday is actually for.
New Itineraries for the Intrepid 2027 Not Hot List Destinations
What makes the Intrepid 2027 Not Hot List more than an aspirational inventory this year is the practical scaffolding around it. Intrepid has launched five new trips covering several of the featured regions. The new itineraries include a 10-day Kenya Safari Adventure, a 16-day Wild Canada & Alaska trip taking in the Whitehorse region, a 10-day Hike Sri Lanka’s Pekoe Trail, a 12-day Jordan Uncovered covering the Northern Highlands, and a 9-day Trek the Trans-Caucasian Trail in Georgia. The Sri Lanka route in particular suits the growing number of travellers who want a walking holiday with genuine altitude variation and cultural texture rather than a resort itinerary. Sri Lanka Tourism has been developing the Pekoe Trail as a flagship long-distance route, and having a structured international itinerary behind it should ease the planning considerably for those who prefer not to self-guide.
The broader list spans four continents and several climate zones, which is deliberate. There is no single profile of traveller this is aimed at: the Chilean Carretera Austral is a road trip through Patagonian wilderness; Dili is a small capital city with a layered colonial and postcolonial history; Mestia is a mountain town in the Georgian Greater Caucasus with a distinct architectural character. The range is the point.
Intrepid’s newly launched itineraries for several of these destinations are available to book now for 2027 travel.
