The holiday secrets our travel editors and experts discovered this summer
Below, a dozen of our editors and regular contributors reveal the destinations that surprised them this summer.
A Greek island only the locals know
The idea of a destination that “only the locals know” is one of the great travel tropes. But in the case of Greece’s second largest island, it is an obvious reality. The Evia that I discovered at the beginning of August felt like a different country to Santorini or Corfu, with very little English spoken in the bars and restaurants, and a sense that this was a wholly Greek version of Greece, rather than a tourist hotspot.
Not that it was anything but friendly. And not that it was lacking in tourists, or beauty-spots for them to enjoy.
Kalamos Beach, on the Aegean side of the landmass, was as gorgeous an arc of shore as I have found anywhere in Europe. When I left on a Saturday morning, the colossal traffic jam coming the other way – cars backed up on the key bridge over from the mainland – demonstrated that, while Britons haven’t heard of this place, Athenian day-trippers most definitely have.
Chris Leadbeater
The rocky roof of Germany
I barely heard a British voice on a hot summer hiking holiday in Saxon Switzerland, a glorious region of south-east Germany. The rock formations along the River Elbe here are strange and magnificent, and riddled with walking trails. A great network of trains, buses, ferries and vintage trams makes it easy to hop about too.
My top picks? Either the Steiger Hotel in Kurort Rathen, where my superior room (from €199) had a balcony dangling right over the river – perfect for watching the sunset and the skimming martins – or the old restaurant at the top of the Papstein, built in 1862 and a perfect panoramic place for a cold beer after climbing up the mountain.
Sarah Baxter
A small ship and tiny islands
There is something deeply special about Skye’s sleepy siblings of Canna, Eigg, Muck and Rum, and something deeply special about cruising the Hebrides aboard a small ship. Swirl both together and you have the Lucy Mary, the trim vessel that started taking eight lucky guests around Scotland’s wild and wildly beautiful west coast this summer.
Skipper James Fairbairns has spent his life cruising these waters and eases around in some luxury – think smouldering sunsets with a whisky sundowner and boat-fresh lobster. James knows where to find not only dolphins, but sea eagles, fin whales and even orcas too. It’s also available for private charters for the ultimate secret Hebridean getaway.
Robin McKelvie
Cape Cod’s kettle ponds
When you imagine Cape Cod, you may conjure the glorious beaches that sweep along the Outer Cape from vibrant, artistic Provincetown at the tip, or charming clapboard villages such as Welfleet and Truro. Far less known, with warm, clear water and sandy bottoms, are the Outer Cape’s network of ancient depressions called kettle holes.
Take a house, as we did, on a pond, and you are in for a magical treat. Surrounded by trees, reeds and water lilies, they are perfect for leisurely swims, paddle-boarding and canoeing. Mostly, we had them to ourselves. Ryder and Horse Leach are two of the loveliest.
Fiona Duncan
A shady escape from the crowded Costa Brava
The pretty coves of the Costa Brava are patchworked with towels in summer, while its beach tavernas sell ￡70 paellas on hectic terraces. When it got too much, I headed inland to explore the shady villages a few minutes’ drive from the coast, including tiny Esclanyà.
There, the tangle of streets was empty, and the only sounds were birdsong and the distant splash of a swimming pool at its edges. At Esclanyà’s only restaurant, Al Fok, we ate a three-course lunch of langoustines, duck and mango sorbet under a pergola of burgeoning jasmine – and it was just ￡20. Perfect.
Amanda Hyde
A dreamy corner of the Dolomites
The Dolomites are hardly a discovery, though if you’ve only visited to ski in winter, Europe’s most spectacular mountains are equally as glorious in summer. I was back for the first time in many years, hiking and eating my way across new massifs, among which the Sciliar was a revelation.
It is framed by Europe’s largest upland meadows – the vast verdant Alpe di Siusi – and home to the Rauchhütte restaurant, a lunch-stop not only with sublime food (it’s not often you ask for extra dumplings) but also with one of the grandest views of these, or any other, mountains.
Tim Jepson
Overshadowed Salford
Is Salford the most underrated city in the world? Maybe, overshadowed and out-hyped as it is by mouthy Manchester next door. No other former Hundred has been so completely subsumed by its subordinate parish.
Salford has impressive redbrick architecture around the university; a fine local museum (Lark Hill Place, its replica of a Victorian street, is as atmospheric as a Gaskell novel); the Working Class Movement Library (free tours every Friday at 2pm); and bosky Peel Park.
The Lowry, Media City and Quays are great, with plenty of dining options in the latter. Also explore Kersal Moor – where horse races were first run and the Chartists held huge rallies – and Kersal wetlands, a rural retreat with tranquil views of Manc-hattan’s skyscrapers.
Chris Moss
An unexpected treasure where three countries meet
Here was a surprise. It had been a long day, dedicated largely to war. It’s inescapable in this rolling north-east stretch of France, where Germany and Luxembourg are moments away. Peppering the rolling landscape are defences from the Second World War and, from earlier bouts of tension, the chateaux at Sierck-les-Bains and Malbrouck.
From a distance, the Domaine de la Klauss appears to be of this company. Rising in solid stone from the farmland, with a tower and sense of seigneurial authority, Klauss looks medieval. In fact, it’s barely older than my car.
As family-run hotels go, Klauss – on the edge of the village of Manderen – is alpha-plus-plus. Stone for the monumental building was all quarried on the family’s farm. Dad and sons did much of the building themselves, and oversaw the rest.
One son runs the hotel, spa and gastronomic restaurants, another runs the nearby auberge using produce from the farm. Dad has a wine and food shop in between, complete with salted hams hanging in back-room cellars.
I swanned around like a satrap in a suite of beige, blue, bare stone, real beams and a bed upon which I could have hosted a pyjama party. Downstairs, art deco married manorial, I took a cocktail, ate well, and might have gone riding – there are on-site stables – or swimming, if I could have been bothered. My find of 2023.
Anthony Peregrine
A Med island missing its Brits
Corsica slips bizarrely under our collective radar, with only 158 flights from Britain, with space for 26,408 passengers, heading to its four international airports between April and October. That’s just a shade over five departures a week.
For comparison, there are 1,138 flights to its neighbour, Sardinia, over the same period, 1,788 flights to Sicily – and 14,907 to Mallorca. So what are we missing?
As I discovered when I went in June, among the clearest waters you’ll ever see in the Med, soaring mountains conquered by ribbon-like roads – which make it a magnet for both cyclists and bikers – and some incredibly handsome seaside towns.
Bonifacio is chief among them, and the view across the water towards Sardinia, from its Les Terrasses d’Aragon restaurant, took second spot in my definitive “top five most memorable pasta lunches with a view so magnificent you can’t help but grin” (behind only Terrazza della Val d’Orcia in the Tuscan town of Pienza). What you won’t find is other Britons – I didn’t hear a single UK accent all week.
Oliver Smith
A village of dragons in Crete
Heading away from the coast this summer I stumbled on Dounias, Stelios Trilirakis’s rustic farm-to-table taverna in the hamlet of Drakonas (named for mythical dragons once said to dwell here) on the pine-studded slopes of Lefka Ori (the White Mountains). A self-professed fan of “the old ways”, the young sheep farmer only uses his own produce and cooks everything in clay pots over a log fire.
From Chania, it’s a nail-biting, half-hour ride along roads winding like liquorice coils to get here, but worth every minute once you’re seated at one the rickety tables, tumbler of raki in hand, devouring tender slow-cooked kleftiko lamb.
Heidi Fuller-Love
A stunning campsite on the edge of Britain
During a visit to the island of St Agnes in the Isles of Scilly, we made a beeline for Troytown Farm to see what fabulous new ice cream flavours they were offering this year. While tucking into a honeycomb cone on a picnic bench, I spotted their campsite.
Sitting right on the water, it offers what is easily one of the best camping locations in Britain (with pitches from ￡12 per adult per night, and ￡6.50 per child). The rocky beach is perfect for barbecues, kayaks can be hired to explore the neighbouring islands, sandy beaches are within easy walking distance and the sunsets are superb.
Penny Walker
Oysters and rosé (and nappies) in Cap Ferret
We didn’t want to go too far for our 10-month old baby’s first overseas holiday, so we opted for Cap Ferret near Bordeaux on France’s Atlantic coast (not to be confused with Cap Ferrat, on the Med). It was bliss.
We stayed in a Simpson Villa spilling out onto a private beach on Arcachon Bay. We were with the grandparents/in-laws. I hear this is all the rage these days, and I can see why. Having babysitters on hand gave us the chance to disappear for a few hours, cycling between quiet villages and stopping off for oysters and rosé at shack-like waterfront restaurants.
People call Cap Ferret the Hamptons of France thanks to its high-end boutiques and cashmere-covered residents, but I don’t care about any of that. The seafood was abundant, the sun shined and the water was warm. I’m sure we’ll return.
Greg Dickinson
A swim-up restaurant near Setubal
It’s no secret that there are great beaches close to Lisbon, but whenever I visit I can’t seem to leave the capital behind. This summer, however, I finally did, taking a little boat trip with friends on a hot, cloudless day from Setubal through the Serra da Arrábida Natural Park for lunch at O Farol, which sits, framed by verdant mountains, on the white sands of Portinho Beach.
You hook yourself up to a buoy in the little bay and the restaurant sends a boat to come and get you – or you simply swim in. Dining on garlic prawns and the freshest of fish as the sea almost laps at your feet in this hidden cove was as close to paradise as it gets.
Mary Lussiana
Where did you spend your summer holiday? Did anywhere leave you particularly impressed? Please leave your comments below
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