Not Rome and its world-famous Colosseum, not Athens with the millennia-old Greek ruins bestriding Acropolis Hill, and certainly not Paris where basically everything pre-Revolution has been torn down or remade in Haussmann fashion: Europe’s most ancient city, with over 8,000 years of continuous history, is actually located in Bulgaria: Unless you’re a devoted Europhile, or …

Dreaming of an escapade to Venice but the surging crowds and crazy prices keep putting you off? Well, maybe you slept through it in school, but did you know Venice was, at one point in time, one of the most powerful countries in the Mediterranean? Including not only the city of Venice itself, located in …

It’s another European summer of tourists making a beeline for Italy’s Lake Como or France’s Lac Léman, all chasing that glamorous, old-money European lakeside lifestyle… and happily shelling out upwards of $500 a night on a waterfront villa. What if we told you there’s this quieter, still relatively-unknown lake town just across the Adriatic Sea …

Isn’t it about time we all moved past the Santorini/Mykonos obsession? Look, I get it—there’s something magical about blue domes and caldera views beneath a blood-orange sunset—but Greece has over 200 inhabited islands, and most travelers barely scratch the surface. Tucked away in the North Aegean, far from the overtouristed Cyclades, Thassos is the kind …

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in recent months, chances are you’ve heard of Europe’s new, and frankly, pretty controversial Entry/Exit System (or EES). Designed to track overstayers in the Schengen Area, it now requires Americans to provide fingerprints and other biometrics upon arrival in Europe, and people aren’t exactly thrilled about it for a whole …

A small Balkan nation slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Connecticut, with a coastline running along the turquoise Mediterranean for 183 miles, Montenegro is one of the trendiest places to be in Europe right now. Though it’s home to only 620,000 residents, it is rapidly rising in popularity as a summer destination, challenging well-established …

Long gone are the days when Albania could be described as a hidden gem of Europe. Between the surging crowds seen in Ksamil this summer and the long-anticipated opening of a brand new airport in Vlorë, the Balkan nation is undergoing a much-deserved Tourism Renaissance. That being said, it’s not like all of Albania’s secret …

Summer 2025 may already be history, but if you’ve been saving all year and are still dreaming of sun-soaked Mediterranean shores and an idyllic getaway across the pond, here’s where you can catch the last few streaks of sunshine… without the crazy crowds: If you’re Roman Empire-obsessed, and your personal idea of fun is exploring …

You probably never thought you’d be seeing ‘Albania’ and ‘most popular’ in the same sentence, yet here we are: From Europe’s underdog and best-kept secret, with just over 4 million tourists a year back in 2015 (most of which were returning Albanians or neighboring Kosovars), Albania is now visited by an average of 12 million, and it …

Unfortunately, not all of Europe is no longer the peaceful, prosperous continent we once knew. As tourists have learned in recent years, sometimes the hard way, stepping out at night in poorly-lit areas, or carrying valuable pieces of jewelry can sometimes cost you dearly, if not your physical integrity, and more and more, certain European …

Dreaming of a picture-perfect, Mamma Mia-coded summer, with plenty of island-hopping, whitewashed towns topped with blue-dome churches, and all the souvlaki you can eat? Unless you have a big budget and a desire to go on a splurging spree, maybe you’ll want to steer clear of Santorini, Mykonos, Ios, and the like: gorgeous as they …

Although not often discussed in American circles, Antalya is rapidly emerging as one of Europe’s most popular destinations. Located in the Eastern Mediterranean, perhaps the most overlooked part of the world-famous basin, it is exactly what should come to your mind when we reiterate, as we have been for years, that Turkey is so much more …