“I simply want to escape, somewhere, anywhere, but away from this chaos.”
“Girl on the mountain, not just Shimla?” (Let’s escape to the mountains barring Shimla)
“Let’s find something offbeat.”
Sounds relatable? These are nothing but some everyday reflections. The underlying theme here? Calm over chaos at the drop of a hat.
Between bumper-to-bumper traffic on mountain roadspacked beaches and hour-long queues for sunset viewpoints, travel has never been more accessible and never more crowded either. Which is why the hottest destinations this summer are the ones most people haven’t discovered yet.
According to Airbnb’s new report, Never the Same90 per cent of Gen Z travellers say they are likely to seek out places that haven’t been widely recommended online. Meanwhile, Booking.com’s Travel and Sustainability Report reveals that nearly 49 per cent travellers want to experience destinations before they become too popular.
That’s the ‘anti-tourist’ summer. A tourist looking out for that one ‘best-kept secret’ that remains dauntingly untouched by tourists. Because everyone wants to travel, but no one really wants the crowd and that’s the irony of modern travel.
Truth be told, the desire to escape crowded, commercialised spots transcends generations. Millennials, we see you too.
What’s changed is the speed at which destinations become popular now.
In an era where every scenic viewpoint, hidden cafe and mountain village is just one viral Reel away from becoming the internet’s latest obsession, conversations around choosing hidden gems over famous hotspots are becoming increasingly common.
And somehow, many are still finding them.
Which raises an interesting question: despite the world seemingly existing on social media, how are travellers uncovering under-the-radar escapes?
Before we get to that, it’s worth understanding why the pull of the offbeat has become so strong in the first place.
- The Airbnb report mentions that 80 per cent say small moments on a trip matter more to them than famous attractions. They are more likely to be found in a local market or a neighbourhood grocery store (Hello snack tourism)
- 64 per cent deliberately leave parts of their itinerary unplanned to explore the secrets. Airbnb has termed them the ‘anti-itinerary traveller’.
- More Indian travellers are embracing off-season trips, with 71 per cent saying they do so to avoid crowdsreveals the Booking.com report.
So, yeah, offbeat is the current wanderlust sentiment that’s burgeoning.
But what even qualifies as a hidden gem in the age of social media? Because if there’s one thing the internet is bad at, it’s keeping secrets.
In 2026, what is a hidden gem, really?
It’s a sentiment.
“The hidden gem is no longer defined by whether it exists online, but by whether it can still be experienced in a way that feels fresh, thoughtful, and personally curated,” a spokesperson from Pickyourtrail, a holiday booking platform, tells India Today.
“It’s not necessarily a place nobody knows about, but one that remains relatively quiet, affordable, and authentic. Bonus points if it’s scenic. In a world where almost every destination can go viral overnight, a true hidden gem is somewhere that still gives you the feeling that you’ve discovered it,” shares Jaiteg Grewal, a 26-year-old marketing professional.
Shaurya Dixit, an IT professional who is now discovering his traveller era, shares a similar sentiment. “My association with the idea of hidden gems or offbeat destinations means peace, beauty, less human interaction, and a place having something indigenous. And, in the end, how it makes me feel is important too.”
How to find a secret gem
If it’s all over your feed, it’s probably not a hidden gem anymore. Yet travellers keep finding new ones. We spoke to a few travellers to understand how they curate their itineraries.
The obvious
The first stop is searching online, on social media, and maybe with the help of artificial intelligence too.
A spokesperson from Scapia, a travel fintech company, says, “Travellers trust first-hand accounts from Reddit threads and small online communities over search results. They follow creators who post without hashtags. What we see on Scapia reflects this, and 40 per cent of our total bus bookings come from Gen Z users, with clear spikes in weekend travel to places that aren’t on the usual lists. Financial tools like Travel Now, Pay Later are also playing a role here. Our international TNPL adoption is nearly 90 per cent higher than domestic.”
Friend of a friend effect
“We are a family of avid travellers and are often surrounded by friends and other family members who share a similar wanderlust. So, sharing notes over bucket lists is just normal for us. That’s how we came across a beautiful homestay in Raila, Sainj Valley, Himachal Pradesh. It’s in the lap of nature in its truest sense. One needs to do a good trek of about 400-500 metres to get there. And we had the time of our lives, with my children playing in nature in the best possible way,” shares Ekta Mathur, a millennial web developer who travels around India with a backpack, her two little boys and her husband.
For many, the real gold lies in recommendations passed down through a cousin, a colleague or that one well-travelled friend who always seems to know a spot before everyone else.
Exploring best of both worlds
“Visibility itself has become a filter. We have observed that among our new-age travellers, they actively look for alternatives when they feel a destination has become too widely circulated online,” says the Pickyourtrail spokesperson.
“When we booked our trip to Jibhi-Shoja, we knew it was gaining popularity but was not as bad or as commercialised as Shimla or Mussoorie yet. So we did our research and found a chalet in Ghiyagi, which sits between both places. We got to check off the famous waterfalls, viewpoints and treks, but we also got to enjoy the quieter side of the region — the short trek to our chalet, peaceful mornings away from traffic, and a deeper glimpse into the local way of life,” Grewal says, recalling a trip that offered the best of both worlds.
For many travellers, the sweet spot lies somewhere in between. They look for accommodation on the outskirts but still make time for the viral attractions. Because come on, even the most dedicated ‘anti-tourist’ tourist is at least a little curious about that Instagram-famous place too.
According to travel experts, people are visiting famous places, just not in the famous way — like exploring a lesser-known hiking spot, taking a bus ride to a remote town, or visiting a spiritual destination mostly known to locals.
“I don’t completely avoid viral places, but I avoid regular tourist spots where everyone is running towards. Like Barot in Himachal Pradesh is getting trendy these days and everyone is around the viral natural fountain. I instead spent most of my time sitting on the big rocks inside the shallow river. And guess what, I had no humans around to disturb my peace,” Amit Shah, a 28-year-old IT professional, tells India Today.
The anti-itinerary travellers
Oh, these kinds of travellers have a fun way of finding new places.
“My friends and I just decide on a place, pile into a car with our tents and sleeping bags, and see where the road takes us. One trip that started with Shimla ended up taking us through mountaintops, and suddenly ended up in Ayodhya, before we finally returned to Surat. We had no fixed plans whatsoever. Some of our best discoveries came from conversations with locals, who pointed us towards beautiful valleys and hidden corners that never show up on travel lists,” says Nisarg Patel, who often travels the anti-itinerary kind of way.
Whether it’s through word-of-mouth, or spontaneous road trips, the goal is often the same: finding a place that feels undiscovered. The catch, of course, is that discoveries have a habit of spreading.
The paradox of offbeat travel
“My instinct is always to gatekeep these places,” laughs Mathur. “But then I remember the locals who depend on tourism.”
She recalls staying at that homestay called bitch, where the owners were saving up to support their daughter’s dream of playing football professionally. “For families like theirs, a little attention can make a real difference. Sometimes, going viral can help keep those dreams alive,” she says.
In a world where every destination is instantly visible online, the real differentiator is not access to information, but the ability to shape that information into a trip that feels personal.
Other travellers also acknowledged the urge to gatekeep hidden gems because they fear the embarrassing lack of civic sense in people.
The anti-tourist traveller isn’t chasing obscurity for the sake of it. They’re chasing a feeling — of quiet, of surprise, of stumbling upon something that doesn’t feel curated for the masses.
Oh, are you also looking for us to reveal some offbeat destinations that are ‘trending’? Scapia shared that domestically, there’s a growing interest in places like Chikmagalur, Karwar, Bhuj, Imphal, and Aizawl, alongside a notable cluster of interest in the Northeast — Dibrugarh, Silchar, Jorhat and Agartala, among others.
And meanwhile, there’s a hidden waterfall, a warm yet remote village or a quaint little cafe in a beach town waiting to be discovered but not go viral.
– Ends
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