10 Least Visited Destinations

Especially in the age of the travel influencer, the world’s farthest-flung destinations are suddenly as close at hand as the phone in our back pockets.

Norwegian fjords? Icelandic steam baths? Every candy-colored wall between London and L.A.? They’re #all #there, hashtagged #instatravel. It’s weird.

How to get away from it? How to really get away from it all?

It can still be done.

Travel to properly faraway places is still, in many cases, expensive or difficult (think: the kind of buses where when you hit a pothole, the lack of suspension means you crack your head on the ceiling when the bus bounces back up #beenthere #instatravel).

Here’s a list that computes, by the author’s metrics, the 10 least-visited countries. Now, there are quibbles with this list — a raft more Pacific island nations to name, and some that aren’t even full-on countries but rather a British Overseas Territory (we’re looking at you, Montserrat). Some of these places travelers simply shouldn’t visit, unless they have a very good reason — and #doitforthelikes isn’t one of them. That all said: If you really went to get away from it all — and by “all,” we mean everyone else — this is a good list to consider. Liechtenstein, we know, is lovely in the autumn — and Tuvalu, pictured, is, much like Paris, #alwaysagoodidea.

Meet your guide

Diane Rommel

Diane Rommel has written for The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Travel + Leisure, Wallpaper and Afar, as well as The Cut, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and McSweeney’s. She once drove from London to Mongolia, via Siberia.