Kenya's Samburu National Reserve gets roughly a tenth of the visitors that flock to the Maasai Mara, and that's exactly the point. It's one of five destinations featured in Intrepid Travel's latest Not Hot List, an annual roundup of places that aren't just under-visited but genuinely ready for more tourists — the kind where your money actually supports local communities.
Samburu headlines the new trip line-up for 2027. Instead of chasing the classic Big Five, travellers here hunt for the 'Samburu Special Five': reticulated giraffe, Grevy's zebra, Somali ostrich, East African oryx and the gerenuk, a long-necked antelope. Intrepid's new Kenya Safari Adventure dedicates two days to the reserve, plus Samburu cultural experiences and an optional night of stargazing and storytelling around a bonfire.
Second on the list is Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon — long a pit stop on Alaska Highway road trips, now pitched as a destination in its own right. On the new Wild Canada & Alaska itinerary, travellers spend two nights in the city and tour it with a Tlingit guide from the Kluane First Nation, learning how First Nations stewardship has kept the surrounding wilderness intact. The region offers hiking, kayaking, skiing, bear spotting and hot springs, with a new Arctic Canada Tourism Network working to make year-round visits easier.
Sri Lanka's answer is the Pekoe Trail, a new 300-kilometre walking route through the Hill Country's tea estates and cloud forests, run by a non-profit that channels tourism revenue into local communities. Intrepid's guided trip covers six standout sections, winding past plantations and small villages with plenty of tea heritage along the way.
Jordan makes the list too — but not the Petra-and-Wadi-Rum version. The Northern Highlands offer pine forests at Ajloun, the Roman ruins of Umm Qais, and community-based tourism built around locally owned guesthouses and family meals. The standout experience on the new Jordan Uncovered trip: suiting up with a beekeeper to learn traditional honey harvesting, followed by a tasting straight from the hive.
Finally, Georgia's Mestia region anchors a new nine-day trekking trip along the Transcaucasian Trail. The route passes UNESCO-listed Svan villages with their medieval stone towers, opens with a warm-up hike to Chalaadi Glacier beneath Mount Ushba, and finishes with a four-day trek from Mestia to Ushguli. Accommodation leans heavily on family homestays — Svan hospitality being something of a local trademark.
The common thread across all five is impact. Intrepid frames the list as a response to overtourism: instead of adding pressure to places already at capacity, it directs travellers to destinations where infrastructure exists, communities benefit directly, and the experience is arguably better for the lack of crowds. If your 2027 plans include a safari, a trek or a culture-first trip and you'd rather skip the queue, these five are worth a look.