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Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Nusa Penida, Without the Day-Trip Regret We booked Nusa Penida as a single day trip from Bali, because the photos looked like a quick tick-off between hotel and pool. By the time our fast boat docked, three other boats had already emptied, and the line at the Kelingking Beach viewpoint snaked back along the cliff in the heat. We saw the T-rex-shaped headland over a hundred shoulders, and then it was straight back to the harbour to make the return crossing. The island deserved better. The next time, we stayed two nights, watched the sunrise hit Diamond Beach with maybe six other people around, and finally understood what the fuss was about. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Phuket Without the Rookie Mistakes We booked our first Phuket trip for late September, because the flights were almost embarrassingly cheap. The taxi driver from the airport laughed when we said we wanted to snorkel Phi Phi the next day: “Sea is big this week. Maybe Tuesday.” He was right — the west-coast beaches had red flags out, the speedboats were bouncing, and we spent two days in Old Town cafés waiting for the swell to drop. We still had a great trip. But we learned the one thing this Phuket travel guide is really about. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Plitvice Lakes, Without the Three-Hour Queue We almost ruined Plitvice before we’d seen a single waterfall. Our plan was to roll up around 11am — a “relaxed” start after the drive from Zadar — and we hit a ticket queue snaking out of the car park in the August heat, then shuffled onto a boardwalk so packed you couldn’t stop to take a photo without a tap on the shoulder. The next morning we went back for opening, walked the lower lakes almost alone for the first hour, and it was a different park entirely: turquoise water, roaring falls, birdsong instead of selfie sticks. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. A Provence Travel Guide for People Short on Time We almost skipped the lavender. The plan was a lazy week of café terraces in Aix-en-Provence and not much else, until a woman at the Tuesday market — handing me a wedge of tomme and pointing at a basket of dried purple stems — said we’d be mad to come this close and not drive up to Valensole. So we did, early, and pulled over on an empty road between two seas of lavender with the light still soft and not another car in sight. That detour became the trip. The mistake we nearly made is the one this Provence travel guide is built to stop you making. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Queenstown, Without the Rookie Mistakes We flew into Queenstown in late July expecting endless adventure-sport sunshine, and spent the first morning watching snow drift past the window with the jet boats firmly off the water. Rookie error: we’d booked New Zealand’s adventure capital in the depth of winter, when half the town is here for the ski lifts, not the bungy cord. It worked out — we swapped the adrenaline for the Remarkables and some of the best hot-chocolate-and-mountain-views mornings of our lives — but I wish someone had told us the season changes the whole trip. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Rotorua, Where the Ground Breathes We almost skipped Rotorua. A friend warned us off it — “it smells like rotten eggs, you’ll hate it” — and for the first ten minutes after we parked, walking past a sidewalk vent puffing steam into the cold air, I thought she might be right. Then we watched the Pōhutu geyser fire a column of boiling water thirty metres into the sky, sat down that evening to a hāngī pulled steaming from the earth, and by the next morning I genuinely couldn’t smell the sulphur anymore. The nose adjusts. The wonder doesn’t. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Sicily, Without the Rookie Mistakes We landed in Catania in early August, convinced two weeks was wildly generous for one island. By day three we’d sat in beach traffic, paid peak rates for a so-so room, and watched the thermometer hit 38°C while we queued for a granita. A guy at the next café table just laughed: “You came in August? Come back in May and you’ll think it’s a different country.” He was right. The Sicily we went back for in late spring — warm sea, half-empty temples, easy parking — is the one this guide is built around. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Sintra, Without the Coach-Crowd Crush We rolled into Sintra at noon on a July Saturday and made every mistake in the book. The Pena Palace queue snaked back through the gardens, the hill bus was packed solid, and by the time we reached the terraces the famous colours were swimming in heat haze and hundreds of selfie sticks. A guesthouse owner later put it plainly: “You came at the worst hour of the worst month. Come back in May and arrive at nine — it’s a different mountain.” ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Tunisia: The Mediterranean Escape Hiding in Plain Sight Everyone I knew was saving up for Italy or Greece, queuing for the same beaches at the same prices. I flew to Tunisia almost by accident — a cheap fare to Tunis, a vague plan — and within an hour of landing I was being handed a glass of sweet mint tea by a man who refused to let me pay for it. That’s the thing this Tunisia travel guide keeps coming back to: it’s an overlooked, wallet-friendly Mediterranean country barely an hour or two from Europe, with some of the warmest people you’ll meet anywhere. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Ubud, Without the Tourist-Trap Mistakes The first morning, we made the classic mistake: we lined up for the Tegallalang rice terraces at 11am, in full sun, shoulder to shoulder with three tour buses, and paid for a “selfie swing” we didn’t really want. A guesthouse owner set us straight that evening: “Go at sunrise. Empty terraces, soft light, half the heat — and the same photo everyone fights for at noon, for free.” The next day we did exactly that, and Ubud finally clicked. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Uluru, Done Right the First Time We almost booked Uluru for January, because that was when we had a free week. A guide we emailed wrote back with one line that changed the whole trip: “By 10am in summer it’ll be 42°C and we’ll have closed the long walks before you’ve finished your coffee.” We moved the dates to August instead, and the difference was the trip — cool, clear mornings, the rock glowing through every shade of red, and not a heat warning in sight. ...

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you make a booking through these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The Best Time to Visit Albania, in One Sentence We almost didn’t stop. The road over the Llogara Pass spat us out above the Ionian coast in late September, and the first beach we saw, Dhermi, was so empty it looked closed. Then a man waved us into a beach bar, poured two coffees, and told us we’d have paid triple and queued for a sunbed if we’d come six weeks earlier. The water was still 25 C. We swam until dark with maybe ten other people on a kilometre of sand, and I kept thinking the same thing: how is this still a secret? ...