Last Updated on June 28, 2025
Second city tourism is all about exploring lesser-known destinations of a country, with the goal of exploring beyond the tourism centres.
This trend has emerged as a way to address overtourism, but to also enrich travel experiences. Read on to discover what second city tourism is, why it benefits tourism and tourists, and how to do it.
What is The Second City Travel Trend?
The second city travel trend is all about traveling beyond tourism hot spots. It means factoring in a second, lesser-known destination when traveling a region.
By doing so, travelers help to reduce overtourism and spread tourism dollars to communities beyond the popular tourism spots. Second city tourism is a way to help protect the destinations from the structural damages that often come from mass tourism.
To understand the benefits of second city tourism, it helps to understand how overtourism impacts travel destinations. Overtourism describes when too many tourists visit a particular place.
It’s the umbrella term for the many side effects that mass tourism can create. Some of the effects of overtourism include displacement of local residents, damage to natural environments, endangerment of protected species, and disruption of local way of life.
Second City Tourism and Overtourism
The causes of overtourism aren’t straight forward. Some of the onus is on individual tourists, but it’s also important to recognize that tourist’s travel decisions are influenced by factors like traditional advertising, social media, travel influencers, flight prices, tourism boards, and more.
Practices like second city tourism and choosing to visit destinations that haven’t been hit as hard by tourism can help make a difference. But, the tourism industry can be restructured to better control influxes of tourists.
For example, in the famous Croatian city Dubrovnik, various restrictions have been put in place in recent years to control the volume of tourists.
An alternative to visiting Dubrovnik (or a second city experience) would be to go on a hiking cruise from Sail Croatia, which offers travelers a less crowded way to appreciate Croatia. On these tours, you go to lesser-known regions of the country, which reduces the impact of tourism in crowded cities like Dubrovnik.
With that said, introducing second city tourism to your travel practices has many benefits, even beyond helping to reduce overtourism.
3 Benefits of Second City Tourism
Second city travel has benefits for destinations as well as tourists. Here are three that I think are particularly great!
1. Helps to Reduce Overtourism
Visiting a second, lesser known region helps curb overtourism because it reduces the pressure of tourism on overcrowded destinations. Rather than concentrating all your time in one popular spot, you can strike a more balanced approach by spending some time in a less popular or lesser known one. This helps to reduce the overall impact of your stay.
2. Brings Tourism to New Regions
Some of the balance created by visiting lesser known regions is economic. When you practice second city tourism you are able to spread your tourism dollars further. It creates the opportunity to support a smaller tourism economy and give them a boost in raising their own tourism profile. It goes beyond economics, too.
When you visit a lesser known place and share your experience with others, you can help encourage other travelers to broaden their horizons beyond the popular, well-known destinations.
3. Tourists Have a More In-Depth Experience
When you take the time to visit more places within a country or region, you have the opportunity to learn even more about the local culture and practices. Second city travel can help tourists have a more in-depth experience of a place because it promotes visiting areas that aren’t entirely catered to tourists.
This means there’s more chances to engage with locals and observe local ways of life. This might be my favorite aspect of second city tourism – it encourages us to deep travel!
How to Second City Travel
To take up second city traveling, you’ll just need to research a second city (or second region) to visit on your next trip. Often, you can start by looking at a map.
I usually like to opt for a second spot that isn’t too far from the popular destination that I’m visiting, so by looking at a map I can get a sense of what places are nearby. Another tactic is to simply search towns or places to visit nearby. Chances are, some inspiration will come up!
A great example of second city tourism is visiting Utrecht while in The Netherlands. This beautiful city is just a 30 minute train ride from Amsterdam, NL.
Utrecht has an interesting history (take a walking tour!), beautiful canals, great restaurants, and a quieter vibe compared to Amsterdam. It’s famous for its Dom tower, situated right in the heart of the historic city centre.
Dom tower is the tallest church tower in The Netherlands, and is a beautiful Gothic-style extension of the St. Martin’s Cathedral, built between 1321 and 1382.
Visiting this second Dutch city does more than just expose tourists to more of The Netherlands, it helps to bring visibility to regions beyond Amsterdam!
Tips for Reducing Overtourism
Second city travel is one way to help reduce overtourism, but there are some other things you can do, too. It starts with simply understanding and awareness: being cognizant of the impact that your presence as a tourist has.
Once travelers (myself included) are aware of both the pros and the cons of travel, it’s easier to address them. Strategies for reducing overtourism while traveling:
Travel off peak (in the low season.)
This means traveling to a place at the time of year that it is the least busy. For example, Europe tends to be busiest from May to October because that is when the weather is the best. So rather than traveling then, go in the late fall or winter months.
This puts less of a strain on local communities, helps you avoid big crowds, and enables you to support businesses when they can benefit most from it (because they aren’t as busy).
Travel as slowly as possible.
Rather than ticking off as many destinations as possible in a trip, spend a few extra days at every stop.
This way you can engage more with the communities that you visit, you can explore more of a place rather than just it’s popular highlights, and you can invest more of your tourism dollars into local businesses.
Travel in smaller groups.
Second City Travel: Final Thoughts
Not only does second city travel help to address overtourism, but it also opens travelers up to new and exciting destinations that haven’t gained the appreciation they deserve.
By taking up second city tourism, we can all help to protect and preserve popular destinations, while bringing visibility to lesser known ones. It’s a great way to introduce responsible travel practices into your habits!
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Read more:
- How to Avoid Contributing to Overtourism
- 12 Essential Sustainable Travel Tips
- Is it Time To Embrace Deep Travel?
- How To Be a More Responsible Tourist
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