What is the biggest (by population) city in your country that is rarely visited by tourists?

28 comments

1. Here in Italy,there are not a lot of big cities that don’t attract tourists at all.

   There are however some that attract relatively few tourists.

   Of the ‘top 20 cities’by population,I’d say probably Messina,Taranto and Brescia.

   I’ve been to all of these,albeit briefly,and its fairly easy to see why they are not tourism hotspots.A lot of competition in Italy,and these places really don’t have a lot to offer,in comparison with many others.

   Messina in Sicily gets a lot of through traffic but not many people actually stay in the city.It has a nice enough regional museum with a couple of Caravaggio paintings.

   Taranto has a quite atmospheric,quiet and crumbling old centre and a lot of decaying industry,with from my experience very little to see for a tourist.

   Brescia I’ve only been to for work.Maybe someone who knows the city better than me can say if it has some attractions!

2. That’s probably [Winterthur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterthur).

   >With over 110,000 residents it is the country’s sixth-largest city by population
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   >…
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   >Winterthur is not high on the list of tourist destinations in Switzerland. As a result, it does not offer a wide range of hotels to choose from. As it is relatively easy to reach from Zürich by public transport, tourists who do visit Winterthur often stay in Zürich.

   Nevertheless, Winterthur is mentioned in most tourist guides for its numerous museums, many of which offer world class art, among them of the Gottfried Keller-Stiftung.

   >Have you ever been there personally? What did you think of it?

   It’s hard to avoid when going somewhere in the Northern part of Switzerland. Personally, I find Winti to be dull.

3. Pretty sure for Germany, it would have to be Essen.

   Is an industrial city that is in economic trouble due to the problems of our coal and steel industry. With 10% unemployment, a high rate for Germany. Once over 700k inhabitants, now only 580k. And in the last 2 decades, a lot of state economic aid has flowed to East Germany, especially to Berlin. Many cities in the Ruhgebiet unfortunately have similar problems.

   Regarding your question, Essen is the only one of our large cities with >500k inhabitants that does not have >1 million overnight stays per year.

4. Tough one , France attract a lot of tourists and people visit everywhere, even the countryside.

5. That would be Charleroi. The reason why is because it’s just ugly and grim. The place is full of abandoned old buildings, abandoned factories, a lot of the most disgusting criminals in Belgian history were from there, pedophiles, serial killers… If you hear someone defend Charleroi then you can be pretty sure they are from there. All I know is that in the last few years it has apparently attracted a lot of street artists trying to liven it up a bit, so if you’re interested in that, it might be worth a visit.

   I have been to the place having only heard the stereotypes about it that I just listed above, and frankly I found them all to be true.

6. Probably Birmingham and Sheffield, our second and fourth most populous cities, both former industrial powerhouses that have struggled to rebrand themselves.

7. Traditionally, a lot of tourism in the Netherlands is centred around Amsterdam only. So by that metric I’d put Rotterdam on that list. However, in recent years I’ve experienced some kind of tourism boom in Rotterdam after the city gained some international attention.

   So I’d say The Hague, Leiden, Groningen and Dordrecht probably.

8. Probably Linz, it is mainly known for its industry but it actually has a few sites worthwhile to visit like the Ars electronica center. It also was EU cultural capital once so there are also some installations from that time.

9. It has to be Murcia. It is a pretty big city (450.000 inhabitants), but due to being interior and not very touristic it is very unknown.

10. I’m not sure how many tourists Espoo and Vantaa, the 2nd and 4th biggest cities, get but they’re part of the Helsinki metropolitan region and not really that separate from Helsinki. I think that the biggest town tourists aren’t generally interested in is [Kouvola](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kouvola). It’s a bit of a meme in Finland to hate it and it has a reputation being full of grey concrete and there are images of comparing it with Chernobyl. In reality I assume that it’s a pretty ordinary town and not that bad to live in (I’ve been there once and can’t remember anything) but I’m not sure that it’s enough for tourists.

11. Probably Craiova, it has 300k population but it’s not as popular as Iași, Timișoara, Cluj or Constanța with similar population. There are no widely known objectifs there and I rarely hear people going there on holiday. Other unpopular cities would be Galați, Brăila and Bacău

12. I’d say Brno and Ostrava (practically anything in the eastern part of the country). I kind of get Ostrava, since it’s a mining city far from the major cities tourists would be interested in, but Brno is on the way from Prague to Vienna/Bratislava/Budapest, and for some reason it’s often missed (although it is starting to get a bit more love). Other cities closer to Prague (Kutná Hora, Český Krumlov or Pilsen) get more promotion and since they look closer on the map, people tend to choose them over the ones in Moravia. I don’t really mind, as a result Brno is much more livable than Prague in that sense and I can travel around the cities close to it.

13. Aarhus. Reason is that all turist who visit Denmark just go to copenhagen or are germans going to the beach. Aarhus is a nice city, and there is a fair bit of styff to do for turists, but it is just over shadowed by Copenhagen.

14. I’d guess at Newport (for now). It’s rather overshadowed by Cardiff and Swansea to the west, both of which have seen greater investment in recent years.

15. I would guess Debrecen, our second largest city.

    The problem isn’t that it’s ugly or too industrial (because that isn’t true), but that it’s far away from everything. It’s 250 km away from Budapest.

16. Probably our 5th largest city, Västerås. Known mostly as an industrial city, it doesn’t really have much that is interesting to tourists. I’ve never been there personally, but I’ve been told that it is very dull in comparison to the big three (Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö) and the 4th largest, Uppsala, gets lots of domestic tourism and is a good daytrip for foreign tourists visiting Stockholm.

17. In Germany: **Bielefeld**

    I feel like many Germans haven’t even been there before..

18. In Bavaria, all the major cities – München, Nürnberg, Augsburg, Regensburg – get a lot of tourists. You have to go further down the list to find a place that doesn’t.

    I think the best guesses are Fürth (Nürnberg’s ugly little brother) and Ingolstadt. The former I can understand (although they have the Playmobil HQ and a pretty neat Playmobil theme park there), but Ingolstadt is a bit of a mystery to me. It’s totally conveniently located, has a lovely old town center and lots of history. I guess they just can’t keep up with the competition, and being the Audi HQ people probably assume that it’s just an industrial center.

19. Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg, Bochum, aside from football matches. They’re all Ruhr area (“Ruhrpott”) cities in a bit of a post-industrial crisis. The German rust belt.

20. Kristiansand, which is the fifth largest city in Norway is in this weird spot between being completely overlooked by foreigners and being the top destination for Norwegians.

    >Why is that,in your opinion?

    In general, Norwegians do leisure vacations rather than sightseeing. To us Kristiansand is kinda like what I think Miami is to Americans. It’s a warm and sunny place you go to chill, drink and soak up the sun. Foreign tourists come for sightseeing, of which there are none to be seen in Kristiansand. Also, I’m guessing even the nice weather in Kristiansand is a downgrade for foreigners coming here, so it’s not worth a visit for them as all of Norway is relatively shit compared to anywhere abroad (weather-wise).

    Also, the ferries that most tourists arrive by in Norway, dock there. So first thing they’ll do is drive away from Kristiansand.

    >Is there really nothing of interest there,or is it unjustly overlooked?

    There’s plenty. They have a huge zoo, festivals, great nightlife, a nice little old town of wooden houses, a fortress or two, a whole bunch of bunkers from various wars and a city beach.

    There’s way more but I can’t be bothered to find appropriate translations for *skjærgård* and *fiskebrygga*. It’s basically stuff for leisure boating. Which is what most Norwegians tend to do down there.

    >Have you ever been there personally? What did you think of it?

    I used to study there, and imo it’s easily the most liveable city in Norway. On top of the nice atmosphere it’s a dense and urban city, so you can go anywhere by bike or foot, unlike any other place in Norway. They also have a lively city center, which is very rare among Norwegian cities ime.

21. I’m gonna probably say Limerick city. It’s the third largest city in Ireland and for most of my life has affectionately been known as stab city. Not really a place for tourists

22. I think it has to be Patra. Patra is like 3rd most populous one but we rarely get tourists or foreign ones. The reason being because Patra is not really all that beautiful in comparison to other cities. There is also a port that connects Patra to Italy but it’s pointless because the same port goes to Corfu, so the Italians will obviously choose Corfu over Patra any day because it’s closer and way better + it’s an island.

23. I’d say it has to be Pori even travel prochures tell you to speed right past Pori from Rauma to Vaasa and beyond to Oulu and lapland.

24. Larissa. It’s not coastal, and even though it has an ancient theatre and a turkish castle right in the middle of the city, along with several museums, it is practically unknown to tourists.

25. Except from the top two (Oslo and Bergen) which are actually having quite a lot of tourists and the next two (Trondheim and Stavanger) which also see some tourists annually, the next “cities” on the list get few. Only exemption is Tromsø with their arctic northern light tourists. A large share of the tourists Norway get are also mostly visiting more rural parts to seek wilderness and nature, hiking in the mountains or seeing what’s between of fjords and coast. Inland and eastern towns like Drammen, Lillestrøm, Hamar, Fredrikstad, Moss and Lillehammer don’t have too many tourists any year.

26. The only city people visit when in the Netherlands is Amsterdam, i think the second biggest city in the Netherlands is Rotterdam

27. Leiria

    It has a pretty castle, but around the city there are better destinations.

    Fátima is more impressive for the religious side; Batalha, Alcobaça, Tomar and Coimbra have better monuments; Nazaré, Figueira da Foz and São Martinho do Porto have beaches while Leiria is a few kilometers inland

28. Maybe Aberdeen? It’s the third biggest city but it’s a fair distance from the usual tourist cities, Glasgow and Edinburgh. If people are going to venture further into Scotland then understandably they’re more likely to visit the Highlands, Aberdeen doesn’t have much aimed at tourists (unless you’re really into granite buildings).