My plan is to make a road trip roughly within the area of the circle (Southern France, Northeastern Spain and Northern Italy).
I'm looking for big towns and small-ish cities that:
• Aren't flooded with tourists
• Don't have a big muslim or African population (yeah yeah, I know that makes me sound "bigoted", but the fact of the matter is that every place I've been to with large quantities of either has been a fricking shithole that made me wish I had eyes in the back of my head and a Beretta in both hands)
What do you suggest? I'm a 28 year old straight white male if that matters, mostly interested in walking through nice towns and cities and seeing what happens, basically.
Valencia Spain with a side trip to Montserrat. Girona Spain, Nimes and Arles France for the roman ruins, the Pont du Gard, Aix, Cassis France, Vernazza Italy, La Spezia Italy, Luca Italy, Verona Italy, Ljubljana Slovenia, Pula Croatia, Zagreb Croatia, Pecs Hungary. Loved every one of them.
I came here to say go to Valencia, and this anon is 100% right. Do just that.
Agree with this. That corner of Spain and into Andorra is lovely and has loads of quiet places to chill in. I would also recommend Sardinia. Loads of little beaches on the ring road that have no one there. You can always head down to the south part of the island for a bigger city and bars once you feel like being with people.
Thanks for the suggestions. How did you travel? Did you go by car?
Kek
Thanks, did you go by plane? Or did you take a ferry?
Pic related is me and my car.
Thanks, that seems like a nice little loop. Did you stay in hotels or did you sleep in your car?
We stayed in Airbnbs. The south of France had a lot of really cheap apartments for rent. There are actually a lot of apartments on Airbnb in $50/night range for Nimes, Arles, Aix and Avignon, but we picked out some nicer places in the 100/night range, The only places we spent over $100 was in Cassis and in Barcelona, but it was worth it. We got an oceanfront balcony in Cassis.
Barcelona is a good city to fly into because it's usually cheap for flights and there are a ton of options. But it's a shit city to drive around in or try to find parking. Don't rent the car until the day you leave the city. We got a hybrid and spent very little on gas. If you can drive stick, that's a good option for saving money too because you'll get much better mileage.
A couple cool things about the south of France, you don't pay for wine tastings. We hit like 7 wineries and they never charged for tastings. We would usually buy a bottle at the end of the tasting to take with us. I think the most expensive bottle we bought was $14. In the US, those tastings are typically like $25/person or more, especially in Napa California where they can run like 80 each. Another thing that was great was there were never lines for anything. We did a Roman amphitheater in Nimes and there were maybe a dozen people in the whole place. There might have been 20 people at the Pont Du Gard. Also, the weather in September is fricking amazing. It was 78 and sunny every day for 2 weeks straight.
Thanks for the reply.
I looked up Nimes and it looks very nice, so it's definitely going on the list of maybe's. I also checked airbnb's in the area where I'm headed and I'm surprised by the rates. You can get a decent looking room for as little as 25 euros which, for a penniless vagrant like myself, is not too brutal.
I'm glad you enjoyed your stay as much as you did, though, you definitely come across as if the area had a lasting (positive) impact on you.
Thanks for your honesty. I'm honestly not a bigot, the only girlfriend I ever had was a different race than I am, but I can't ignore patterns, either, not when my own safety is concerned.
Did you happen to visit Bologna?
Add Girona Spain to that route as well. Great little city and very affordable.
Thank you, Girona is well within my reach. Anything specific I should see or do?
I don't know anything about the region, hence my question. And I don't like touristy places for obvious reasons. I fail to see how that can upset you enough to take the time to leave a comment lile you did. Isn't the whole idea of travelling to discover places? I'm interested enough to go and discover them, that's enough reason, isn't it?
Girona is a little city and most of the good stuff in centralized. It's easy to walk around and see everything in a day. If you wanted something more adventurous, there are couple bike rental places in the city. You can ride from the city all the way to the beach.
https://epicroadrides.com/cycling-blog/easy-cycling-routes-girona/
Look up Carcassonne France too. It's only like 30 minutes up and back off the main highway.
As opposed to what? Going to third world shit holes and trying to avoid being robbed, murdered and scammed?
Also, it needs to be trans friendly communities.
>walking through nice towns and cities and seeing what happens
how do you plan a road trip with the area being mostly water? Do you plan on driving around a cargo ship because there's not enough space for that. I wanted to do the same.
4 years ago, I did a 14 day roadtrip with my girlfriend starting in Barcelona up through Spain and France. We made a big loop. After Barcelona, we hit mostly smaller cities and towns.In order, we did Barcelona, Girona, Nimes, Arles, Aix, Cassis, Gourdes, Avignon, Roses Spain and back to Barcelona. We also made some stops at the Pont du Gard, Orange and Roussillon and the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque. There was nothing I would have skipped. The food was flawless. I got hooked on French bakeries. I'd seek them out in every town. The south of France is really laid back. We never had a problem and 99 percent of the people we met were cool. It's a good route for a roadtrip because all the places we went had plenty of parking and were easy to get in and out of. The highways are great and they don't drive too crazy in France. It's not like Italy where everyone is a maniac and there are zero rules. I'd definitely do another French roadtrip.
Well the key to avoid tourists in that area is to go in off months. I went to Nice and took the train up to Portofino peninsula the last 2 weeks of September. All the locals said I was smart for not coming June-August, even though they love the tourism money
Oh and avoid Genoa if you go to the same area I did (or just use it to switch trains). That definitely had a lot of your 2nd bullet point. Every other town/city I visited in between did not.
>I'm looking for big towns and small-ish cities that:
>• Aren't flooded with tourists
If you need to ask this then you aren't interested enough in the places and non-normie enough to deserve the answer.