For a long time, travel meant cities. The famous museum, the busy square, the restaurant you had read about. The countryside was where you passed through on the way, or where you went if you had relatives there. That is slowly changing.
A growing number of travellers are now choosing the village as the destination itself.
The numbers are starting to show it. A study published in January 2026 by the Digital Tourism Think Tank with Airbnb found that rural areas' share of tourism revenue across eight European markets rose from 21 per cent in 2019 to 26 per cent in 2024. The same research noted that rural trips tend to be booked further ahead and that the busiest rural months often fall in winter, when cities are quieter. In China, the platform Meituan reported last year that orders in county-level areas rose by 23 per cent, with travellers under 30 making up more than half of summer visitors.
Some of the reasons are practical. Popular cities have become crowded and expensive, especially in peak season. Better roads and rail links have made small places easier to reach. Remote work has made longer stays possible. But there is also something less measurable at work: a wish to see how people actually live, rather than how a city presents itself to visitors.
UN Tourism has been paying attention. In October 2025, it named 52 new Best Tourism Villages from 29 countries, bringing its network to 319. The list included Koyasan in Japan, a mountain village of Buddhist temples where visitors can stay overnight with monks, Bled in Slovenia and Chamarel in Mauritius. The point of the programme is not simply to reward pretty villages, but to recognise places where tourism supports local livelihoods without hollowing out daily life.
India has its own examples. Dhordo, on the edge of the White Rann in Kutch, was named a Best Tourism Village in 2023. Visitors stay in circular mud houses called bhungas, watch local embroidery being made and walk out onto the salt flats at night. In Meghalaya, Mawlynnong has built a modest tourism economy around its living root bridges and its reputation for cleanliness, with homestays run by the families who live there.
What makes rural travel different is the pace. A city trip is often a list. A village trip is closer to a routine: the same breakfast, the same walk, the same people saying hello on the second day. The experiences are usually smaller, such as a cooking lesson in someone's kitchen, a morning on a farm or a weaving workshop in a front room, but they tend to stay with you longer.
There are complications, of course. Villages are not designed for large numbers of visitors, and the same crowds that strain cities can overwhelm a small community far more quickly. Water, waste, housing and rising prices are real concerns. The places that handle it best tend to be the ones where residents decide how much tourism they want, and on what terms.
The best way to visit is fairly simple. Stay longer than one night, book with local hosts, eat where people eat and accept that not everything will be arranged for you.
The countryside has always been there. What has changed is that more travellers are finally slowing down enough to notice it.
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