Overrated? It's usually the wrong question.

Every year the same list goes around: the most overrated destinations, the places not worth your time, the famous spots that let everyone down. I've stood in most of them. And here is what I've come to believe — the label is nearly always aimed at the wrong target.

A place doesn't disappoint you because it's bad. It disappoints you because you arrived in the worst week of the year, slept in the postcard instead of the real town next door, and carried in an expectation built from a single edited photograph. Fix those three things and most "overrated" destinations quietly turn back into the reason people went in the first place.

So this isn't a list of places to skip. It's a list of places most people visit wrong — and what to do instead.

Santorini — not overrated, wrongly visited

Santorini takes more abuse than anywhere, and in peak-summer Oia it earns every word of it: shoulder to shoulder on a stone staircase for a sunset that a thousand people photograph and almost no one actually watches. That version is overrated. But it's a version you choose. Go in the shoulder season, sleep somewhere other than Oia, and the caldera falling to the sea is exactly what the photographs promised — and then some. The honest, long-form verdict is here: is Santorini overrated? — and if you're weighing it against the mainland, Athens vs Santorini.

Positano — overrated as a base, not as a place

Positano is genuinely one of the most beautiful places I've stood. It is also designed to be arrived at, photographed, and left — a near-vertical town where the walk back up is the whole day, and where staying overnight buys you a view and very little else. The mistake isn't visiting Positano. The mistake is basing your trip there. Day-trip it from Sorrento, the town that actually earns a week, and Positano goes from a quiet disappointment to a highlight. The full argument: Positano vs Sorrento.

Mykonos — overrated only if you came for the wrong thing

Mykonos is a nightlife-and-beach-club island, and a spectacular one at exactly that. The people who call it overrated are usually the ones who came expecting a quiet, characterful Greek island and found a scene instead. It isn't overrated — it's specific. If you want the party, few places do it better; if you don't, you'll be happier on Santorini, or on a quieter island entirely. Read it honestly, from both islands: Mykonos vs Santorini.

The obvious over the real — the most overrated decision of all

The single most overrated move in European travel isn't a place. It's the reflex to give the famous city the whole week and skip the real one an hour away. Everyone does Rome and never reaches Naples and the south, where the country actually lives — the food, the noise, the ruins a volcano stopped in an afternoon. The obvious is rarely overrated on its own. It becomes overrated the moment it crowds out everything better nearby. Here's the case for the other side: Naples vs Rome, and the wider southern-Italy guides.

And one that's underrated — Corfu

Since we're being honest about the overrated, here's the other side of the ledger. Corfu — green, Venetian, faintly tropical, and skipped by most travellers on their way to the famous islands — is one of the few genuinely underrated places in Greece. If Santorini in August is the overrated end of the spectrum, five slow days on Corfu is the antidote: Corfu — the un-Greek Greek island.

Overrated — the questions we're asked most

What is the most overrated travel destination?

There isn't a single one — and that's the honest answer. The places that get called overrated, like Santorini in August or Positano as a base, aren't bad places; they are famous places visited at the wrong time, from the wrong base, or with expectations set by a photograph. Almost every "overrated" verdict is really a verdict on how someone visited, not on where they went.

Is Santorini overrated?

No — but it is wrongly visited more than almost anywhere. In peak-summer Oia, shoulder to shoulder for a sunset everyone photographs and no one actually watches, it earns every complaint. Go in the shoulder season, sleep outside Oia, and the caldera is exactly as advertised.

Is Positano overrated?

Not as a place — as a base. Positano is genuinely spectacular, but it is designed to be arrived at, photographed, and left. Day-trip it from Sorrento, which is the town that actually earns a week, and Positano stops being a disappointment and becomes a highlight.

Why do famous destinations feel overrated?

Three reasons, almost always: the wrong season (peak-summer crowds and heat), the wrong base (sleeping in the postcard instead of the place that lives year-round), and expectations set by an edited photograph rather than the real, crowded, human place. Fix those and most "overrated" destinations quietly become worth it.