Does the Road Less Travelled Offer a Decent Alternative to the Giza Pyramids?

There are hundreds of tourist sites and experiences that are too crowded, too over-developed or too expensive. They’re the places we always see on TV or as backdrops in movies, or places we’ve read about in books or seen on the covers of travel magazines; it’s always sunny in the photos, and the sites always look pleasant and amazing to visit. But are they?

It’s a question publisher Dorling Kindersley has tackled head-on in The Road Less Travelled: 1,000 Amazing Places Off the Tourist Trail, a book that controversially picks the world’s top tourist sites – and then casts them effortlessly aside in favour of less publicised places. Instead of visiting the Pyramids of Giza, with their “unbroken procession of tourist buses”, the book’s authors say tourists should head to the pyramids of Meroe in Sudan, where they can “have the tombs all to themselves, with little more accompaniment than the sound of the desert wind in heir ears”. 

The book lists other alternatives to Giza, too, including Mexico’s Great Pyramid of Cholula and the sites at Saqqara and Dahshur (though I challenge anyone to journey all the way to Saqqara from wherever they are in the world and NOT stop in at Giza).

A Golden Age of Travellers

The book is broken down into sections: Ancient and Historical Sites, Festivals and Parties, Great Journeys, Architectural Marvels, Natural Wonders, Beaches, Sports and Activities, Art and Culture, and Cities. Each section also has sub-sections or added extras such as ‘More Amazing Ancient and Historical Sites’ and ‘Less Travelled China’, which allows the authors to squeeze in as many additional ‘off-the-beaten-track’ destinations as space allows.

In the foreword, the celebrated travel writer Bill Bryson says that we – the current generation of travellers – form part of a ‘golden age of travel’ because we can go anywhere and see anything if we have enough money in our pockets. And he’s right – it’s our own fault when we get to Giza or to the Louvre and find it hopelessly overcrowded. If don’t want to share our space with busloads of umbrella-wielding tour guides, then we should think a little more about the types of places we want to go. There’s no good moaning about it – either accept that you're helping to make up the masses, or move on. There are, after all, loads of other places we can go and make crowded instead.

The Road Less Travelled proves it by the sheer volume of less visited destinations. The book is, therefore, an inspirational coffee-table tome that also serves as a tool of reference for anyone wanting to go somewhere. Preferably anywhere.

Some of the head-to-head comparisons are tenuous because of the physical remoteness to the sites each other, as well as their remoteness in cultural terms or in terms of the types of experiences they offer the visitor. For instance, I'm not sure anyone would seriously visit Tower of London instead of Krak des Chevaliers, or vice  versa; it just doesn't work that way. The latter you are likely to make a special journey to see, the former is often explored (or not) as part of a broader visit to London.

Others comparisons, meanwhile, have considerably more merit, especially when the ‘replica v the real thing’ debate rears its head. For example, the book suggests visiting the rock art of the Drakensberg rather than the replicas at Lascaux; Creswell Crags is one of six other suggested alternatives.

Elsewhere, Alexandria is picked over Cairo (and its museum), and Avebury over Stonehenge (a common suggestion).  ‘Cruising Lake Nasser’ wins out over ‘Cruising the Nile’, which is apparently too busy and too dangerous ('swimming should be avoided').

Forget the Acropolis

The book also suggests going to Agrigento and Selinunte, which “can be more evocative of the power and majesty of Ancient Greece” than the Acropolis, which “suffers from the danger of over-anticipation”. And, anyway, the sculptures on the Erechtheum are fakes, and most of the Parthenon frieze is miles away in the British Museum.

Go to Pula Arena (“and equally imposing and magnificent arena”) instead of the Colosseum ('Your visit will be even more memorable if you fall victim to a pickpocket') – though the authors do concede that 'even as a partial ruin, it can still take your breath away'.

Go to Tikal instead of Chichen Itza, which is 'too accessible from Cancun to maintain any sort of mystery'. By contrast, 'Tikal’s winding jungle pathways and remote location combine with its sheer scale to devastating hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck effect'.

The book offers up some wonderful food for the thinking tourist, or one open to new discoveries and ideas. But are these supporting acts better than ones that have topped the tourist billing for centuries? Does Saqqara, from a purely tourist perspective, offer the same sense of satisfaction that comes with that first glimpse Giza, poking its pointy little tops above the outskirts of Cairo?

Is it really possible for Joe Tourist to find an alternative to Machu Picchu or a rock as satisfying as Uluru to pee all over? Do the crowds or the car parks or the costs involved make the sites themselves any less interesting, any less worthwhile? And what makes an over-rated site in the first place?

While nothing in this book is particularly new (UNESCO’s recent release covers off more systematically most of the ancient, cultural and natural sites mentioned in The Road Less Travelled) – it’s the way the information is presented that’s new. It’s the juxtaposition of site against site that makes all the questions above such interesting topics for debate. So go on – would you forgo Giza – the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, the lot – for Saqqara? Or Cairo for Alexandria? Or bypass Machu Picchu?