The cheapest underrated city in Europe revealed - with flights under £17
A team of travel experts have revealed the cheapest and most underrated city to visit in Europe and Brits can get there for under £17.
And it's Linz, a city in northern Austria, which is Europe's best cheap hidden gem, according to a study that looked at average Google searches across the UK in the last 12 months to find out where the continent's most underrated destinations are.
Austria's third-largest city, Linz sits on the banks of the Danube River and has an attractive old town.
Linz Castle is one of the city's top attractions, located at the heart of its historic centre. Tourists will find a museum inside where they can learn more about the region's culture.
A visitor wrote on Tripadvisor: 'A beautiful museum with an impressive location in Linz Castle. The exhibitions are diverse, exciting and very well curated - from nature to technology and art.'
Don't miss the Mariendom church in the Old Town, which is Austria's largest church. The striking building was finished in 1924 and can accommodate 20,000 people.
Visitors can also climb to the top of the spire to enjoy panoramic views of Linz from above.
Kids will love Linz's Grottenbahn, a dragon-themed train adventure that takes tourists through a miniature world.
One visitor described it as a 'magical fairytale world for young and old' while another said it was very 'cute'.
When it comes to eating out, there's one sweet dish that's a must-try. The city's Linzer Torte is a pastry with a lattice crust, almond filling and redcurrant jam.
The experts at Holidu, the company who conducted the research, found one-way flights for under £17 and with low Google searches for the destination, tourists aren't likely to have to fight off crowds while they're there.
A Holidu spokesperson says: 'This ancient city, named the European Capital of Culture in 2009, is particularly known for its history and culture.'
But Linz is also a fantastic base from which to explore the rest of Austria.
Holidu recommends visiting Hallstatt, famed as the location of the castle that inspired Disney's Frozen, and Salzburg, Mozart's birthplace, both of which are less than two hours away from Linz.
After Linz, the next best underrated destination in in Europe, according to the study, is Poitiers in France. Brits can fly to Poitiers for just £15.
Holidu describes the city's old town as a 'must-visit' due to its 'rich history' and 'Romanesque architecture'.
Holidu found one-way flights for under £17 and with low Google searches for the destination, tourists aren't likely to have to fight off crowds while they're there
And if you're not looking to travel far this summer, the third underrated destination on the list could be the perfect spot for you.
Kerry in Ireland can be reached for under £15 and is bound to 'impress with its stunning and dramatic landscapes', says Holidu.
At the other end of the scale Dublin, Paris and Barcelona are the most-searched for destinations by British tourists.
Alicante, Tenerife, Malaga and Malta are also popular choices with Brits looking for a summer break.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
an hour ago
- Scotsman
Britain's Sixth-Best Café? You'll find it in Edinburgh!
A new study reveals Britain's favourite cafés based on Tripadvisor reviews, and Lynne's Scrumptious Snax in Edinburgh ranks sixth with 263 reviews and a score of 4.989 out of 5. Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The study, by analysed Tripadvisor review counts and ratings for over 14,000 cafés across the UK's 150 most populated cities. It then created a score combining these two factors to find out which spots are highest rated and favoured by Brits. Lynne's Scrumptious Snax, in Edinburgh, takes sixth place with 263 reviews and a score of 4.989 out of 5. The snack van, situated in Hermiston Gait Retail Park is open every day, and serves breakfast, lunch, and brunch until 2 pm. Both food and service are rated top quality in its hundreds of reviews, with customers frequently praising the generous portions, friendly staff, and freshly prepared signature burgers. Many visitors describe it as a hidden gem and a go-to spot for a satisfying, affordable meal on the go. Top 10 Britain's best cafés Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Cafes often mean more to the communities they serve than just a place to grab coffee - they're a space to unwind, connect with others, work, and write. Rank Name Overall rating Number of reviews City Score 1 Devine Restaurant Coffee Bar 5 1409 London 4.9979 2 Blether 5 526 Aberdeen 4.9945 3 Saracens Cafe 5 349 Nottingham 4.9917 4 Kanu Poké 5 293 Shrewsbury 4.9901 5 Kawaffle 5 286 Plymouth 4.9899 6 Lynne's Scrumptious Snax 5 263 Edinburgh 4.9890 7 Tantuni 5 258 Plymouth 4.9888 8 Laco Café & Bistro 5 236 Stockport 4.9878 9 Rising Cafe 5 221 Birmingham 4.9869 10 Crema E Cioccolato Scarborough 5 206 Scarborough 4.9860 Devine Restaurant Coffee Bar in London secured the top spot with an impressive 1,409 reviews while maintaining a perfect 5-star rating, resulting in the highest score of 4.9979 out of 5. The café is located in Vine Street, within the City of London, just a few steps away from the Tower of London. Devine is independent and family run, and its menu includes all the classic British breakfast items, like full breakfasts, omelettes, baps and more for reasonable prices, given its location. The most expensive item is priced at £12. The café is open from Tuesday to Friday from 7 am to 2 pm. Aberdeen's Blether claimed second place with 526 reviews and a score of 4.9945. Located on North Deeside Road Cults, Blether is extremely dog friendly, encouraging customers on their socials to bring their pooches along. Their homemade menu spans breakfast, lunch, and supper, and caters to gluten-free and vegan diets. Saracens Cafe in Nottingham ranks third, garnering 349 reviews and a total score of 4.9917. Saracens distinguishes itself from the rest of the places in the top 10 for its opening hours, as it's the only one which is open until late at night, until 1 am from Sunday to Thursday, and until 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays. The menu is a blend of various cuisines from around the world, with both full British breakfasts and curries to choose from, as well as burgers, pasta dishes, and a wide selection of cocktails. Further down the list, Kanu Poké, in Shrewsbury, comes fourth, with 293 reviews and a score of 4.9901, while Kawaffle, in Plymouth, completes the top five, with 286 reviews and a final score of 4.9899. A spokesperson from commented on the findings, Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad "Cafes often mean more to the communities they serve than just a place to grab coffee - they're a space to unwind, connect with others, work, and write. 'These results show the strength and diversity of Britain's café scene across the country. While the top spot goes to London, it's great to see towns and cities throughout the UK represented in the rankings, demonstrating the nationwide growth in quality coffee shops and cafés."
Daily Mirror
2 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Popular beach 'one of world's most overrated' – 31% of visitors say it's dirty
The UK beach has been slammed by holidaymakers in reviews Despite the UK's renown for its picturesque coastal retreats, one of its famed beaches has unfortunately found itself on a global list for less than flattering reasons. Bournemouth Beach has been ranked among the world's most overrated beaches, drawing criticism from both British and international tourists. Cloudwards experts scrutinised TripAdvisor reviews for 200 of the globe's most frequented beaches. They explained their methodology: "We used complaint-related keywords like 'dirty', 'overcrowded', 'long queues', 'noise', and 'disruption' to filter the reviews, then looked at how frequently they were applied to each beach to calculate an overall 'complaint score." Bournemouth Beach, nestled in Dorset, landed in the top five of this less desirable ranking. The beach is known for its seven-mile stretch of sand, crystal clear waters, and striking cliffs. The beach even boasts its own micro-climate, offering some of the warmest sea temperatures in the UK. Whether you're lounging on the sand, exploring the pier, savouring local cuisine, or engaging in water sports, there's something for everyone throughout the year. However, this recent study has labelled the beach as "overrated", reports the Express. Bournemouth beach received a total complaint score of 65.1/100 (with 100 being the worst). The study revealed that 31.7% of reviews claimed the beach is dirty, 52.5% complained it is overcrowded, 10.2% grumbled about long queues, and 5.6% remarked on high noise levels. However, Bournemouth Beach fared better than some US beaches, with Waikiki Beach in Hawaii earning a complaint score of 100/100, making it the "most complained-about beach worldwide". The expert's assessment of Waikiki Beach highlighted overcrowding as the main issue (67.3% of complaints), followed by cleanliness concerns (15.9%), and to a lesser extent, long queues and noise. According to TripAdvisor, Bournemouth beach boasts an average rating of 4.5 bubbles from over 9,000 reviewers. However, a glance at the comments reveals a less rosy picture, with the most recent review (June 2025) being decidedly negative. The disgruntled visitor wrote: "Dirty rundown, no pride in the area. Also got fined £100 for putting a cigarette on a planter full of buts, no bins, little jobsworth won't be going again, nothing like it used to be." Another reviewer remarked: "Great beach, but some tourists are animals, leaving litter everywhere. I was helping out with beach clean for Marine Conservation for my daughter and as soon as the beach was done, it was covered in beer cans, plastic debris, vapes, and numerous wet wipes, broken glass, Cigarette ends everywhere." One visitor expressed their disappointment with Bournemouth's main beach, noting the overcrowding issue. They commented: "We've been to Bournemouth many times and love the area in general but really disappointed with the main beach area on our last visit. "We'd gone late afternoon, having spent the day at one of the smaller beaches (which was lovely), so I realise the beach and facilities will have taken a hammering over such a busy day, but it was smelly and dirty." The top 10 most overrated beaches in the world Ranking Beach Country Score Dirty Crowded Queues Noise 1 Waikiki Beach USA 100 15.9% 67.3% 7.6% 9.2% 2 Venice Beach USA 89.7 60.6% 20.7% 6.8% 12% 3 Playa Manuel Antonio Costa Rica 73.5 10.4% 56.2% 26% 7.4% 4 Clearwater Beach USA 65.5 18.6% 64.6% 8.3% 8.5% 5 Bournemouth Beach UK 65.1 31.7% 52.5% 10.2% 5.6% 6 La Jolla Cove USA 64.3 57.9% 30.4% 6.7% 4.9% 7 Elafonissi Beach Greece 60.3 9.8% 73.4% 14.4% 2.4% 8 Magens Bay Beach Virgin Islands 58.1 12.4% 62.2% 16.9% 8.5% 9 Bondi Beach Australia 57.1 13% 75.9% 7.8% 3.4% 10 Maho Beach Sint Maarten 57 6.8% 43.8% 11.3% 38.2%
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
I took my city kids on a road trip to teach them about the outback – and learned a few lessons myself
Recently, I bundled the family into our beaten up station wagon and set out on a 3,000km journey from Sydney to the outback to instil some core memories into the kids. We had an ambitious agenda. The distances we had to cover to achieve my red dirt dreams were, to a sane minded person with two small kids in the back, loopy. And I will admit that, for the majority of this road trip, we were gripped with a palpable, vibrating rage towards each other, about the distance yet to travel, and the discomfort of every moment we were in the car. I'd had childhood memories of driving to the outback and I would show pictures of wide open spaces to my soft, city-raised kids with their distinct bubble tea orders and sushi train preferences. Time to send them down the (approved for tourists) mines. And we did see everything. More roadkill than most nations have wildlife; a cocktail in a Tiki cup in Cobar; stars outside town that generated a real sense of awe; pepper trees, friendly donkeys, non-binary baristas. The outback had it all. In a bird-hide outside Forbes we watched a swamp with bright green water with aesthetically pleasing dead eucalypts making perfect perches for the birds. Seeing a golden opportunity to impart some Aussie folklore, I confidently told the kids that a Bunyip lived there. I was unable to answer any of their follow up questions about it. I had ideas of teaching the kids a thing or two about the real world, but their enthusiasm for the smallest joy knocked me for six. At the side of a road motel that looked like a movie set for a particularly perverse murder, the kids thought being next to the train line and being woken at 3am by a thundering freight train was a feature, not a defect, and they cheered enthusiastically when the noise woke us again at 6am. It took a full three days but we finally arrived in Broken Hill. It's not every town that is dominated by a giant slag heap (non-derogatory) in the middle, and it's a sight as remarkable as I remember as a kid, an astounding distance from Sydney and part of the South Australian time zone. It's a town of 20,000 people surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of not much but minerals in every direction. It has such a distinctive look – an outback town frozen in time – that the whole place is heritage listed. It's beautiful, it's weird – we had to stop the car in the middle of the road to let emus cross – and should you forget its origins as a mining town, the streets have names such as Oxide and Sulphide. I thought dragging the kids to a mineral museum would be one of the more torturous ways to grapple with what an oxide might be, but the kids squealed with joy thinking they were in real-life Minecraft. One evening, we walked through the glowing orange hills at sunset – I've never taken so many pictures of rocks. There were hunks of dusty quartz and random rocks (I still need to ask chatGPT what a mineral is) sparkling as the light hit them, and the hills turned that Albert Namatjira purple at dusk. We saw swollen swamps and the rivers of the far west; we sampled the finest Chinese meals that country Australia has to offer; had the humbling experience of being declined a table at the one restaurant in Lightning Ridge on a Tuesday night, and; had our breaths taken away by Aboriginal rock art preserved out the back of Bourke. The trip wasn't glamorous, nor did I recognise that my bedding set up at home has turned me into the Princess and the Pea, tormented by mattresses that I can't sink into, or regulation sized towels. I understand that this is pathetic. I tossed and turned, ready to mentally unravel about bedding, but the next morning, Easter Sunday, the kids woke up to an admittedly low energy Easter egg hunt in a $125/night side of the highway motel. They experienced what I can only describe as ecstasy, thrilled to ransack our small room looking for the eggs they must have spotted in the boot the day before. What I lacked in bunyip knowledge I was able to make up for with a detailed logistical plan the Easter Bunny had followed to execute this chocolate hunt. I set out to teach the kids about the far reaches of our state, when in fact the kids were the best perspective I could ask for all along. Emily Mulligan is a writer from Sydney
