15 Ways to Choose the Road Less Traveled

Just because everyone’s visiting a famous attraction doesn’t mean it’s the best of its kind. These alternatives will help you steer clear of the tourist traps and avoid the crowds.

My wife and I had just exited the London tube at the St. Pancras station when we noticed a sign for the British Library. We strolled in, didn’t have to pay an entrance fee, and discovered in an austere back room, housed in a plain cabinet under glass cover … the Magna Carta. Yes, that Magna Carta, the one we all learned about in school, the greatest document of human freedom, the one with King John’s signature — there for the looking to anyone who wanders in off the street.
 
Later that day, we visited the British Museum, which was terrifyingly crowded and, though nominally also free, impossible to enter without running a gantlet of guilt-inducing donation stations. And after that, the Tower of London, which cost $50 for the two of us and was rather disappointing — lots of suits of armor, about which it is best said, when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.
 
And that was when we learned an important travel lesson: Wherever you go, there are cheaper, better and less crowded alternatives to the world’s big-deal tourist attractions. That’s not to say that either the Tower of London or, especially, the British Museum, is unworthy. But visitors to London distracted by the high-octane sights would be poorer for missing the British Library, where they can see one of the most important documents in the English language.
 
Alternatives like that can be found around the world. Here’s a sampling of suggestions, offered to help you embrace the possibilities and find your own:
 
- The Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks are side-by-side wonders in California’s Sierra Nevada that draw far fewer visitors than Yosemite National Park. Sequoia holds the world’s biggest tree, the giant redwood named “General Sherman.” And Kings Canyon, a sublimely beautiful cleft in the mountains, is purported by its advocates to be equally as awe-inspiring as the better-known Grand Canyon and Hells Canyon.
 
- The American Folk Art Museum is literally next door to New York’s Museum of Modern Art. It’s much smaller, but it holds unique and wonderful American treasures, such as a collection of handmade weather vanes; it costs just $9; and it’s rarely crowded. MOMA, by contrast, costs $20, is always packed and focuses much more on art by famous European painters like Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.
 
- A passenger ride on a Washington State Ferry from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island is $6.70, and if you leave on a summer evening just before dusk, the views outbound and coming back are exquisite — first, the skyline is lit by the setting sun, and then it’s framed against the stars. By comparison, the glass-elevator ride to the top of the Space Needle costs more than twice as much ($16) and doesn’t offer nearly as enchanting a vista. Look at the Space Needle, but ride the ferry.
 
- A boat ride in Hong Kong — the Star Ferry between Kowloon and Central — has the same virtues, affording a splendid view of the famed Hong Kong skyline and its neon glow. It’s also the most democratic transport in the city, with suit-clad businessmen joining tourists, school kids and workers for a 10-minute crossing that costs about 77 cents. Victoria Peak, by contrast, costs more than $6, the view is nowhere near as clear or as inspiring, and the crowds are virtually all tourists.

- When you sail into Alaska’s Yakutat Bay to view the Hubbard Glacier, you enter one of the world’s most scenic locales. The Hubbard is an active tidewater ice flow, one of the last anywhere, and the setting is incomparable, with snowy peaks seemingly just a crow-flight away. Glacier Bay, by comparison, is a world-class illustration of climate change — its namesake glaciers have receded more than 65 miles, almost all the way back to shore. Nonetheless, most Alaska cruise passengers still focus their attention on Glacier Bay.
 
- San Francisco’s Ferry Building, with its iconic clock tower, is an exceptional 1898 masterpiece of belle époque design. It’s also a working terminal, with Bay Area commuter ferries shuttling in and out all day. Best, it’s a vibrant marketplace with produce stands, food vendors, newsstands, coffee kiosks, artisan bakers, flower sellers, butchers, chocolate and ice cream makers — a fairyland for visitors. In other words, it’s everything the better-known Fisherman’s Wharf, one of the tawdriest tourist traps in the U.S., is not.
 
- Strawberry Fields, in Central Park north of Tavern on the Green, is a simple but heartfelt people’s monument to a former nearby resident, John Lennon. Simply a pathway mosaic inlaid with the word “Imagine,” it’s memorable for its spare elegance; New York citizens continue to bring flowers and memorials there to this day. Compare that to Times Square, just 2 miles away, which is jammed, noisy, cosmically commercial and memorably daunting.
 
- New Orleans’ Garden District is an unequaled neighborhood of elegant antebellum mansions, many dating back to the late 18th century, all surrounded by lush gardens. A stroll through this area is a trip into a halcyon past, when paddle-wheelers plied the Mississippi nearby and Creole families ruled the Crescent City. Go here instead of the French Quarter — especially Bourbon Street — which is a playground of drunken tourists, mercenary shills, pickpockets and overpriced drink-sellers. The quarter, in fact, isn’t even French. (Its architecture is Spanish.)
 
- Coba, Mexico, is one of the world’s great archaeological wonders, a massive Mayan city still undergoing excavation. Stand atop one of the pyramids here and you will see, for miles in every direction, jungle-clad hills that guides tell you conceal yet-to-be-unearthed ruins. Parrots flock through the trees; crowds are well-dispersed in the area’s immensity. By contrast, both Uxmal and Chichen Itza, though among the world’s historic treasures, are overrun with visitors; the irony is that Coba is much closer to Cancun, the main visitor gateway to the Yucatan.
 
- Millions of Americans have an ancestor who entered this country through Ellis Island — it took me a wondrous half-hour of wandering to find the plaque with my grandmother’s name on it. This is a very real temple of the American immigrant experience, and should be a World Heritage Site, like its nearby neighbor, the Statue of Liberty. While the latter is a fine sight from a distance, the much-sought visit to the island and the arduous climb up the interior stairs to the crown are both more trouble and expense than they’re worth. Spend all your time on Ellis Island and admire the statue from afar.

- Quiet prevails most of the year at the wineries that dot the countryside of the Russian River and Alexander valleys in Northern California. Spread across Sonoma County’s beautiful oak-clad hills, braced by the ridges of the coastal ranges, these vineyards and winemakers hang modest signs by the road and offer a low-key wine-touring experience. Napa Valley, by comparison, features bumper-to-bumper traffic from June through October, and its wineries are largely high-priced exemplars of the fact that world fame isn’t always a good thing.
 
- The “Girl in a Wetsuit” sculpture in Vancouver’s Stanley Park was unabashedly patterned after its more famous cousin in Copenhagen, the “Little Mermaid.” But the North American version is better in every way — its rock perch is actually in the water (the “Little Mermaid” is on shore, surrounded by litter and gaping tourists); the statue is better art; and the setting in Vancouver, with British Columbia’s snowy Coast Range peaks in the background, is sublime.
 
- Dresden, Germany, is an ancient European capital with cobblestone streets, beautiful, centuries-old buildings and a fabulous history. Once this was the seat of Saxon monarch Augustus the Strong; bombed to oblivion in World War II, it has been lovingly reconstructed with the help of British and American philanthropic groups, and today stands as a monument to peace and reconciliation. Salzburg, Austria, is also a cobblestone-street historic capital, the home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But Dresden is more economical, less crowded and more meaningful than Salzburg.
 
Let me reiterate: A worthy alternative does not necessarily mean the main attraction is worthless. I love Napa Valley’s St. Helena and Calistoga; Times Square is an invigorating kaleidoscope of neon and urban bustle; Salzburg is memorable, though fearfully expensive. And if you’ve never seen Monet’s “Water Lilies” or Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” then by all means visit MOMA.
 
However, do bear in mind that, with a few exceptions, every world-famous, packed-to-the-rafters, hand-over-your-wallet tourist attraction has an equally worthwhile alternative. Just watch the crowds and go the other way.