Named on Intrepid Travel’s 2027 ‘Not Hot List’  the definitive line-up of the planet’s most exciting under-the-radar destinations 

Dinushka Chandrasena  

For decades, Sri Lanka’s story was written on its coastline: the surf breaks of Arugam Bay, the ramparts of Galle, the palm-fringed beaches of the south. One of the world’s largest adventure travel company rewrote the script. The Pekoe Trail the 300-kilometre walking route that threads through the emerald heart of the island’s tea country has been named on Intrepid Travel’s 2027 Not Hot List, the company’s influential annual ranking of ten destinations poised to define the next chapter of global travel. 

It is a landmark moment for Sri Lankan tourism, the Pekoe Trail is the only Asian mainland experience of its kind on the list, standing alongside Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve, Georgia’s Mestia and Canada’s Whitehorse as a destination the industry’s sharpest forecasters believe travellers will be talking about in 2027. 

The Not Hot List is no ordinary listicle. First launched in 2018 and compiled from the insights of Intrepid’s network of local leaders and destination experts in more than 35 countries, it has earned a reputation for calling destinations before the rest of the world catches on. Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan and Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan mountains both appeared on earlier editions and both went on to feature in The New York Times’ celebrated ’52 Places to Go’ lists, with Intrepid recording booking growth of 67 per cent and 62 per cent respectively in the years that followed. 

In other words: when the Not Hot List speaks, the travel industry and travellers – listen. And in 2027, it is speaking about Sri Lanka. 

Intrepid positions the trail as the immersive alternative to the island’s busy coastal circuit, a slower, deeper Sri Lanka where travellers walk between plantation bungalows, share meals in village kitchens and watch the tea pluckers work hillsides their families have tended for generations. 

‘As Sri Lanka’s tourism boom continues, most visitors remain concentrated along the coast, but there’s so much more to see. We need to better disperse tourists, and a trip through Sri Lanka’s tea country is the perfect place to start,’ says Poornaka Delpachitra, Intrepid Travel’s Colombo-based General Manager for Sri Lanka. 

The timing could hardly be better. Eased visa rules, a wave of new international flight connections and the national sustainable tourism strategy have made the highlands more accessible to international travellers than at any point in the trail’s young life. To accelerate that momentum, Intrepid has launched a new 10-day ‘Hike Sri Lanka’s Pekoe Trail’ itinerary, taking travellers on foot through six standout sections of the route — spreading the benefits of tourism into rural communities while revealing a side of Sri Lanka few visitors ever see. 

The coast made Sri Lanka famous. The tea country, it seems, is about to make it unforgettable.