Low Season Traveller Insider Guides

About Low Season Traveller Insider Guides

The low season travel podcast where each week we learn more about what the tourism experience is like during each destination's quiet season. And who better to learn from than the very people who live locally in each destination who can advise us of the "hidden gems" we shouldn't miss. The podcast was created by Ged Brown, Founder of Low Season Traveller, the world's first travel website, podcast, magazine and media entirely dedicated to inspiring travellers to visit destinations during their fabulous low seasons.

Publisher

Low Season Traveller

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

29 Dec 2018

Latest episode

11 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

220 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Aug 2026

   Santorini When She's Alone

   There's a line a local musicologist once gave Maria Petrenko about Oia that has stayed with her ever since. You don't go to a woman when everyone in the room is queuing up to light her cigarette. You go when she's alone. That's Santorini in December. Same caldera, same whitewashed alleyways, same view that launched a million photographs, but with nobody in it except you. Maria is a local guide and the founder of Santorini by Maria, running private walking tours built around slow travel, and she lives on the island year-round. In this episode she takes Imogen Strickland through the version of Santorini that most visitors never see, and makes a quietly persuasive case for going once everyone has gone home. She talks about the empty alleyways after the first rains, when the herbs come back and the mushrooms appear on the mountain if you're brave enough to pick them. She explains why hiking the volcano is better in the cold, when you can feel the heat coming up through the rock instead of being confused by the sun beating down on you. She describes February fog creeping into the villages and admits it's ideal weather for anyone with a Gothic novel in them. There's the arnaki, the slow-roasted lamb that tastes better the following day, and the chilly evenings that push you indoors to your own oven with a glass of wine and no reason to hurry. Maria is honest about the trade-offs too. Most locals leave for the winter, and the ones who stay do so for a reason. The wind is the real cold, not the temperature. Some villages will leave you with nowhere to eat, so she recommends basing yourself in Oia or Fira, the two places that become unbearable in July and are perfectly pleasant in December. Public transport thins out. Museums keep short hours. What you get in return is the thing everyone comes to Santorini looking for and almost never finds. Space. Maria calls it island-wide me time. There's also a creative community quietly reassembling itself on the island, painters in residence, writers taking rooms for a month, galleries opening in the inland villages, drawing on an artistic history that goes back to the frescoes at Akrotiri and got lost somewhere in the rush of mass tourism. If you've been putting Santorini off because of what you've seen in other people's photographs, this is the conversation that might change your mind about when to go. Find Maria's private walking tours at Santorini by Maria (https://santorinibymaria.com). More low season inspiration, destination guides and our full Low Season Traveller Calendar: lowseasontraveller.com (https://lowseasontraveller.com) Follow us on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lowseasontraveller/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/lowseasontraveller) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/lowseasontraveller/) for the latest low season stories, articles and guides.

2. 

   14 Jul 2026

   When the Snow Melts: The Other Side of Haute-Savoie

   Climb high enough above the village of Les Contamines and Mont Blanc is suddenly right there, close enough to look in the eye, with only a handful of walkers for company and vultures turning slow circles overhead. That is the Haute-Savoie most people never see: the French Alps once the snow has melted and the ski crowds have gone home. In this episode, Imogen Strickland is joined by travel writer Olly Beckett, founding editor of Mountains Magazine, who has been returning to this corner of eastern France for three decades. Together they make the case for the quieter months, when the cable cars are still running but the prices have dropped, the meadows are thick with wildflowers, and the restaurants are genuinely glad of your custom. Olly shares the villages he keeps coming back to, from tiny Thollon-les-Mémises, the self-styled Balcony of Europe looking out over Switzerland, to lively Le Grand-Bornand with its Wednesday market, and the lakeside city of Annecy that he would happily call home. There is fondue and tartiflette, mountain huts and hot summer days cooled by a breeze, plus a proper look at how easy the region is to reach by train, and why that slower journey is part of the holiday rather than a chore. If you have only ever thought of the Haute-Savoie as somewhere to ski, this is your reason to go back when everyone else has left. Listen now, and explore more low-season stories at lowseasontraveller.com (https://lowseasontraveller.com). Follow Low Season Traveller on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lowseasontraveller/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/lowseasontraveller) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/lowseasontraveller/). Learn more about train travel to the mountains via Protect Our Winters (https://protectourwinters.uk).

3. 

   7 Jul 2026

   Malta in Winter: 16° and Not a Crowd in Sight.

   In this episode, Tolene Van de Merwe laughs about it: she'll join a video call and find her whole Malta team bundled up in coats because it's sixteen degrees and, to them, that's cold! To her, coming from a British winter, it's practically summer. That small moment tells you almost everything about Malta out of season. While much of the Mediterranean pulls down the shutters at the end of October, Malta simply carries on as usual. In this episode, Ged sits down with Tolene of the Malta Tourism Authority, who has spent seven years sharing these islands with travellers across the UK and Ireland, to make the case for Malta as a year-round destination and for the quieter months as the time it shows its best side. They wander Valletta as an open-air, UNESCO-listed museum you can enjoy at your own pace, then cross to Gozo, the slower, greener sister island with its hand-worked salt pans and the hilltop shrine at Ta' Pinu, tiny Comino and its Blue Lagoon sitting in between. Tolene talks temples older than the pyramids at Ħaġar Qim, the cool hush of the catacombs at Rabat, and a food scene with its own Michelin guide, including a local wine you can only drink if you come, because Malta doesn't make enough of it to export. There's the practical steer too: which months to choose, with November her own favourite and October to April the sweet spot, how easy it is to get around by bus, ferry and car, and why nothing sits more than half an hour from the coast. Low season in Malta, as Tolene puts it, isn't off season. It's when the island is at its best. Plan your trip: https://www.visitmalta.com (https://www.visitmalta.com/) More low-season Malta and Gozo: https://www.lowseasontraveller.com (https://www.lowseasontraveller.com/)

Who has been a guest on Low Season Traveller Insider Guides

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Silvia Vidal
• Sahara Rose De Vore
• Stuart McDonald
• Angelo Carotenuto
• Margarita Alburna

Podcast Authority Score: 41 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

81

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

0