Molise, Italy – the answer to your holiday dreams

The region sometimes even the Italians forget about is a blissful mix of uncrowded beaches, atmospheric villages and hill towns

Feel like your perfect holiday destination doesn’t exist? It’s a growing problem, with pre-pandemic issues about overtourism mixing with post-Covid wariness of cities and crowded beaches. The answer could be Molise, a region that doesn’t even exist for most Italians (it’s the one usually missed out by people asked to name all 20) and whose non-existence – “Il Molise non esiste” – has become a meme, a hashtag and the subject of thousands of Instagram posts.