Gen Z Now ‘Lore-Tripping’ to Quirky Small Towns; Pitlochry Prepares by Becoming Slightly More Haunted
Global travel report says young people want 'local legends'; Perthshire towns rush to invent several.
Atholl Road, Pitlochry, which has begun leaving its lore lying about where visitors will find it. Photo: Bill Boaden, “Atholl Road, Pitlochry”, via Wikimedia Commons (geograph.org.uk), CC BY-SA 2.0
PITLOCHRY — A travel industry report that Generation Z travellers are “lore-tripping” to small towns with distinctive legends, history and local culture has sent Perthshire into a frenzy of myth-making, as towns compete to seem “as weird as possible, but in a bookable way.”
“We’ve got loads of lore. We just never wrote it down,” said a Pitlochry tourism volunteer, nailing a hand-painted sign reading “HAUNTED (PROBABLY)” to a lamppost. “There’s the salmon ladder, obviously. There’s the man who’s been waiting at the bus stop since 1994. And there’s the dam, which we’re now saying was built by a giant. It was built by the Hydro Board. But they were quite big lads.”
The report found nearly half of Gen Z’s trending autumn destinations were small towns, with young travellers seeking authentic culture and unusual local stories. Perthshire believes it can deliver both, in quantity.
Kinross has rebranded Loch Leven as “the loch a queen escaped from, ask us how”, while Crieff says its Hydro is “basically a Victorian time portal with a pool.” Dunkeld has started telling visitors that its famous Birnam Oak once walked to Dunsinane, “which is true, if you count Shakespeare.”
Not all of the legends are working. Auchterarder’s attempt to promote “the ghost of the Gleneagles roundabout” foundered when visitors said it was “just a man in a hi-vis jacket who’s been doing roadworks a very long time.” The man has since asked to be added to the official tour, “for the exposure.”
The real story: Airbnb Fall 2026 travel trends: Gen Z 'lore-tripping' to quirky small towns (Airbnb newsroom; reported in BBN Weird News, 18 Oct 2026)
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