The rural tourism literature has predominantly focused on understanding and theorising rural tourism either as a homogeneous whole, or at either end of the rurality spectrum. The premise of this volume is that a lack of consideration for the particularities of rural does little to aid in our understanding and development of tourism across all rural spaces. Through the use of a consistent framework that examined the spatial, socio-economic, institutional and tourism contexts of each case study, we have identified commonalities and importantly, differences among the examples from three different countries. The analysis illustrated the specific attributes of each type of rural geography (exotic remote, fringe and boring bits in between), and how these result in unique opportunities and challenges. These differentiated rural tourism geographies must be acknowledged and addressed to both advance our knowledge of the complexities of tourism in these locales, and to develop appropriate policies, programs and structures that will support tourism in contributing to a robust and diversified rural economy.