When - not if - cheap oil finally runs out tourism will be a fraction of what it is today.
Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
31–40 of 156 posts
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#32Always worth posting Wallace's quote on the subject: "To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without yo…
I am sadly very familiar with your second paragraph.
Wilderness areas which were once quiet most of the year now hum with activity from even before the snow is completely melted to after the first fresh flakes of autumn arrive. These areas can be remarkably sensitive, and most lack the trail and human-waste infrastructure to handle the new crowds. These new users often lack training in leave-no-trace principles and result in blown-out trails and piles of used toilet paper behind every nearby tree. I suspect that our cash-strapped parks and forest services will impose visitor limits instead of expanding infrastructure. For those with the skills to navigate confidently off trail, there are still many quiet corners of our ranges to explore. For the rest, the future looks a lot busier.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#33Traveling is overrated. Often times in modern life it feels as thought traveling is a competition rather than for leisure and pleasure. People are often competing to take pictures and say they have been to as many places as possible. Props to travel companies for propagating the travel craze and selling people on the allure of taking pictures and eating food in another spot on Earth. Count the number of people's prof…
I disagree that it’s due to boredom, or that it is overrated. Learning about other cultures and other people’s way of life is incredibly important in an increasingly divided world. I strongly believe that if the average American spent time living with an Islamic family in the Middle East for a week, we might break down a lot of barriers between all the folks that share this rock we live on. It’s another question as t…
All of this can be done via the internet.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's not so much gatekeeping as ensuring people who want to experience that beauty have to put in the work - read terribly-designed websites, meet actual people and gain their trust, or even take a backcountry travel class which hopefully instills a healthy respect for the environment you're enjoying. Or we could build more walls.
Not sure why I got downvoted- why shouldn't these people be denied access to a certain geographical area and all its splendors before undergoing some, say, "naturalization" process?
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Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#35Traveling is overrated. Often times in modern life it feels as thought traveling is a competition rather than for leisure and pleasure. People are often competing to take pictures and say they have been to as many places as possible. Props to travel companies for propagating the travel craze and selling people on the allure of taking pictures and eating food in another spot on Earth. Count the number of people's prof…
I'll play Sherlock. I think that's just a controversial view you created and therefore particularly like. It's likely also one you created to explain some preferences of yours (e.g local attachment). Likely instilled from parents. I think my view on your comment is: true as long as you're a cyborg. Personally, I travel where(and when) no one goes. Unique, remote places. It's scientifically proven that when you experi…
I work remote and can travel anywhere anytime so I see it as it is rather than as a fantasy to escape boredom locally.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#36I went with my wife to Hallstatt this year. It's a tiny picturesque town in Austria. I was there not that long ago, maybe something like 10 years and it was nice and memorable but for a local no big deal. This time we went on a wimp and jesus christ there were so many tourists. It was insane how utterly impossible life must be there for people. There are signs in Chinese and Japanese everywhere about local laws, not to fly drones, not to take pictures of little children etc.
I'm not sure what the solution is but that town is effectively ruined for normal people.
//EDIT: also the worst part is that instagram and whatever else people are using now is so ridiculously prevalent that you can literally sit down somewhere and hit the refresh stream to see the selfies of people right in front of you appear on the geo tagged location page. It's literally going there just to make a stupid picture.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#37Traveling is overrated. Often times in modern life it feels as thought traveling is a competition rather than for leisure and pleasure. People are often competing to take pictures and say they have been to as many places as possible. Props to travel companies for propagating the travel craze and selling people on the allure of taking pictures and eating food in another spot on Earth. Count the number of people's prof…
I think you should take a broader view here. Traveling is not to just go from point to point, traveling is wonderful, it open up to new opportunities and exposes to new ideas, culture and places that you would never know existed. Traveling teaches you so much about life and breaks singular view on world.
You can get a lot more exposure locally if you learn about your community and try to build and grow your country. Most of things you learn traveling or moving to some country named by a person over a war perhaps can be learned online.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would usually be the same airline that did the long flight or one of their partners - but Ryanair and Easyjet don't do those partnerships with Chinese airlines. I've also gotten a lot of their flights and hardly ever see Chinese tourists, mostly local (or other European) tourists in fact.
Well that's why airlines like Ryanair exist. If say Lufthansa is booked up by Chinese tourists and prices are rocketing, that leaves a gap in the market that these airlines fill. Also people aren't stupid. They shop around and find good deals. I've seen many South Americans using London or Amsterdam as hub airports before jumping on cheap flights to Spain/Portugal etc.
You're speculating wildly here. When have you ever seen a Ryanair or Easyjet plane full of Chinese tourists??
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#39Always worth posting Wallace's quote on the subject: "To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience. It is to impose yourself on places that in all noneconomic ways would be better, realer, without yo…
"alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have" I find this hugely classist. (Edit: and I'm generally not someone to use that terminology) Most (even American) travellers are just trying to see some sights, have a normal and are not particularly rude or problematic. The issue is now that 'everyone' can afford to travel ... it's causing problems. This is a problem of prosperity.
I really appreciate you using the term “classist”. I think that term, and not “racist”, needs to be much more widely applied these days.
That being said, I really enjoyed the author’s post. If anything, the people who are going to these places are the social climbing, upwardly mobile middle class, determined to burnish their brand on Instagram.
Also the free flow of tourists is a problem that parallels a lot of other things in the world currently. Information, capital, trade, all these things have moved so much and so fast they have loosed control from national government sovereignty that used to regulate them. As the anti-globalization train begins picking up speed, all these will be severely restricted, for better or worse.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#40Traveling is overrated. Often times in modern life it feels as thought traveling is a competition rather than for leisure and pleasure. People are often competing to take pictures and say they have been to as many places as possible. Props to travel companies for propagating the travel craze and selling people on the allure of taking pictures and eating food in another spot on Earth. Count the number of people's prof…
I'll play Sherlock. I think that's just a controversial view you created and therefore particularly like. It's likely also one you created to explain some preferences of yours (e.g local attachment). Likely instilled from parents. I think my view on your comment is: true as long as you're a cyborg. Personally, I travel where(and when) no one goes. Unique, remote places. It's scientifically proven that when you experi…
I know it can be hard to hear views that you don't agree with especially if you fantasize about doing something once/twice a year for vacation or escape.