"hell is other people"
I think most anti tourism pieces are elitist. I also find crowds and queues a drag but either it's a lottery or it's priced out to most people. Which is better?
Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
41–50 of 156 posts
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#42I grew up with stories of people like Maco Polo and love of travel but my recent trips to Europe has almost repulsed and disillusioned me. Tiny European countries are being swamped by huge swath of tourists, everyone with Rick Steve’s guidebook, they all go look at exact same thing, take exact same pictures and even eat at exact same recommended restaurants. There is a lot to see and little to reflect when you are am…
One of my favourite cities in Italy is Venice, I am italian, and I have been there visiting friends several times. Tourism have ruined the city, they are there all year, residents don't have breaks...
Anyway... there are nice alternative guides that do what you are asking, and for Venice the one of "Corto Maltese" is a good example. I managed to find this guide some years ago after some research. It is a bit rare, a friend had the first edition (I think only in italian), the second one was published by Lonely Planet, I think in 2008, and it is the one I found (in french, but I am guessing also the english version exists).
It is a very nice guide, full of drawings of Hugo Pratt's character Corto Maltese and his world. The guide takes you on a number of walks through the city and tells you a lot about history, people, buildings, and it does telling you also some stories about when Pratt lived there. Most importantly it points you to nice historic restaurants/bars (baccari and taverne :)) where venisians usually go. I used it last time there and the experience was really nice.
Amazon has it listed but only used and some times at a high price: https://www.amazon.com/Corto-Maltese-guide-Venice/dp/8817039...
On the same style I saw one on new york too, I think lonely planet published a few guides with this style.
Also, I find the New York Times 1/3/5 days guides also nice.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#43Earlier 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?
Your original comment was snarky (with a borderline political bent given current US politics), and your followup doesn't really expand on the conversation any further than your first comment.
If you're trying to say "tourist locations could require more of their visitors," you could elaborate on this point and say why you believe this would solve the problem that the article presents.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#44Always 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…
The hedonic rush of social media is an unfortunate aspect to modern travel. Vacations and trips have always had the aspect where the traveler plans how to tell friends/family about the trip after the fact. However, I've caught myself mentally planning out a social media post about something I'm seeing right at the moment. I wonder how we would treat our travels differently if somehow we were not allowed to share anyt…
I go back and forth on this. On the one hand, I find it silly that literally millions of people take the exact same shot of things like the clock tower in the old town square of Prague and then post them online for a few cheap "likes."
But if I didn't shoot a few photos there, I might not remember the great meal I had seated at the base with a few friends that was such an enjoyable time. Small details fade, but photos I personally took jog the memory.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#45Traveling 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…
>> Traveling is so overrated it's insane. No it is not. It is only overrated for folks who are trying to "gain" something from it. >> Okay let's be honest for a second what does most traveling boil down to? The whole point of traveling is to be in an environment foreign to you. Interacting with locals, eating local food, trying local shit. This was all more fun before globalization since you couldn't fly into Phillip…
The real question you have to ask yourself is why is it foreign to you? You are breathing air, eating food that boils down to the same components, you are experiencing gravity at the same rate, you are seeing one moon, you are seeing one sun, you are interacting with homo sapiens. The differences are mostly psychological perceptions where you are bored and want to feel something different.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#46I grew up with stories of people like Maco Polo and love of travel but my recent trips to Europe has almost repulsed and disillusioned me. Tiny European countries are being swamped by huge swath of tourists, everyone with Rick Steve’s guidebook, they all go look at exact same thing, take exact same pictures and even eat at exact same recommended restaurants. There is a lot to see and little to reflect when you are am…
I never had much interest in travel. Peers and friends are constantly nagging me I should visit awesome places. Something with a beach and a blue ocean or something. I am german and hardly anyone ever told me a story about my coutry that made me curious about germany. But I know the day I find the curiosity and patience, I will travel germany. I had little travels here in the past, but if you opt-in into those seemingly boring things there is a lot to find. But one should look and for historical stories and places, not for fancy stuff. Germany played several roles how the modern western world came to what it is today and this story is insanley deep and complex.
If you don't want to be a random tourist, then this is my hint.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That's not the same.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#48I grew up with stories of people like Maco Polo and love of travel but my recent trips to Europe has almost repulsed and disillusioned me. Tiny European countries are being swamped by huge swath of tourists, everyone with Rick Steve’s guidebook, they all go look at exact same thing, take exact same pictures and even eat at exact same recommended restaurants. There is a lot to see and little to reflect when you are am…
You might want to consider that if you’re seeing them a lot you are also there and part of the problem. There are lots of places you can go and not see lots of tourists. You just have to go see things that tourists aren’t as interested in.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#49While I think this is being exacerbated by the social media culture of travel ("I love to travel, crazy wanderlust" reads a profile, next to pictures at every guidebook location), this is just the consequence of a global world, where transportation between places has become cheaper and easier than before, and incomes have made much of the world accessible. I for one welcome the human progress. My grandparents had stories of saving up, leaving from their job, and going on long trips on barges for travel.
Hopefully we can contain the tourists in a small touristy part of town, friendly to travelers.
Re: Paradise Lost: How Tourists Are Destroying the Places They Love
#50Recently, in the german edition of the Spiegel, there was a similar column[1] saying there was "something really going wrong" when a flight from Berlin to Cologne costs 15€ while the train ticket for the same destinations costs 120€. The same article said that the flights were "absurdly cheap" and that the budget airlines are "displaying the type of capitalism that is disconnected from reality". Im not joking. The qu…
Aircraft fuel isn't taxed. It ought to be taxed at the same rate as that used for ground transportation.