
Too Many People Want to Travel - Deinos
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/crowds-tourists-are-ruining-popular-destinations/590767/
======
newswriter99
God forbid we have more people entering the middle class, who want to explore
the world.

I hate how preachy publications like Vox and The Atlantic can be. The writers
come from these urbanized, upper middle class backgrounds and have no self-
awareness. When I (with my small-town highschool dropout roots) read stories
like this, I can't help but reword what they're saying in my head:

"Go back to being working-class scum who stays in the same place so us upper-
class people can enjoy jet-setting and taking photos in exotic locations only
you can dream of."

~~~
freddie_mercury
Can you quote some passages that you felt were preachy? I read your comment
and then read the article expecting to find the worst. But it seemed pretty
even handed and didn't at all suggest people go back to being working class
scum.

But maybe that's just my own biased reading. If you could point out the
passages you find problematic it would help me improve my empathy.

~~~
coldtea
> _Can you quote some passages that you felt were preachy? I read your comment
> and then read the article expecting to find the worst. But it seemed pretty
> even handed and didn 't at all suggest people go back to being working class
> scum._

If you are working class, such things are more felt and nuanced at, than
explicitly said (at least not in polite upper class company). Not that
dissimilar with racism.

(Except of course if you're very poor -- then everybody has the free pass to
call you "white trash" and mock you, in a way that they wouldn't dare mock any
other group).

~~~
freddie_mercury
People are entirely capable of articulating what phrasing is racist dog
whistle; when I read, say Ta-Nahesi Coates he is able to elaborate his point
even to an audience with a very different context. It happens all the time.
I'm asking for someone to actually explicitly explain to me the classist dog
whistle in the article so that I can learn something.

~~~
parrellel
For the classic classist dog whistle you're looking for a few things. You
can't just say "screw the poor" or "screw the bourgeois" you go after
behaviors, interests, and appearances. You describe them as rude, ignorant, or
criminal.

Here, from the article, for example: "...selfie-stick deaths, all-you-can-eat
ships docking at historic ports, stag nights that end in property crimes, the
live-streaming of the ruination of fragile natural habitats..."

\- So, selfies / selfie sticks leading to falling off a cliff (rude and
dangerous) -All you can eat ships (cruises, gluttony, probably fat people)
going to historic ports (stinking up the place) -Stag nights leading to
property crimes (fornication and loud partying + criminals) -live-streaming of
the ruination of fragile natural habitats (a lack of shame and propriety +
ecological damage)

So, just from that, I can tell you this is a hit piece against the not-quite-
poor, like I could tell you one from decades past would mention tchotchkes, or
dancing, or casserole.

edit: pardon the borked formatting.

~~~
jsutton
I think any of those examples can just as easily apply to upper class /
wealthy travelers.

~~~
parrellel
Would they do those same sorts of things, yes. Would it be described the same
way, no.

------
alexhutcheson
Some of this is overblown. Locals who live at tourist destinations have always
complained about tourists, even when those tourists are the economic lifeblood
of the area. Talk to anyone who grew up in a beach town.

The multiple snide comments about cruises seem both classist and misplaced.
Most of those cruise ship passengers are going to travel somewhere, and having
them on the cruise ship effectively minimizes their impact on locals. When
they get off the ship, most passengers either take a guided excursion in an
already heavily touristed area, or just go to a beach club. Would you rather
they rent Airbnbs in the downtown neighborhoods of the cities they'd like to
visit? Or would you rather build new resorts and timeshare communities at
beach destinations?

Venice also seems like an unusual case that might need special attention. Most
cruise ship ports are not beautiful places in need of preservation.

Many places in the world (especially national parks) are successfully
restricting visitor volume. The solutions are well known: Require permits
(either via purchase or lottery) and/or increase the cost to visit (via
entrance fees, additional hotel taxes, etc.)

~~~
matwood
> Talk to anyone who grew up in a beach town.

I grew up and still live in a beach town. Tourists were somewhat bothersome,
but they allowed me to make plenty of money in restaurants when I was younger.
Today the bigger problem is people are moving here. I rarely go to the beach
anymore (unless it's 6am surf session) because of traffic and crowds. Just in
the last couple weeks, 4 new stop lights went up near my house. But, with all
the growth has also come real jobs. So it's not all bad.

> Venice also seems like an unusual case that might need special attention.

Having been to Venice, I never understood why so many people like going. It is
basically one giant tourist trap.

~~~
kwhitefoot
> Having been to Venice, I never understood why so many people like going. It
> is basically one giant tourist trap.

How much time did you spend away from St. Mark's square, the Rialto, and the
Grand canal?

My wife and I and our three children went for five days some years ago; we
rented an apartment in an old palazzo about ten minutes walk from St. Mark's.
We went out for walks all over Venice, sometimes early in the morning before
the other tourists arrived, we walked on the north side of the island and saw
almost no tourists even though it was the high season. We ate in small
restaurants away from the bustle and rip off prices of the Grand Canal.
Essentially, we avoided all the high profile locations and never queued for
anything.

It was brilliant.

~~~
matwood
I spent a few nights there in an apartment on the island, so I was able to see
it in a slower time. I may have been a little harsh in my original comment.
I'm glad I visited Venice, but it's not a place I would go again. I will
admit, my view was also likely a bit tainted because I had just spent time in
Slovenia and Croatia. Cities like Rovinj, Piran, and Pula are great. If I had
to do it again, I would stay in Rovinj and take a ferry day trip to Venice.

------
lalos
Pipe dream but it would be interesting to devise some increasing tax based on
the number of flights you've done per year. They already ask for ID when you
buy flights so it would be easily track-able. First flight 10%, second 20%,
third 30%, etc. Just as a thought exercise but I'm aware of the friction this
sort of idea would get. Related gif:
[https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1013088775973556224](https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1013088775973556224)

~~~
ahoy
A simpler solution would be to tax the wealthy at a higher rate, reducing
their ability to travel as much.

~~~
war1025
I really doubt that would work out. Especially depending what you mean by
"wealthy". There is probably a sweet spot in the income bracket where that
would do something, but those people would not be considered "wealthy" by most
definitions.

------
dangus
The article sort of reads as a list of individual incidents but I'm not sure
it's able to present itself as a particularly alarming trend.

Yes, the Mona Lisa is the most popular painting in the world. Maybe the Louvre
needs to expand or build a new space for it that can accommodate more people.
Maybe ticket sales should be more limited and sell out after a certain point,
with a set number of visitors allowed per day/hour/etc. It sounds like
mismanagement (hence the workers walkout) than the tourists being at fault.

Yes, people are dying taking stupid selfies, but not really all that many of
them, either.

Yes, some landmarks are being damaged, but also, governments completely have
the power to enforce their laws and limit admission, and hand out tickets for
littering and vandalism.

~~~
sametmax
Those are just temporary solutions, one day they will not be enough because of
constant population growth. And you can't use them forever. Plus they all have
a cost anyway.

This is like a doctor treating a symptom instead of the cause of the disease.

~~~
kiran-rao
How is proper management a temporary solution? If the Louvre decided to
control the number of people seeing the Mona Lisa through ticket prices, they
can simply continues to increase prices as more people want to see it. This
will simply generate more revenue.

~~~
sametmax
Making education an elite thing is not sustainable.

~~~
magduf
WTF? Seeing the Mona Lisa in person is not in any way necessary for being
educated. This is the most ridiculous thing I've read all day.

~~~
sametmax
Museum access is education. Why do you think we have them ?

~~~
magduf
University access is education too, but that doesn't mean you're "uneducated"
just because you didn't go to Harvard.

There's a lot more to the Louvre than the Mona Lisa, in case you didn't know.
No one was proposing shutting down the entire Louvre to tourists.

------
ganlaw
I think moving and experiencing the city and surrounding places for a few
years is more enjoyable than short trips. I am now looking at moving to my 5th
different city in 10 years. I spend my vacation days exploring around what is
in my "backyard". Taking a 10 hour flight and spending a few days trying to
see everything is not enjoyable to me.

~~~
0x445442
For years I've been looking forward to traveling but the thought that keeps
nagging me is the whole canned tourist experience which I hate.

One thought I've been trying to sell my wife on is getting a quality RV/Travel
Trailer and tour the country doing contract gigs. This sounds similar to what
you're describing.

~~~
magduf
What makes you think you have to buy a "canned tourist experience"? Traveling
(in highly developed countries at least) is easy: buy airline tickets, book
rooms at hotels or hostels in the cities you want to visit, then just go there
and walk around and see the sights at your leisure, and take the train to the
next city according to your schedule. You don't have to buy tour packages or
hire guides or hang out with other tourists if you don't want to.

------
abeppu
I think it's worth considering not only how online media has contributed to
the very uneven distribution of interest over tourist destinations, but also
how it might help fix it. The internet is used to creating power-law
distributions, where a small minority of titles capture a large fraction of
interest/traffic/views. Real world cities, parks and sites struggle to cope
with global popularity. It's entirely possible for online media about travel
to take a different set of considerations into account, and yield different
top-level distributions in who wants to travel where.

Every listicle, travel-focused instagram, etc, pushes the same destinations to
all of its audience. A small number of places become extremely coveted. What
if we had tools and platforms that spread those eyeballs around more, where
the number of impressions is related to the number of tourist arrivals per
year? Stop showing so many people beautiful shots of Iceland; it's over
burdened. Why should travel sites, influencers etc care to shift impressions
in this way? Among influencers, platforms could place more value on
uniqueness; if I've seen 5 shots of beaches in Bali in my feed this morning,
maybe mix in something else. Influencers could feel a pressure to highlight
comparatively under-exposed destinations. Places that produce travel content
with funds from tourism departments ... well, I'd suppose that the marginal
value of additional prospective visitors for Venice is small, but would be
higher for a city that isn't so popular.

This year I walked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. While it was a positive
experience, Machu Picchu itself was crowded, and visitors are very
specifically limited in how they can walk around it. Only once I was in
country did I hear about Choquequirao, another large Inca complex perched on a
promontory, which is much less popular, and sometimes called "the other Machu
Picchu". I can't help but feel that neither I, not Machu Picchu was well
served by that ignorance.

------
harimau777
Something that I worry about is that it seems like almost every
enjoyable/empowering thing is being considered harmful to the
environment/society or is becoming difficult to afford:

Driving a car, eating meat, travel, owning a home, living in a popular
location (e.g New York), owning a gun, etc.

Combine that with an increasing number of people who feel socially isolated
and it seems like a recipe for unrest.

~~~
aaomidi
How is owning a gun bad for the environment? It's somewhat expensive but not
that much compared to other stuff.

~~~
harimau777
Sorry I edited to say environment/society.

Not trying to comment on whether or not gun control is right, just that it
seems like the people who say that they are bad for society don't seem to
understand that it's one of the few empowering things in many people's lives.

~~~
aaomidi
Oh yeah I don't want to get into a gun control debate either.

Even as someone who is pro gun I do agree with the society cost.

------
kasperni
If there is one thing that is for certain, this is only going to get much
worse. And peoples wet dreams about a jobless society. Well, you are not going
to spend all that leisure time alone on secret deserted locations around the
world.

~~~
creaghpatr
Or boring suburbs, for that matter.

------
el_cujo
This is the type of thing that is easy to police other people, but I wonder if
the author has an instagram herself filled with pictures from Italy or France.

~~~
sametmax
Yes, and that's why the logic is wrong: the problem is not too many people
want to do x. Wanting is legitimate.

The problem is thay there are too many people, period. And the more fair we
make the system, the more they will get to do what they should expect from
life, so it's going to get worse.

I often read on HN that this is not a zero sum game. Whatever, we are not
leaving this earth anytime soon, and we are not producing innovation fast
enough to care for everbody.

Soon, the state of mumbai will be mirrored in other places. Beggers like in LA
as well. Venise and phucket are already terrible to live in.

Population is the main problem. It is a problem for food, education, hell,
democraty. Eternal growth is not sustainable.

------
Wohlf
Easy to say this from a privileged position, less so when it's your vacations
or work travel on the chopping block. Free movement for me, but not for thee.
Wouldn't want all those unwashed masses ruining your perfect vacation.

------
francisofascii
Travel is fun, for sure, but I think our society, especially in wealthier and
progressive circles, over-hypes it, to the point that you feel like you have
to travel to make yourself more interesting. Maybe we need to lighten up a bit
and have the attitude that staying home and reading about a far away place,
yet never visiting, is cool too.

------
rthomas6
It's a negative externality. Price it into the cost, use that extra money to
offset pollution/whatever, and the problem is solved. It's simple to say but
nobody wants to do it because it hurts.

~~~
acidburnNSA
It'd be nice to somehow still allow people who can barely afford a plane
ticket today to afford one occasioanlly for family emergencies, etc. Perhaps
we do a personal threshold above which the carbon price kicks in or something.
Lots of air travel is frequent fliers and they need motivation to stop.

------
advertising
My parents have lived in a gem of a town outside of the US for 20 years. About
15 years ago it started to pop up in top 10 lists and the last 10 years has
exploded with tourism.

What used to be an extremely affordable, beautiful, and pleasant place to live
and mix with the local culture is now gone.

It went from a beautiful town to Disney Land. A gigantic party city. Insane
hour long lines of cars to get into the town on weekends. Real estate blew up
and gigantic hotels are being built, all the homes in the center are owned by
rich people from other countries as speculative investments. Tons of new bars
and restaurants have opened but few of them by locals. Rich business owners
from other places come in droves looking for more growth to extract money.
Most people demand USD for rent or real estate deals and not local currency
now, many businesses use foreign payment services for credit cards and the
money never flows into the town.

Crime has greatly increased with all the money floating around. Home
burglaries, car jackings and street muggings are common everyday of the week
anytime of the day.

There have been some improvements from the tourism and a few hundred local
families (out of the 100,000 locals that live there) have done well selling
the homes their families have owned for generations. Now they can’t afford to
live in the center and have to live in the outskirts.

Gone are the local restaurants, pushed out by high rents or because the owners
sold the buildings, replaced by generic tourist traps pushing cheap alcohol
and over priced food.

The local water supply has been drained, utilities cannot keep up with waste
and demand, corruption for permits and zoning changes is rampant.

Literally thousands of homes in generic housing developments are being built
in the surrounding countryside. Cheap build profit extracting developments
solely to make money as the water table continues to drain lower and lower.

The only thing that has some what saved the city is lack of an airport being
close by. Closest is 1.5 hours drive. But another rich entrepreneur is looking
to bring a new runway in that is long enough for private jets.

That’s when it will officially be over.

An influx of money benefits everyone, but it’s also at the expense of the
city. Is that worth it? I think what bothers me the most is seeing thousands
of people crowd the central square and take the same photo of the church over
and over and over and over. It’s within everyone’s right, rich or poor to be
in that square. No one owns a city, except when the money starts coming in,
and then money owns it.

~~~
magduf
I don't really see the problem here. The people of this town want it this way,
or else they would be pushing their local government to make changes to limit
tourism. This is a classic example of people getting the government they
deserve.

~~~
advertising
This is exactly where you’re wrong. The government is full of corruption. They
buy large pieces of land and change zoning laws to allow for a big Home Depot
style place or an oversized hotel on their land and then they sell it. They
shut down any competing construction projects or block use permits.

They obscure any data about public services. Contamination in the water table
for example. People who ask too many questions are threatened.

People don’t vote these types in. They are in place through power and
connections.

Your view is over simplified and not fully informed by reality of the reality
politics.

------
geddy
Cmd+F'd the comments and not one person has mentioned overpopulation. There
are more people than ever before, and the issues of crowding are simply a
symptom of overpopulation. The idea of raising the prices to make it cost-
prohibitive... what's the point of doing anything, then? Soon, every single
hobby will have too many people doing it. Are we to raise the price of
everything to be so unaffordable that we go back to spending evenings sitting
in front of the television?

We need to face the problem sooner or later, and that's that we have too many
people on this planet. We're going to have a massively difficult time feeding
everyone in 20+ years (the meat industry is already devastating enough on the
climate), "tourist crowding" will be the least of our worries. Well, until the
lack of food or the climate issue sorts that first bit out.

~~~
rubidium
Eh, you're just repeating the same 'scare' tactics that Ehrlich did in the
1960's. He was mostly wrong then. And you're mostly wrong now.

We don't have too many people. But we are making poor choices about our
farming techniques, industrial practices, and infrastructure.

10 billion people can live on this planet just fine. The solution isn't less
people. The solution is better care of our planet and resources.

~~~
geddy
Right - _if_ we take better care of our planet and resources. Any idea how to
enforce that in the most densely populated areas? China, perhaps? In what
reality can we get 100%, heck, 10% of people on the planet to do everything a
certain way?

------
Mikeb85
Too many people want to travel, too many people want to eat meat, too many
people want economic development, etc...

But how does someone who grew up being able to do/benefit from all these
things tell the rising middle class from the developing world that they can't
do these things because it's harmful?

------
ninjamayo
Maybe something to do in order to tackle overcrowding in museums is to start
returning some of the exhibits back to their origins. The Louvre and the
British museum hold a lot of antiquities that were shipped from other
countries during colonial times.

~~~
magduf
If you do that, those things will likely be destroyed. Do you really think
that shipping artifacts back to Syria is going to result in those artifacts
lasting for centuries more?

~~~
ninjamayo
There are plenty of artefacts that belong to countries who are not in the
middle of war. Many stolen artefacts were in fact destroyed or damaged during
their shipping to France or Britain. We don't need to go to extremes here,
just do the right thing.

~~~
magduf
>There are plenty of artefacts that belong to countries who are not in the
middle of war.

Like what? Any middle eastern country is not a safe place for valuable
historic artifacts. India and China, sure.

>Many stolen artefacts were in fact destroyed or damaged during their shipping
to France or Britain.

How recent was this? If this happened in the age of sailboats, then I'm not
going to hold it against those countries now; of course shipping back in those
days was a lot more dangerous.

------
rolltiide
As the article states: "while many sites are inarguably overcrowded, very few
cities and towns are"

People aren't really going off the path, there is plenty of opportunity to get
them to do that and disperse the crowds

I travel a lot and am mostly exempt from these crowds because I'm not rushing
on a 5-day trip around a 3-day weekend to jam pack tourist destinations. I'm
also not going to tourist destinations probably because I've already been
there - in off-season no less - or have other things bringing me to an area.

Just disperse.

~~~
harimau777
I suspect that people are rushing to do a 5 day vacation or 3 day weekend
because that is there only option.

~~~
rolltiide
> I suspect that people are rushing to do a 5 day vacation or 3 day weekend
> because that is there only option.

I would suspect that too, it is still an inferior form of travel and approach
to experiencing an area.

------
CydeWeys
> Governments are also rolling out regulations, such as bans on tour buses in
> Rome and gating-and-ticketing in Barcelona.

The ban on tour buses might actually end up being counter-productive, if that
one bus is replaced with many more smaller vehicles that in aggregate take up
a lot more space on the roads.

A better solution would be a universal congestion fee that all vehicles
entering the most congested zone pay (and yes, the fee for large vehicles like
buses would be higher).

------
Areading314
Increasingly, I find that seeing sights around the world turns into: "let's
take a selfie, and get out of here" because it's so crowded.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
That's "I want to have done this" or "I want you to know that I've done this",
but "I don't actually want to _do_ this". Which, if you think about it, is
kind of weird. We want a photo, but we don't actually want the _experience_.

------
sasaf5
The article misses another important cause for the surge in travel:
demography. The baby boomers are retiring, many of them with spare money for
traveling.

------
Kye
A recent LeVar Burton Reads has a story that tackles this in a science fiction
context where Earth is the hot tourist destination.

[https://art19.com/shows/levar-burton-
reads/episodes/30648706...](https://art19.com/shows/levar-burton-
reads/episodes/30648706-18c2-4a84-9141-009636248862)

------
dade_
'Too Many People are using travel destinations as items on the bucket
checklist.' They are missing the point of travelling altogether. I just got
back from the Taj Mahal, and I was stunned, it truly is spectacular.
Unfortunately it was with a client, and everything was social media picture -
check, bad souvenirs - check. Then look at me! I've been to the Taj. The place
is truly amazing. I would go back before dawn and spend a whole day (when the
weather isn't 45 degrees C) and enjoy the space. Every time I end up with so
many questions to answer. Who maintains the place, how do they do it? Why
this, why that? Local bookstores and shops. It makes the history books I read
real, the novels set in a place tangible.

------
calebm
The problem isn't that too many people want to travel, but that too many
people want to travel to the same places. I generally find the more off-the-
beaten-path places more enjoyable.

------
hamoid
Here a documentary about the case of Mallorca (subtitles in various languages,
65 minutes long):

[http://totinclos.cat/documental/](http://totinclos.cat/documental/)

------
forgottenpass
>If tourism is a capitalist phenomenon, overtourism is its demented late-
capitalist cousin: selfie-stick deaths, all-you-can-eat ships docking at
historic ports, stag nights that end in property crimes, the live-streaming of
the ruination of fragile natural habitats, et cetera.

What is this even saying? How is this attributable to specifically capitalism
and not humanity in general? After the hypothetical revolution how will people
magically stop being annoying tourists? Will there be controls on number of
travelers and their behavior? Will nobody have the means to travel? Not be
allowed to travel? What?

Or does the The Alantic's editorial process allows the following format to
grace their pages "If [obvious bullshit], then [invented nonsense from a
faulty premise]."?

------
PopeDotNinja
If we take arguments like this to the extreme, one extreme interpretation is
that their are simply too many people.

~~~
duxup
I'm not sure leisure travel capacity really is a good benchmark for something
like that.

------
purplezooey
Part of the problem is that we don't build enough of anything. Roads, trains,
housing, anything.

------
throwaway50003
I think the actual problem is there are too many people who want to travel to
_specific_ places. Like, there are only a limited number of very touristic
sites that _everyone_ wants to go to, yet plenty of other lesser known sites
exist and provide a better experience if you do your research and learn about
them. Like, I live in Paris and have set foot exactly once (1) on the Eiffel
tower. Likewise, there are hundreds of museums but people only ever go to the
Louvre (and _maybe_ Orsay). I get that they're iconic but _come on_ , there's
plenty of other stuff to do here.

------
NotPaidToPost
"Too many people"

That really is the root cause of most of our problems these days.

The reality is that it's not possible to live a "western middle class"
lifestyle when that lifestyle is accessible to billions of people. The planet
cannot take it.

------
throw51319
Listen, there's too many people for all of us to be at the top of the social
hierarchy and enjoy traveling and consuming whatever we want, etc.

The current capitalist based system isn't bad. But we should get rid of the
inefficiencies and cronyism and money shuffling.

It should basically be, if you innovate and help people enjoy their lives or
live better lives, etc... you get rewarded for that. If you don't, you get to
live a normal and healthy life without pomp.

Also, need to limit the number of people. Nobody should be having more than
2-3 kids or they get penalized with an equal and opposite economic penalty.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _Nobody should be having more than 2-3 kids or they get penalized with an
> equal and opposite economic penalty...._

That statement was a little humorous to me, but if you're serious, you'll be
happy to know that this is already the case. The couple unfortunate enough to
have, say, 5 kids is already, um, "penalized with an equal and opposite
economic penalty". Each child will always soak up much more than his or her
standard deduction. There's no question about that. Operational costs are
enormous, and grow over time. And all that doesn't even count opportunity
costs.

Yeah, anyone who thinks kids are cheap is liable to be very disagreeably
surprised if they ever have one. I'd wager a large part of what keeps the
economy going is spending on, for, or by, kids? But I don't have any data to
back that up, it's just my wild ass speculation.

~~~
throw51319
Unless they are on government support, right? Then the government subsidizes
their overproduction. They get more representation in the next generation for
no reason, having others pay for it.

~~~
bilbo0s
Well, now you've moved the goal posts.

You've switched from the economic issue that I thought you were talking about,
onto what sounds to me like a political issue that you have with people who
have a lot of kids. I don't really want to touch all that political stuff
because that's too controversial.

I was just saying that couples who have to support 5 kids by themselves take
enormous economic hits.

~~~
throw51319
Yeah you are definitely right that kids are very expensive. Also when taking
into account future negative externalities, excessive kids are also very
expensive to our society. The earth has a carrying capacity for humans, even
though the futurists don't believe so.

