Beautiful Cities Overcrowding with Tourists

You are so excited for your European luxury vacation to___(fill in the blank).
Insert: Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice, Florence, Prague, Rome…

You arrive in, let’s say Venice, with grand expectations for viewing ancient architecture, tasting time-honored traditional cuisine, and meeting locals, deciphering their native language – only to discover buses, mega cruise ships unloading waddling passengers, throngs of foreign tourists cramming the centuries’ old piazzas and museums, not a local in sight. Unfortunately, you also spot Dominos and McDonalds signs, along with clumps of Asians clamoring for selfies in front of magnificent monuments.

“Overtourism” is the latest terminology, depicting when tourism exceeds the carrying capacity of host travel destinations, and negatively impacts local well-being, infrastructure and the environment.

Let’s talk about Paris! The City of Lights has transformed into the “city of lines”… long lines at Paris’ Louvre just to get a glimpse of Mona Lisa – that’s it, in and out in mobs. If you want to get into the Museums you better purchase your tickets in advance and still be prepared to wait in a queue.

This tourist-overrun phenomenon, we have encountered in too many extraordinary European destinations for it to be coincidental. We’ve witnessed the trashiness of Amsterdam, the barrage of tourists in Barcelona, the busloads of “bucket listers” in Paris, the cruiseshippers clogging the plazas of Prague. Even the cutest canal-lined Dutch village of Giethoorn was bogged down with hundreds of bumper boats, Asians jamming the narrow waterways in rental boats crashing into 16^th century wooden canal bridges. These “bucket list” tourists are bussed in by the hundreds for a few hours, they snap their photos, grab quick cheap snacks, and leave a mess in their wake. I sympathize with the locals…

Cirque a Terre is another amazingly beautiful destination first made popular by Rick Steves. His endorsement is both a blessing and curse as these destinations are soon overrun with American tourists.

Our suggestion, visit these gateway cities and capitals as your entry to Italy, France, Spain, Austria, then get out into the quieter countryside as soon as possible for a more authentic travel experience. And if you want photos without other tourists like you see on our website, get out early! Some of our most rewarding travels in recent years have been exploring countries on bicycle… The Loire Valley of France was a delight, in early October. The vast biking network of trails in the Netherlands (aka Holland) offer lovely variations to the bustling city of Amsterdam. From the beautiful but overcrowded Prague, we loved traveling beyond to the authentic villages of Karlovy Vary, Telc and České Budejovice where we were the minority amongst Czech locals.

In Portugal, we quickly departed the busy city of Lisbon, to drive north to cozier Porto for a few days, then traveled east up the splendid Douro River toward Spain and witnessed the 13th-century Schist Villages made entirely of stone, and visited ancient castle towns of Evora, and Sintra.

When a city or destination is acclaimed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, that’s the beginning of the end of its charm and colloquialism. We’ve witnessed the Jungfrau Region of Switzerland altered from the most spectacular region of the Swiss Alps to now a very busy, crowded valley. Same goes for Zermatt Switzerland, still a car-free ski town, but so crowded with photo-snapping bucket-listers that have never seen snow.

The UNESCO designation is a blessing and a curse, you have been warned here, as it becomes a “must-visit” for many tourists just bagging the Insta photo, without investing time to explore the region, or purchase lodging to spend a few nights and truly get to know the area, its cultures and traditions.

Next travel, be sure to respect local traditions, break away from the cruise ship vacation, stay in generational family-owned lodging, purchase meals at authentic restaurants, invest time in learning and living within the cultures you are visiting. Be gracious and friendly to locals, make an effort to learn a few expressions of their language (hello, please and thank you are a great start). Buy some handcrafted items native to the region.

Explore, don’t exploit. Get off the Grid. See How to be a Conscientious Traveler.