Growing wrath against mass tourism incites rejection reactions; do you relate to it?

[billgreenman1]

From all the stories I've heard, I kinda feel lucky that I got to do the backpack/railpass/hostel thing in Europe in the 80s back when I was just a 20 year old jackalope. My college roommate and I traveled in the fall and hardly had any crowd problems that I can remember. The wall hadn't come down yet, so Berlin was a little creepy, and Geneva was tight because Ronnie Reagan was meeting Gorbachev, but most everything else was fairly relaxed. Even Neuschwanstein was a walk up thing, and there was enough room that I could have stashed some of my own stolen art there, had I been carrying any of my niece's finger paintings!

[guzzler]

Ha ha 

Yep, I did Europe in the early 80's too and no dramas with crowds...well saying that, to a Kiwi fresh outa NZ ( ChCh even ) everywhere was a crowd compared to home, but I don't think I could handle it these days...

The only overseas travel we'll do now will be a trip back to NZ in the next few years as my wife's only seen Auckland.

Cheers    

[Pressureangle]

Went to Yellowstone this summer, along with a bunch of cool stuff along the U.S. and Canadian Rockies. Crowded everywhere; even in 105* heat, the line to enter the four corners site was hours long and of course on a bike I surely didn't wait.

I heard a Park Ranger use the term "Revenge Vacation", referring to people who were making up lost time after sequestering themselves during Covid.

[guzzler]

Timely topic regarding holidays as we're just loading up the car for a trip to South Australia, and I believe it's school hols over there....

Don't expect anywhere near the crowds of elsewhere though!

Geez, it even looks like the weather might come to the party too!

Anyways folk's stay safe and catch you all in a week or so.

Cheers Guzzler

[guzzler]

Ps Bloody hell how did I ever manage with just a tank bag and throwovers back in the day or just a tank bag now with the boys on a long weekend....?

Too late to tell her now that she's only got one bag...,

I think discretion is the better part of valour here, lest we make contributions to the divorce lawyers benevolent fund (s)!

Cheers 

 

[audiomick]

My girlfriend took a few days off just last week. Four nights away, and two trips down to the car to get all the stuff in.

Edited October 8 by audiomick

[guzzler]

Only two....?

Cheers and away we go to SA...

[audiomick]

Have a good trip, mate. Are you going to Adelaide? Have a good time there, if you do. It's a lovely village.

[Sempervee1]

I recently spent near 3 weeks in France and Italy at ridiculously priced and ill managed AB&B's. Never again.  Crowds, over priced and clear that many of these owners are not prepared to service the retail public as I was pained no matter where I was whether in Nice, Marseilles, especially where I wound up fixing their HVAC ductless and believing there are no building codes as well as Bologna  and Venice Italy where it is ALWAYS too crowded and the non stop smoking of cigarettes.  WHY I am done with that kind of travel.

[p6x]

18 hours ago, Sempervee1 said:

I recently spent near 3 weeks in France and Italy at ridiculously priced and ill managed AB&B's. Never again.  Crowds, over priced and clear that many of these owners are not prepared to service the retail public as I was pained no matter where I was whether in Nice, Marseilles, especially where I wound up fixing their HVAC ductless and believing there are no building codes as well as Bologna  and Venice Italy where it is ALWAYS too crowded and the non stop smoking of cigarettes.  WHY I am done with that kind of travel.

I am going to Paris in November, and I have made a direct deal with the owner of the place I am going to rent. AB&B prices have increased fueled by all the new laws enacted by localities in order to protect the Hôtel businesses and the long term rental market.

The municipality in Paris has made it very difficult for owners to rent appartments through AB&B. They already had imposed a limitation of the number of days they could rent, and now, to be able to rent short term, you need to possess another appartment of the same surface that you can rent long term. They have also come up with additionnal taxes, mainly to satisfy the Hôtels. Therefore, with less rentals, prices have gone up. Not to forget that this year, the Olympic Games in Paris had inflated the prices to levels never seen before.

As I go to Paris once a year, I have been staying in some dumps which really should not even be listed. Still, better than those expensive 2 stars hôtels...

But if you are looking for better deals, there are ways to alleviate the pain. For example, if you stay outside of Paris, prices go down very quickly. The subway takes you to the city center in minutes, so it is not compulsory to stay with a view on the Seine.

When I was working in Italy, I quickly learned that if you wanted to spend time in Venice, you stayed in Mestre. Take the bus to Venice, you have one every 10 minutes.

The money aside, yes indeed, you now have to fight your way for every sight you want to visit.

But if you really are daring, and resourceful, not easily frightened, I can recommend a few places where you will not see many tourists; Kazakhstan is one of them. I worked there for a few years, and it is stunning beautiful and tourist untapped.

 

[Lucky Phil]

On 10/11/2024 at 1:24 AM, p6x said:

I am going to Paris in November, and I have made a direct deal with the owner of the place I am going to rent. AB&B prices have increased fueled by all the new laws enacted by localities in order to protect the Hôtel businesses and the long term rental market.

The municipality in Paris has made it very difficult for owners to rent appartments through AB&B. They already had imposed a limitation of the number of days they could rent, and now, to be able to rent short term, you need to possess another appartment of the same surface that you can rent long term. They have also come up with additionnal taxes, mainly to satisfy the Hôtels. Therefore, with less rentals, prices have gone up. Not to forget that this year, the Olympic Games in Paris had inflated the prices to levels never seen before.

As I go to Paris once a year, I have been staying in some dumps which really should not even be listed. Still, better than those expensive 2 stars hôtels...

But if you are looking for better deals, there are ways to alleviate the pain. For example, if you stay outside of Paris, prices go down very quickly. The subway takes you to the city center in minutes, so it is not compulsory to stay with a view on the Seine.

When I was working in Italy, I quickly learned that if you wanted to spend time in Venice, you stayed in Mestre. Take the bus to Venice, you have one every 10 minutes.

The money aside, yes indeed, you now have to fight your way for every sight you want to visit.

But if you really are daring, and resourceful, not easily frightened, I can recommend a few places where you will not see many tourists; Kazakhstan is one of them. I worked there for a few years, and it is stunning beautiful and tourist untapped.

 

Exactly. We just spent 4 nights at the Sheraton in Mestre. 5 min walk to a bunch of restaurants a shopping centre and the Ospedale train station and 3 stops to Venezia. It's my usual MO for foreign travel. Stay on the fringes, save a ton of money and utilise the local transit systems. I normally wouldn't stay at a Sheraton but in this case it was a very good move.

Phil   

Edited Saturday at 09:04 PM by Lucky Phil

[KINDOY2]

12 minutes ago, Lucky Phil said:

Exactly. We just spent 4 nights at the Sheraton in Mestre. 5 min walk to a bunch of restaurants a shopping centre and the Ospedale train station and 3 stops to Venezia. It's my usual MO for foreign travel. Stay on the fringes, save a ton of money and utilise the local transit systems. I normally wouldn't stay at a Sheraton but in this case it was a very good move.

Phil   

Always  amused  when people go to all the tourist spots in the EU  and are dismayed  because its crowded and expensive..like coming to the US and going tho Disneyland, The Grand Canyon, New York City, Nashville, San Francisco, Orlando, etc. etc and expecting reasonable prices and relaxation....I spent almost month in Italy/Switzerland/ Austria  in July /August, Riding the Guzzi over 3000 km in the Dolomites / Passo dello Stelvio/Timmelsjoch ..etc,etc with a friend born and raised in Rome..We purposely rode Stelvio early AM on weekdays and spent every afternoon and evening in smaller towns and villages.....The whole trip was very relaxing and enjoyable, I went a couple years ago too, and I will go again next Summer...very nice.  I asked a few people from the areas we were in about those tourist backlash articles, they all just chuckled  and said they hadn't heard about it.   

[Guzzi-in-Vancouver]

On 10/9/2024 at 3:48 AM, audiomick said:

Have a good trip, mate. Are you going to Adelaide? Have a good time there, if you do. It's a lovely village.

It’s not so bad  Adelaide Hills were nice, and the city itself had a feel of an untouched London in a better era. The market was real unlike Vancouver’s Granville Island market or Fremantle’s touristy excuse for one. But yes, compared to Melbourne, everything’s a village —including, and especially— Sydney. 

[GuzziMoto]

The wife and I just got back from our vacation. We pull an RV trailer with our Jeep. So generally we avoid hotels. And we tend to go places that are in the middle of nowhere. So for the most part we had no issues with crowds.

I do also live the other side of this, I live near a ski resort and on the way to a mountain lake. So I do run into "tourists" in the summer and winter. They are often annoying, but I don't dwell on it and typically just move on. I did almost get a speeding ticket one time because of them, I was so annoyed with the line of tourists clogging the road I turned around and went racing off the other way (right into a cop who was looking for speeding tourists). Luckily the cop realized I was a local and let me off with a warning.

[Guzzi-in-Vancouver]

@GuzziMoto there’s a ski resort in MD‽

Edited yesterday at 02:48 AM by Guzzi-in-Vancouver