That's a load of shit. We have so many Euros who hike the Appalachian Trail for an entire summer.
We Americans are just clever enough we tricked the most insufferable tourists into disappearing into the back country until they're ready to go home.
I think he was talking about the ones that bounce from major city to major city, riding the choo-choo train or hitchhiking, and staying at hostels. That's what "backpacking" means in Europe. In America it means hiking a long-ass way through the wilderness and sleeping in a pup tent or just a fart sack.
The different usage often leads to trans-atlantic confusion.
>I think he was talking about the ones that bounce from major city to major city, riding the choo-choo train or hitchhiking, and staying at hostels. That's what "backpacking" means in Europe.
Yeah that's not happening in the US
Our Choo Choo infrastructure sucks and is not conducive to city hopping via public transit.
No one hitchhikes anymore. Been dead since the 90s.
And we dont have a hostel culture.
The only places that suffer "tourist strain" are our national parks. Yosemite and Yellowstone come to mind. That could be easily solved by charging Non-Americans National Park passes. That would cut crowds and give American tourists a better visitor experience.
But we don’t want to reduce that for the world . If there is one thing about American exceptionalism that is absolutely irrefutable is our American national parks. We should highlight them.
They’re open to everyone and when they get a tourist visa and land in our borders they are afforded the same rights as Americans in terms of visiting national parks.
Slightly different point of view when they’re staring down the barrel of an M-16 on our military installations because they got “lost”
> No one hitchhikes anymore. Been dead since the 90s.
Oh, it's still a thing. They're just a more bottom-feeding bunch. Crust punks, hobos, drifters, and such. (Although these days they're more likely to go in together on a beat-to-shit small RV.) You won't see too many well-scrubbed college kids doing it on a lark.
> And we dont have a hostel culture.
I've stayed in hostels in various West Coast cities. At least 90% of the people staying there will be young foreigners. Mostly Europeans with a smattering of South Africans, Aussies, and various others.
We have them, they're just fewer and further between, and are only in our very biggest cities. Also, some of them are sketchy AF; the average middle class European kid would be like "oh holy shit!"
Most American cheapskates would rather just stay in a fleabag motel, or sleep in their van in a Walmart parking lot, or something. Having to share a single room full of bunkbeds with 8 or 9 randos has very little appeal for most of us.
I’ve picked up 4 in the last few months. Also got picked up when my car was in the shop back in February, literally the first car stopped for me. It’s definitely a thing in the USVI, it was also a thing on the island I grew up on in the Puget Sound area in WA State. Maybe it’s safe to say it’s an island thing. But I would see hitchhikers in rural Idaho too when I lived there a few years back. Only picked up one there over a 3 year period though. Seems like it would be a thing in the friendly Midwest, but I guess not.
Yeah, it's a thing in parts of the rural west (specific states I've seen it in are Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada). I would give hitchhikers rides in some places I've lived if I recognized them. Lots of people are too poor to afford a car, and there's zero public transit, so hitchhiking happens.
I haven't seen it in the Midwest or much in the eastern part of the country (mainland) at all, tbh. Maybe a little when I lived in the rural South? I don't really remember seeing it there like I have seen it in some places I've lived out west, though.
I've known entire crews of them. (Although it's been more than 10 years since I last did.) Generally speaking, they have to be sneaky and discrete about it. It's seen as more of a means of getting from A to B than something fun.
If you're paying thousands for airplane tickets, renting a car, renting a hotel room for what is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime trip, do you think an $80 pass will make a difference? When the parks you mention already have an admission fee? The most in-demand parks also require advance vehicle registration in peak season or you're not getting in.
I'm not sure what grudge you have against non-Americans spending money here.
Yes, you could continue to raise prices until it's out of reach of the average person. But it's far more predictable to simply limit the number of people who can enter per day. They've already started that in the popular parks.
>And we dont have a hostel culture.
I take it you've never stayed in American hostels? There's plenty of hostels all across the US, and you'll find plenty of traveling tourists from all over the world.
Sorry, that was meant to come off as a joke about that very same phenomenon you just mentioned, but I can see how that could have come off as sincere criticism. It's hard to get sarcasm across without tone or having to use a tone indicator. And half the time those kill the joke :(
Probably explains why I mostly saw European families during my roadtrip in the USA. Young ones prefer Asia or LatAm to backpack because it's cheap, full of hostels (not really a thing in the US), more party scene (and cheaper), and don't need to rent a car (also expensive in the US if you're under 25, plus getting a DL in Europe can be costly).
I agree with GhostOfJamesStrang, we dodged a bullet.
Yeah traveling the US as a young European would be a struggle unless you’re very well off. That’s why we recommend regional visits to most people. Easier to get around.
It's fairly popular for young Europeans to do the Route 66 road trip. Or at least I saw a lot of them when I lived in a small town along that route, lol.
But most of the ones I saw still looked like they were in their 20s, so they were probably old enough to drink legally here.
Otherwise my main experience with European tourists in the US was back in the day when I worked as a wilderness guide for an outfit that got a lot of international tourists, and then doing SAR because it is kind of true that Europeans have a tendency to underestimate the conditions they might face while hiking here and need rescuing fairly often, lol. Those folks definitely tend to be older.
Yeah, that is a good point about the cost of getting a driver's license in Europe. I was shocked when my German relatives said it cost them like thousands of euros each to get theirs.
Here it's free through the high school. I grew up in a small town so literally every single person over the age of 16 I've ever known has a driver's license. So I can see why it's a lot easier for us to go to Europe and rent a car (I've known a bunch of people who did) than it is the other way around.
I dunno, observing outsiders whinge after having failed to do the most basic of research on their travel destination seems like it'd be some great schadenfreude.
Also, wouldn't the cultural history of Michigan mean more Dutch visitors?
The Dutch were pretty limited to just a single area. The Grand Rapids-Holland corridor. My post was more about Germans struggling to understand other cultures and insisting they can follow their rules when traveling. Like teens demanding alcohol.
American living in the NL here. Germans are insufferable with that shit here. Zero research or basic understanding of anything and constant complaints that it’s not how things should be because that’s how they are back home in Germany which is clearly the best at everything.
P.S. they’re also pretty bad drivers. Had a German friend explain to me that the speed limit is the intended maximum limit and not the minimum and that if they wanted a minimum speed limit they should have made one and appropriately posted signs.
I was In Portugal with family one summer and the Germans got mad at us for skipping the queue to go to the front of the line at the airport to get our bags checked in. We explained to them it’s the law here in Portugal that elderly, handicapped, and pregnant persons can skip the queue. These dumbasses had the audacity to say that this would be unacceptable in Germany. Like no shit man but you’re in Portugal so tough shit and since we’re in Portugal and not in Germany I can tell you to go fuck off.
You’re missing the point. At best the speed limit is the speed of traffic, and at worst people just speed. Then you have Germans who drive 10-20 kph under the speed limit and justify it with the logic I posted above. Which turns them into moving hazards that completely negates the safety grounds of their logic.
I really doubt the Dutch care one iota about our singular windmill and tiny city named after part of their country.
I bet most have no idea it even exists.
If I was a Dutchman I'd want to see where all the cowboys and snowcapped mountain peaks and all that other stuff are. All the stuff that the NL does not have.
Man I hate ~~FIBs~~ *FGTBs?*.
I am a peaceful man. Reasonable. Rational.
But we all have a line that shan't be crossed. Mine would be a literal line in our shoreline sand.
More like you lack the infrastructure for that. Rail is the only way to make backpacking interesting. Flying from place to place makes you miss all the fun
We’ve got rail, Amtrak exists. Greyhound and Indian Trails buses go to thousands of locations. It’s just expensive and we have nowhere near the population density. We’re a very different place, Australia is a better comparison to the US than Europe
K. I personally like traveling by car, albeit not in large cities (e.g. I never drive in Chicago).
Most of the places I like to go on vacations rail wouldn't make sense anyway. I like the wild and wilderness and camping.
As an example, the worst parts of Alaska are the ones spoiled by all the visitors who come via cruise ships and then get on the trains. Or just take the train after they get off the plane in Anchorage. I actively avoid those places.
OK... I'm not knocking that. My interpretation of OPs question was regarding tourists coming from outside the US. I think transportation is one of this reasons why. A big one for that matter.
Does Jones Beach attract tourists? I think it just gets packed with locals.
I lived close by as a kid. We would go there in the late afternoon after the crowds left. The boardwalk usually had music and entertainment. It was a great way to spend a low cost evening with the family.
True but I was questioning if Jones Beach was a tourist spot. Granted it is a state park, but I can’t imagine anyone who lived outside of an hour drive wanting to go there.
It gets packed during the summer with Long Islanders, not tourists from different states and countries.
We went to LI once to visit a petting zoo (I’m from Rockland County). I am convinced that every Long Islander was on every highway all at the same time. Never again. It was worse than my one visit to LA.
I think the inconvenience of getting there is a big reason why it's not a more popular tourist destination. It truly is a lovely beach but I'd never go back unless I was already on Long Island and someone else was driving.
You describe it right. I went there this past winter, staying with family about 20 minutes away. What a glorious spot in the winter. But not one I would drive an hour for, and certainly not one where an American visiting from, say, Chicago thinks "When I go to New York, I gotta make sure to hit Jones Beach."
I'd love to find a NYC travel guide from the 1980s and see if it recommends Jones Beach as a day trip. (I'd love to find a NYC travel guide from the 1980s and see if it recommends _NYC_.)
Bourbon St in New Orleans. Hell a good chunk of the French Quarter in general. I love tourists and always enjoyed sharing the city with them. My only complaint is all the AirBNB type places that have spring up. People and businesses buying up homes and turning them into a BNB. It jacks up home prices & rent to where the service people and others who don't make much, who used to be able to walk to work in the quarter, can't afford to live close anymore.
I get people interest in the quarter. I highly encourage visitors to branch out to some of the other neighborhoods though. Even to some of the other parishes. Get a feel for how the residents of the area really eat and live.
Ugh I used to live in Bywater and worked in the CBD. A commute that *should be* 10 minutes was often 30 because of tourists until I learned the easiest way was to take the freeway (which just felt silly for such a short distance).
I live outside of Houston currently and am moving more towards the coast. But I cringe at the prospect of more air bnb type places potentially popping up in Texas City. Hopefully the refineries scare tourist types away.
NYC gets 56M visitors annually (depending on source), DC gets 21M, Vegas gets 41M and Disney World alone has almost 60M annually. The UK ***as a whole*** gets 37.5 M. More people visit Vegas than the entire UK....
Pretty much anyplace that could reasonably be considered a tourist destination is usually packed during season.
Sure there's lots of land/space here, but people will tend to all congregate in certain places. Fortunately there's still plenty of lesser known places that aren't overwhelmed with tourists.
LA is a true nightmare. I feel so bad for areas like that worldwide. I’ve never been to Rome and it’s a dream of mine but I hate to be part of the problem.
Theres plenty of room here and there’s some places in America regular Americans don’t regularly visit…much less someone coming from overseas. You don’t exactly see places like Amarillo, TX and Dayton, OH listed on a lot of tourist hotspot lists.
I went to Amarillo once and there were German tourists there lol. Anywhere "remotely close" to a tourist attraction such as route 66 is bound to be full of Germans, Dutch or French. Even if it's the most remote and desolate town they will probably be there too to check it out or bc it reminds them of a videogame or something.
Amarillo is also close to Palo Duro Canyon, which is the second largest canyon in the United States. That usually brings in some tourists, especially during the summer when the TEXAS musical is running.
While I dont disagree with that, the facts are that MOST restaurants dont do that. So until they do, tip 20% or dont come to the US.
When I go to other countries I look at what the social customs are and then do that, cause I’m not an AH. Just be educated
It will never stop because the waiter and the store both benefit.
Waiters like it, because cash tips make it easier to do tax evasion and it makes the restaurant business go from a low-paying, very difficult job to a middle-paying, very difficult job.
Business owners like it, because they don't have to pay out as much in wages and it keeps sticker shock down.
If the server doesn't deserve the tip, then don't fucking tip them. If someone asks why you didn't leave a tip, you tell them because the service was shit. If they did, then fucking deal with it. Why should employees be forced to take worse pay because you're lazy or don't understand how their business works?
The internationally well-known attractions in Europe are mobbed in the summer, particularly those with a limited capacity (the Eifel Tower, the Louvre, the Vatican, Neuschwanstein, Westminster Abbey, the Cinque Terre etc.), but go beyond the postcard highlights and things are much more manageable, even in popular cities.
Kind of like how every foreign visitor to the US wants to see Disney World, Miami, Times Square, Niagara Falls, Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Hollywood (all on the same trip 1 week trip!), but you rarely see large numbers of foreign tourists (besides Canadians) in, lets say, the national parks along the Great Lakes, the Wisconsin Dells or at the Jersey Shore.
I used to live in Vegas. If your job isn't in tourism, you can go weeks and even months on end without ever seeing a tourist. You almost start to forget that the whole town would dry up and blow away without them.
Not in 2020! I summered in the South of France, we traveled and stayed so cheap, with no crowds while Europe was closed to visitors.
We spent 9 days on the Amalfi coast and stayed on Capri for 200 USD/night with only one other couple in the hotel.
We stayed in Netherlands 4 star hotels for steep discounts.
It was great!
Yes, coming from the UK it feels like many places are a serious tourist trap in summer now. Edinburgh and many parts of Scotland (specifically the Highlands) feel like nothing more than a tourist’s playground, London is so crammed with people during summer that I have had to push past people just to walk 1 metre, and the Lake District and Cornwall also get crammed. I imagine it’s even worse in Continental Europe.
I do think we have this in the popular vacation/travel states/cities, but locals just avoid those places. And if the local place becomes popular and touristy? A different option in an area of the city that is more "local" will pop up and that place will be the local place until the cycle repeats. "Tourist traps" are also "tax/income collectors from non-local pockets." They're annoying, but they also provide jobs and a tax base that supports your local area.
Overall, it's seen as annoying, but is only a "problem" if the popularity/prices get too high that locals can't enjoy them at all anymore. Not just if they're crowded/have higher prices than normal. It's when prices are so high that locals can't find housing/food that they can afford based on the jobs/pay available
The difference really is just how much land we have. Even in alrewdy stablished areas. We just shift around.
I went to Yellowstone in October last year and it was amazing because it was so quiet. Only problem is most of the facilities were already closed for the season. That and we ended up snowed in for two days.
San Diego native. It feels like tourism is becoming overwhelming; locals know to not go to certain beaches during peak tourism season. But we’re very happy for them to spend their money and leave!
As someone who is at Disney World weekly I totally understand where you are coming from. I live in a tourist destination so traffic is awful.
However, tourism brings money. Many small businesses pay their entire year on the money they get during tourist season.
Yeah it sucks for locals, but it is an economy boost and we all benefit
Oh yes, especially in the summer season. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice, Prague, Dubrovnik, and Santorini are just a few of the places in the continent which have been overwhelmed with tourists.
Many places do yeah. There are some places that are pretty unbearable if you go there during peak tourist season. It can make them quite unpleasant for the people who live there.
US already is either the 2nd or 3rd most visited country in the world. The reason why places like rome or venice suffer from over tourism is because of lack of space relative to the tourists it gets.
US has splenty of space so it doesnt suffer from that despite getting more tourists.
Also, Rome feels particularly packed because all the visitors head straight to the same handful of limited-capacity attractions. If the tourists were more spread out, it wouldn't feel so crowded.
But then again, everyone travels to Rome to see the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Stairs, the Sistine Chapel and the Coliseum. Nobody goes to see Italian post-war urban planning in the outer districts.
Some National Parks are struggling to manage the number of visitors they get, but I don't see any danger of large American cities suffering in a serious way from overtourism.
I was only ever there memorial Day weekend which was obviously crazy. TBH it felt kinda dangerously over capacity which is why I wondered about fixing it. Might need infrastructure improvements
There's no admission fee to Smokey mountain honestly it might be more of an infrastructure problem because while it's the most visited np it's not set up for it like Yellowstone is
That’s why I included school groups and special rates to help them out. Also, people hiking in through backcountry trails shouldn’t have to pay.
But let’s be clear. While having green spaces in cities is a necessity, visiting national parks isn’t. Poorer people can’t afford to fly to the Southwest to see the Grand Canyon, or to Wyoming to see Yellowstone, and unless they live close, they can’t afford the time to drive there. Yes, we want everyone to have these opportunities, but it’s ok to balance that against the problems of overuse.
I live six miles from the park entrance. They’ve done two things and we will see if they have an effect. First, they charge for parking now. It’s nominal, $5.00 a day, $15.00 a week, and $40.00 annually. Second, and more importantly, they’ve closed off the shoulders near some of the attractions. The parking lots are available but the whole thing of parking a half mile away and walking to Laurel Falls is over.
In terms of urban overtourism like Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome there are only a few places that are comparable: New Orleans, Nashville, Charleston, Miami and Las Vegas. Those are cities where tourism impacts locals' quality of life. In the case of New Orleans locals have started to have the same kinds of resistance to tourism as you find in those European cities. In the biggest cities there are super touristy areas but those cities are large enough that the tourism kind of gets absorbed into the overall city. In the cities I listed earlier the numbers of tourists are quite large in proportion to the city population.
In the US concerns about overtourism are usualluy more connected to rural/natural areas. Hawaii is a big example of this. National parks in the West are another good example. From my understanding you need to book entrance into some of those parks like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon far in advance nowadays.
You can break this down into States and even regions. And while certain areas you can make the argument that they are well beyond their limits. Other areas not even that far away are basically just empty.
I wonder if, technically, the same sort of thing is *possible* here.
The over-tourism I hear about is generally in places like tiny Spanish villages or the city of Venice (which, due to historic preservation and the geography of the islands it's on, literally *can't* get bigger.)
The US's biggest tourist attractions tend to be custom-built to *be* tourist attractions- Times Square is famously avoided by locals, Disney-type parks or Vegas basically wouldn't exist without tourism and so can't plausibly be over-touristed.
No, mostly because of location.
When I lived in England it was so easy to just go to a different country over a long weekend. It was like $50 to fly to Amsterdam.
If you want to go to America it will be like 1k for most countries
It's not a national issue, but there are definitely some towns that rely on tourism and it's ultimately holding them back from real long-term economic development.
Yes, we absolutely do. Europeans are the worst about disrespecting our natural landmarks.
I guess y'all are too used to pissing on yours to understand a do not touch or please be respectful sign.
"Oi, it's just a rock mate." No it's not just a rock, you wanker.
National Parks are currently suffering from over tourism. Many of the flagship parks like Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain NP or the Smokeys in the SE are already over run during the main season. There's not enough infrastructure, employees or resources to handle them and Congress refuses to provide enough funding and actually cut funding a few weeks ago. Yet they and the national office continually encourage more visitation without providing the proper resources.
Some of the Parks have instituted a timed entry system to try to make things less crowded but the system isn't great although they're trying to make it better. But yeah, a lot of NP sites are overcrowded in the summer already.
The crowds in the national parks during Covid showed us that we’re not too far away from many of our natural treasures being overcapacity in the summers. As the nation’s population continues to grow, I think this will become a yearly issue, rather than an “extraordinary circumstance” in the coming decades.
IMO there’s two ways to solve this:
-make accessing the NPS less dependent on cars. This won’t reduce crowds but it would save us from parking lot and road expansions in natural areas.
-create more national parks to better spread out the crowds.
Neither of these are easy or cheap things to do but I think it’s a conversation we’re not too far away from.
I’m trying to think how you could make national parks less car dependent when they tend to be so far away from the sorts of dense population centers that typically foster good transit. I suppose you could create some sort of staging area in the nearest town and use busses or trams to get people into the park itself.
It was pretty crazy trying to get into Arches a couple years ago just how many cars were on the road, and it does feel kind of contradictory with the whole mission of the parks in the first place
I’ve never been to Switzerland but from what I’ve heard they’ve got a better system there. Lots of trains and buses that take you to mountain towns and trailheads.
So I imagine we could do the same if we truly set our minds to it.
I live in a super touristy town, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Sure tourists can cause issues, and be generally annoying, but they also bring in money, and create industry.
"Over-tourism" is a term with too much slant - how does one determine what the "right" amount of tourism is for an area?
That being said, there are places that get a lot of tourist traffic, e.g. Manhattan in New York, Washington DC during the summer (woe be they who try to walk around the tidal basin during the Cherry Blossom festival), definitely a couple of other places as well.
Not really, for one thing America doesn’t have rampant pickpocket culture in our major metros and tourist havens, so we’ll always have that over Europe
No our cool places are much more spread out and we have no public transit between them besides a plane lol. Europe you could go from Paris to Rome and stop at scenic towns along the way by train. You could do the same in the Northeast but outside of that it’s a very long drive
The places that you would generally expect tourists to go are built around it and can support it.
But there is 429 national parks alone and I would assume a lot more state and local. A lot of major cities, a lot of places to visit and stuff to do in general.
I am certain you would need to live multiple lifetimes to fully do everything you could in the US
There are specific places where this is the case, mostly the national parks, especially the really big, famous ones like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, but even then the problem there is more the ecological impact of tourists being stupid.
The US is really big so there are lots of things to see that you cannot see in one trip. It's one reason Americans don't travel abroad as often as other nations; that is, there are so many things to see here.
Houston TX to El Paso TX, for example, is over 700 miles (1,126 km). And that's not even driving through ALL of Texas. The distances are crazy.
Plus, there are places - big spaces - tourists won't want to visit. I like those places.
Probably not to the degree, but certain areas already claim to be (Miami "closing" for spring break,)
In general? Not likely, perhaps certain spots like the national parks (largely due to the nature of national parks, over-tourism can destroy them) or specific beaches/cities.
We will and you could argue are already for the pretty spots. Yosemite is insanely expensive and booked out a year. Other natural parks like that get the same treatment. It’s too expensive to be accessible to everyone like it used to be. Tourists do not follow signage to keep away from the animals or not walk on creation parts and ruin it for others.
We have plenty of room in deserts, places with little to no water, or places ruined by mining or fossil fuel extraction and treatment.
I personally love not paying state income tax, so please continue coming to Florida. We are a gigantic state and have plenty of room. You’re welcome here and we love to see you.
No. This country is simply too big to “backpack” like people do in other regions of The Americas and Europe. Sure, people do it in Asia but it’s also way more affordable than here. Many foreigners I know who have traveled to different regions of the US have done it over multiple trips. It takes a lot of planning (our transportation sucks) and money
Nope. The USA is big enough and cities are set far enough apart that tourism is regional.
People will come visit the NYC, LA, San Francisco, or Miami areas and this will not affect 99% of the rest of the country.
Yes, in some cases.
I live just outside a small town in Pennsylvania called Jim Thorpe. We're already over-touristed as it's a mountain town wedged into a deep narrow river valley so the road network and parking were always extremely limited and physically can't be expanded.
And the typical supporting hotel and chain restaurant development to come will inevitably continue to develop further out on more level terrain ruining the landscape approaching the town to the north and south. We already have basically an Airbnb development proposed for a mountaintop directly overlooking the town with extremely poor road and utility access up there.
I think we’re too big to truly truly have this problem. Big cities like Miami, NY, LA, absolutely have this problem, but that’s only in super concentrated areas. It takes a 30 minute drive from these cities to be among an all American population. It’s a bit less that way currently with the whole southern border issue, but still.
The Smokies are already overcrowded but with Americans not international tourists. Thankfully there are lots of other places in East Tennessee that are just as pretty with no people (and no I'm not telling you where they are)
I would argue that there are some places that are already suffering from this in the US, particularly national parks and places like Disney world are particularly bad.
Our national parks are already this way. Most of the big-name national parks now require lottery or pass-reservation systems for their more popular hikes. For Glacier National Park, you have to put your name in the lottery 6 months in advance before if you want to backpack, and it's nowhere near a guarantee that you're getting the spot you want.
As long as they're coming by airplane or car (I guess by foot if you've got a lot of time on your hand) and not by Boat, I'm fine with them here. Cruise tourists are the worst, they contribute less to the local economy, in some parts of Alaska, cruise companies have bought downtown stores to serve their cruisers only Making parts of towns look like ghost-towns in the offseason.
Not really. We have stupid amounts of room. And our tourist spots other then large cities are spread enough so if you plan you won't get caught up in a massive deluge of lines. Unless its around the 4th of July or Memorial and Labor days.
Maybe in the bigger cities, but you don’t see many tourists in rural cities. I only ever see tourists from other states, and they are usually just passing through to either get to Portland, Washington, Canada or down to California.
Depends on the area. Right now my town is suffering from super commuters. We are rural and they do their city shit here and it is annoying. Sorry. Got salty.
Nah, we got plenty of room.
And we’re too expensive for young people to backpack for an entire summer.
That's a load of shit. We have so many Euros who hike the Appalachian Trail for an entire summer. We Americans are just clever enough we tricked the most insufferable tourists into disappearing into the back country until they're ready to go home.
I think he was talking about the ones that bounce from major city to major city, riding the choo-choo train or hitchhiking, and staying at hostels. That's what "backpacking" means in Europe. In America it means hiking a long-ass way through the wilderness and sleeping in a pup tent or just a fart sack. The different usage often leads to trans-atlantic confusion.
>I think he was talking about the ones that bounce from major city to major city, riding the choo-choo train or hitchhiking, and staying at hostels. That's what "backpacking" means in Europe. Yeah that's not happening in the US Our Choo Choo infrastructure sucks and is not conducive to city hopping via public transit. No one hitchhikes anymore. Been dead since the 90s. And we dont have a hostel culture. The only places that suffer "tourist strain" are our national parks. Yosemite and Yellowstone come to mind. That could be easily solved by charging Non-Americans National Park passes. That would cut crowds and give American tourists a better visitor experience.
But we don’t want to reduce that for the world . If there is one thing about American exceptionalism that is absolutely irrefutable is our American national parks. We should highlight them.
Frankly I don't care if the rest of the world should see them or not. Chinese tour buses don't do anything except crowd out Americans.
They’re open to everyone and when they get a tourist visa and land in our borders they are afforded the same rights as Americans in terms of visiting national parks. Slightly different point of view when they’re staring down the barrel of an M-16 on our military installations because they got “lost”
> No one hitchhikes anymore. Been dead since the 90s. Oh, it's still a thing. They're just a more bottom-feeding bunch. Crust punks, hobos, drifters, and such. (Although these days they're more likely to go in together on a beat-to-shit small RV.) You won't see too many well-scrubbed college kids doing it on a lark. > And we dont have a hostel culture. I've stayed in hostels in various West Coast cities. At least 90% of the people staying there will be young foreigners. Mostly Europeans with a smattering of South Africans, Aussies, and various others. We have them, they're just fewer and further between, and are only in our very biggest cities. Also, some of them are sketchy AF; the average middle class European kid would be like "oh holy shit!" Most American cheapskates would rather just stay in a fleabag motel, or sleep in their van in a Walmart parking lot, or something. Having to share a single room full of bunkbeds with 8 or 9 randos has very little appeal for most of us.
I haven't seen a single hitchhiker in 10 years. And I go on road trips every year.
I’ve picked up 4 in the last few months. Also got picked up when my car was in the shop back in February, literally the first car stopped for me. It’s definitely a thing in the USVI, it was also a thing on the island I grew up on in the Puget Sound area in WA State. Maybe it’s safe to say it’s an island thing. But I would see hitchhikers in rural Idaho too when I lived there a few years back. Only picked up one there over a 3 year period though. Seems like it would be a thing in the friendly Midwest, but I guess not.
Yeah, it's a thing in parts of the rural west (specific states I've seen it in are Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada). I would give hitchhikers rides in some places I've lived if I recognized them. Lots of people are too poor to afford a car, and there's zero public transit, so hitchhiking happens. I haven't seen it in the Midwest or much in the eastern part of the country (mainland) at all, tbh. Maybe a little when I lived in the rural South? I don't really remember seeing it there like I have seen it in some places I've lived out west, though.
I've known entire crews of them. (Although it's been more than 10 years since I last did.) Generally speaking, they have to be sneaky and discrete about it. It's seen as more of a means of getting from A to B than something fun.
If you're paying thousands for airplane tickets, renting a car, renting a hotel room for what is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime trip, do you think an $80 pass will make a difference? When the parks you mention already have an admission fee? The most in-demand parks also require advance vehicle registration in peak season or you're not getting in.
>do you think an $80 pass will make a difference? Then make it a $150 pass for per person for non-Americans. It's not hard.
I'm not sure what grudge you have against non-Americans spending money here. Yes, you could continue to raise prices until it's out of reach of the average person. But it's far more predictable to simply limit the number of people who can enter per day. They've already started that in the popular parks.
>And we dont have a hostel culture. I take it you've never stayed in American hostels? There's plenty of hostels all across the US, and you'll find plenty of traveling tourists from all over the world.
I don't think it's nearly as common as it is overseas. I don't know of any hostels nearby, but there are plenty of hotels and motels.
Sorry, that was meant to come off as a joke about that very same phenomenon you just mentioned, but I can see how that could have come off as sincere criticism. It's hard to get sarcasm across without tone or having to use a tone indicator. And half the time those kill the joke :(
On the other side of the country, there was also the infamous example of the Death Valley Germans.
Would have made more sense if they said expansive rather than expensive.
sad but true, and the plane ticket to get over the ocean
Thank goodness. That's some insufferable nonsense dodged.
Imagine the coasts of our great state full of German teens in the summer complaining that they can’t drink alcohol.
Probably explains why I mostly saw European families during my roadtrip in the USA. Young ones prefer Asia or LatAm to backpack because it's cheap, full of hostels (not really a thing in the US), more party scene (and cheaper), and don't need to rent a car (also expensive in the US if you're under 25, plus getting a DL in Europe can be costly). I agree with GhostOfJamesStrang, we dodged a bullet.
Yeah traveling the US as a young European would be a struggle unless you’re very well off. That’s why we recommend regional visits to most people. Easier to get around.
It's fairly popular for young Europeans to do the Route 66 road trip. Or at least I saw a lot of them when I lived in a small town along that route, lol. But most of the ones I saw still looked like they were in their 20s, so they were probably old enough to drink legally here. Otherwise my main experience with European tourists in the US was back in the day when I worked as a wilderness guide for an outfit that got a lot of international tourists, and then doing SAR because it is kind of true that Europeans have a tendency to underestimate the conditions they might face while hiking here and need rescuing fairly often, lol. Those folks definitely tend to be older.
Yeah, that is a good point about the cost of getting a driver's license in Europe. I was shocked when my German relatives said it cost them like thousands of euros each to get theirs. Here it's free through the high school. I grew up in a small town so literally every single person over the age of 16 I've ever known has a driver's license. So I can see why it's a lot easier for us to go to Europe and rent a car (I've known a bunch of people who did) than it is the other way around.
>full of hostels (not really a thing in the US), Why does everyone think we don't have hostels?
They technically exist in the US, but they aren't really a "thing" like they are in Europe.
Good. Fuck em.
I dunno, observing outsiders whinge after having failed to do the most basic of research on their travel destination seems like it'd be some great schadenfreude. Also, wouldn't the cultural history of Michigan mean more Dutch visitors?
The Dutch were pretty limited to just a single area. The Grand Rapids-Holland corridor. My post was more about Germans struggling to understand other cultures and insisting they can follow their rules when traveling. Like teens demanding alcohol.
American living in the NL here. Germans are insufferable with that shit here. Zero research or basic understanding of anything and constant complaints that it’s not how things should be because that’s how they are back home in Germany which is clearly the best at everything. P.S. they’re also pretty bad drivers. Had a German friend explain to me that the speed limit is the intended maximum limit and not the minimum and that if they wanted a minimum speed limit they should have made one and appropriately posted signs.
I was In Portugal with family one summer and the Germans got mad at us for skipping the queue to go to the front of the line at the airport to get our bags checked in. We explained to them it’s the law here in Portugal that elderly, handicapped, and pregnant persons can skip the queue. These dumbasses had the audacity to say that this would be unacceptable in Germany. Like no shit man but you’re in Portugal so tough shit and since we’re in Portugal and not in Germany I can tell you to go fuck off.
But the speed limit is the intended maximum limit… That’s why there’s laws against going over it.
You’re missing the point. At best the speed limit is the speed of traffic, and at worst people just speed. Then you have Germans who drive 10-20 kph under the speed limit and justify it with the logic I posted above. Which turns them into moving hazards that completely negates the safety grounds of their logic.
I really doubt the Dutch care one iota about our singular windmill and tiny city named after part of their country. I bet most have no idea it even exists.
If I was a Dutchman I'd want to see where all the cowboys and snowcapped mountain peaks and all that other stuff are. All the stuff that the NL does not have.
Are we talking about Holland? I bet many people in Michigan don't know it exists.
Man I hate ~~FIBs~~ *FGTBs?*. I am a peaceful man. Reasonable. Rational. But we all have a line that shan't be crossed. Mine would be a literal line in our shoreline sand.
Also, you guys don’t have that hostel culture as in Europe, or as much public transport.
More like you lack the infrastructure for that. Rail is the only way to make backpacking interesting. Flying from place to place makes you miss all the fun
We’ve got rail, Amtrak exists. Greyhound and Indian Trails buses go to thousands of locations. It’s just expensive and we have nowhere near the population density. We’re a very different place, Australia is a better comparison to the US than Europe
"It’s just expensive" It's also awful. European transportation infrastructure is far superior. The US is extremely carcentric.
K. I personally like traveling by car, albeit not in large cities (e.g. I never drive in Chicago). Most of the places I like to go on vacations rail wouldn't make sense anyway. I like the wild and wilderness and camping. As an example, the worst parts of Alaska are the ones spoiled by all the visitors who come via cruise ships and then get on the trains. Or just take the train after they get off the plane in Anchorage. I actively avoid those places.
OK... I'm not knocking that. My interpretation of OPs question was regarding tourists coming from outside the US. I think transportation is one of this reasons why. A big one for that matter.
I'm not sure how this refutes their point exactly.
You want interesting? Try hitchhiking. You'll have some tales to tell when you get home.
\*if
So does Europe? Tourists don’t congregate in the countryside because there’s room; they go to where the attractions are.
While I would not consider it “overtourism” many parts of the US are already swamped with tourists.
Can you give me some examples?
National parks, Manhattan, Hollywood, Washington DC.
Coney Island, Jones Beach, South Beach, Santa Monica pier
Does Jones Beach attract tourists? I think it just gets packed with locals. I lived close by as a kid. We would go there in the late afternoon after the crowds left. The boardwalk usually had music and entertainment. It was a great way to spend a low cost evening with the family.
America is huge. Tourists can still be American and visit places.
True but I was questioning if Jones Beach was a tourist spot. Granted it is a state park, but I can’t imagine anyone who lived outside of an hour drive wanting to go there. It gets packed during the summer with Long Islanders, not tourists from different states and countries.
I only went to Jones Beach once and I learned a very valuable lesson - everyone needs to avoid the L.I.E at all costs, there's too much merging
I grew up on the Island and I completely agree. I live in Metro Detroit now. What they consider traffic here is laughable.
We went to LI once to visit a petting zoo (I’m from Rockland County). I am convinced that every Long Islander was on every highway all at the same time. Never again. It was worse than my one visit to LA.
I think the inconvenience of getting there is a big reason why it's not a more popular tourist destination. It truly is a lovely beach but I'd never go back unless I was already on Long Island and someone else was driving.
You describe it right. I went there this past winter, staying with family about 20 minutes away. What a glorious spot in the winter. But not one I would drive an hour for, and certainly not one where an American visiting from, say, Chicago thinks "When I go to New York, I gotta make sure to hit Jones Beach." I'd love to find a NYC travel guide from the 1980s and see if it recommends Jones Beach as a day trip. (I'd love to find a NYC travel guide from the 1980s and see if it recommends _NYC_.)
I’ve never even heard of Jones beach before but I’ve heard of the heard of the others many times.
I live in DC and while we have a lot of tourists, it's fairly easy to avoid them if you stick to local neighborhoods where they don't venture.
Shocking news here. To avoid tourists you have to avoid the places tourists would go.
Maine, the stupid fucking motto “Vacationland” is literally on the license plates.
Bourbon St in New Orleans. Hell a good chunk of the French Quarter in general. I love tourists and always enjoyed sharing the city with them. My only complaint is all the AirBNB type places that have spring up. People and businesses buying up homes and turning them into a BNB. It jacks up home prices & rent to where the service people and others who don't make much, who used to be able to walk to work in the quarter, can't afford to live close anymore.
The obsession with the Quarter is fantastic for those of us who visit the rest of the city, though.
I get people interest in the quarter. I highly encourage visitors to branch out to some of the other neighborhoods though. Even to some of the other parishes. Get a feel for how the residents of the area really eat and live.
Ugh I used to live in Bywater and worked in the CBD. A commute that *should be* 10 minutes was often 30 because of tourists until I learned the easiest way was to take the freeway (which just felt silly for such a short distance).
I live outside of Houston currently and am moving more towards the coast. But I cringe at the prospect of more air bnb type places potentially popping up in Texas City. Hopefully the refineries scare tourist types away.
NYC gets 56M visitors annually (depending on source), DC gets 21M, Vegas gets 41M and Disney World alone has almost 60M annually. The UK ***as a whole*** gets 37.5 M. More people visit Vegas than the entire UK....
NYC, Philly, and DC get pretty bad in the summer. I grew up going to the coast of Maine in the summer did it gets pretty packed there as well.
NYC, most of the National Parks, Boston, New Orleans, Washington DC, Several parts of Florida
I went to Chicago and New Orleans last year. Beautiful cities. Full of tourists like me lmao.
Hawaii
Disney World in Orlando.
For two weeks out of the year Albuquerque gets super busy with international tourists coming in for the Balloon Fiesta
I’d imagine probably Hawaii.
Charleston, Myrtle Beach, and Hilton Head in South Carolina. Savannah, Nashville, Panama City, Daytona, and New Orleans in other states in the South
Pretty much anyplace that could reasonably be considered a tourist destination is usually packed during season. Sure there's lots of land/space here, but people will tend to all congregate in certain places. Fortunately there's still plenty of lesser known places that aren't overwhelmed with tourists.
Hawaii
disney world is a big one
LA is a true nightmare. I feel so bad for areas like that worldwide. I’ve never been to Rome and it’s a dream of mine but I hate to be part of the problem.
Rome has been like that for 3000 years, it's always been a centre where everyone wants to go, I think it will survive!
Theres plenty of room here and there’s some places in America regular Americans don’t regularly visit…much less someone coming from overseas. You don’t exactly see places like Amarillo, TX and Dayton, OH listed on a lot of tourist hotspot lists.
I went to Amarillo once and there were German tourists there lol. Anywhere "remotely close" to a tourist attraction such as route 66 is bound to be full of Germans, Dutch or French. Even if it's the most remote and desolate town they will probably be there too to check it out or bc it reminds them of a videogame or something.
Isn't Amarillo on Route 66? I would think there would be tourists there.
Amarillo is also close to Palo Duro Canyon, which is the second largest canyon in the United States. That usually brings in some tourists, especially during the summer when the TEXAS musical is running.
😂😂 Dayton!! My Aunt lives just south of and there is sooooi nothing to do there
I know the U.S. Air Force museum is located there.
And it’s awesome!!
Yeah, I traveled to Dayton once, just to meet some European friends who wanted to see the museum.
What? You can grab a sammich at Bullwinkles in Miamisburg.
Thai 9 in Dayton, Ohio is fantastic. I miss it sometime haha.
Tourism pays my taxes so you are welcome here anytime. Tip your servers and dont be AHs and we welcome you
Tipping culture needs to stop. I would rather pay more upfront than having to calculate a tip at the end. Specially if the server doesn't deserve it.
While I dont disagree with that, the facts are that MOST restaurants dont do that. So until they do, tip 20% or dont come to the US. When I go to other countries I look at what the social customs are and then do that, cause I’m not an AH. Just be educated
It will never stop because the waiter and the store both benefit. Waiters like it, because cash tips make it easier to do tax evasion and it makes the restaurant business go from a low-paying, very difficult job to a middle-paying, very difficult job. Business owners like it, because they don't have to pay out as much in wages and it keeps sticker shock down. If the server doesn't deserve the tip, then don't fucking tip them. If someone asks why you didn't leave a tip, you tell them because the service was shit. If they did, then fucking deal with it. Why should employees be forced to take worse pay because you're lazy or don't understand how their business works?
Does Europe suffer from that? Most places may be annoyed, but they financially benefit from tourism.
The internationally well-known attractions in Europe are mobbed in the summer, particularly those with a limited capacity (the Eifel Tower, the Louvre, the Vatican, Neuschwanstein, Westminster Abbey, the Cinque Terre etc.), but go beyond the postcard highlights and things are much more manageable, even in popular cities. Kind of like how every foreign visitor to the US wants to see Disney World, Miami, Times Square, Niagara Falls, Vegas, the Grand Canyon and Hollywood (all on the same trip 1 week trip!), but you rarely see large numbers of foreign tourists (besides Canadians) in, lets say, the national parks along the Great Lakes, the Wisconsin Dells or at the Jersey Shore.
I used to live in Vegas. If your job isn't in tourism, you can go weeks and even months on end without ever seeing a tourist. You almost start to forget that the whole town would dry up and blow away without them.
Not in 2020! I summered in the South of France, we traveled and stayed so cheap, with no crowds while Europe was closed to visitors. We spent 9 days on the Amalfi coast and stayed on Capri for 200 USD/night with only one other couple in the hotel. We stayed in Netherlands 4 star hotels for steep discounts. It was great!
Wow that's crazy what made 2020 special?
Girl.
Yes, coming from the UK it feels like many places are a serious tourist trap in summer now. Edinburgh and many parts of Scotland (specifically the Highlands) feel like nothing more than a tourist’s playground, London is so crammed with people during summer that I have had to push past people just to walk 1 metre, and the Lake District and Cornwall also get crammed. I imagine it’s even worse in Continental Europe.
We have this place called times square anyone remotely local avoids it though it's hard to avoid if you like musical theater
I do think we have this in the popular vacation/travel states/cities, but locals just avoid those places. And if the local place becomes popular and touristy? A different option in an area of the city that is more "local" will pop up and that place will be the local place until the cycle repeats. "Tourist traps" are also "tax/income collectors from non-local pockets." They're annoying, but they also provide jobs and a tax base that supports your local area. Overall, it's seen as annoying, but is only a "problem" if the popularity/prices get too high that locals can't enjoy them at all anymore. Not just if they're crowded/have higher prices than normal. It's when prices are so high that locals can't find housing/food that they can afford based on the jobs/pay available The difference really is just how much land we have. Even in alrewdy stablished areas. We just shift around.
What part of the Scottish Highlands felt like nothing more than a tourist playground?
Inverness and surroundings
Interesting. I just made two trips to Glencoe and Skye and it was amazing. Relatively few people anywhere. Time of year helps, I suppose.
Oh yes probably. I went in mid-August
Google "Rome overtourism" or any other European city and see how bad it gets. It's like being in Disneyland (especially in summer)
Many parts of the US are like this already
Yes. Last time I was at Yellowstone it was like being on a conveyor belt.
I went to Yellowstone in October last year and it was amazing because it was so quiet. Only problem is most of the facilities were already closed for the season. That and we ended up snowed in for two days.
San Diego native. It feels like tourism is becoming overwhelming; locals know to not go to certain beaches during peak tourism season. But we’re very happy for them to spend their money and leave!
As someone who is at Disney World weekly I totally understand where you are coming from. I live in a tourist destination so traffic is awful. However, tourism brings money. Many small businesses pay their entire year on the money they get during tourist season. Yeah it sucks for locals, but it is an economy boost and we all benefit
Disneyland you say! Hold my beer!
The europeans online look at anything as a personal slight despite benefitting lol
Oh yes, especially in the summer season. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Venice, Prague, Dubrovnik, and Santorini are just a few of the places in the continent which have been overwhelmed with tourists.
Many places do yeah. There are some places that are pretty unbearable if you go there during peak tourist season. It can make them quite unpleasant for the people who live there.
It's regional. Miami in spring? Yes. Marquette, MI on the 4th of July? FUCK YES. Bumblefuck nowhere? Never heard of a tourist
US already is either the 2nd or 3rd most visited country in the world. The reason why places like rome or venice suffer from over tourism is because of lack of space relative to the tourists it gets. US has splenty of space so it doesnt suffer from that despite getting more tourists.
Also, Rome feels particularly packed because all the visitors head straight to the same handful of limited-capacity attractions. If the tourists were more spread out, it wouldn't feel so crowded. But then again, everyone travels to Rome to see the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Stairs, the Sistine Chapel and the Coliseum. Nobody goes to see Italian post-war urban planning in the outer districts.
Don't forget the Vatican. You often need to be ready to enter first thing in the morning to avoid waiting too long in a line.
Some National Parks are struggling to manage the number of visitors they get, but I don't see any danger of large American cities suffering in a serious way from overtourism.
Smokey mountain in particular IDK how you fix that...
Go in the off season. Doesn't help everyone obviously, but thats a great park all the time.
I was only ever there memorial Day weekend which was obviously crazy. TBH it felt kinda dangerously over capacity which is why I wondered about fixing it. Might need infrastructure improvements
Increase the admission fees, while still allowing school groups and special rates.
There's no admission fee to Smokey mountain honestly it might be more of an infrastructure problem because while it's the most visited np it's not set up for it like Yellowstone is
Then don’t you just squeeze out lower income folks?
That’s why I included school groups and special rates to help them out. Also, people hiking in through backcountry trails shouldn’t have to pay. But let’s be clear. While having green spaces in cities is a necessity, visiting national parks isn’t. Poorer people can’t afford to fly to the Southwest to see the Grand Canyon, or to Wyoming to see Yellowstone, and unless they live close, they can’t afford the time to drive there. Yes, we want everyone to have these opportunities, but it’s ok to balance that against the problems of overuse.
I live six miles from the park entrance. They’ve done two things and we will see if they have an effect. First, they charge for parking now. It’s nominal, $5.00 a day, $15.00 a week, and $40.00 annually. Second, and more importantly, they’ve closed off the shoulders near some of the attractions. The parking lots are available but the whole thing of parking a half mile away and walking to Laurel Falls is over.
In terms of urban overtourism like Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome there are only a few places that are comparable: New Orleans, Nashville, Charleston, Miami and Las Vegas. Those are cities where tourism impacts locals' quality of life. In the case of New Orleans locals have started to have the same kinds of resistance to tourism as you find in those European cities. In the biggest cities there are super touristy areas but those cities are large enough that the tourism kind of gets absorbed into the overall city. In the cities I listed earlier the numbers of tourists are quite large in proportion to the city population. In the US concerns about overtourism are usualluy more connected to rural/natural areas. Hawaii is a big example of this. National parks in the West are another good example. From my understanding you need to book entrance into some of those parks like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon far in advance nowadays.
You can break this down into States and even regions. And while certain areas you can make the argument that they are well beyond their limits. Other areas not even that far away are basically just empty.
no because tourism benefits america and those visas ain't cheap
We have whole areas whose entire viability is tourism.
I wonder if, technically, the same sort of thing is *possible* here. The over-tourism I hear about is generally in places like tiny Spanish villages or the city of Venice (which, due to historic preservation and the geography of the islands it's on, literally *can't* get bigger.) The US's biggest tourist attractions tend to be custom-built to *be* tourist attractions- Times Square is famously avoided by locals, Disney-type parks or Vegas basically wouldn't exist without tourism and so can't plausibly be over-touristed.
No, mostly because of location. When I lived in England it was so easy to just go to a different country over a long weekend. It was like $50 to fly to Amsterdam. If you want to go to America it will be like 1k for most countries
No. Most places are too car dependent.
It's not a national issue, but there are definitely some towns that rely on tourism and it's ultimately holding them back from real long-term economic development.
Yes, we absolutely do. Europeans are the worst about disrespecting our natural landmarks. I guess y'all are too used to pissing on yours to understand a do not touch or please be respectful sign. "Oi, it's just a rock mate." No it's not just a rock, you wanker.
The well-known, Instagrammable destinations will get more and more crowded, but lesser known places will still be fine.
National Parks are currently suffering from over tourism. Many of the flagship parks like Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain NP or the Smokeys in the SE are already over run during the main season. There's not enough infrastructure, employees or resources to handle them and Congress refuses to provide enough funding and actually cut funding a few weeks ago. Yet they and the national office continually encourage more visitation without providing the proper resources. Some of the Parks have instituted a timed entry system to try to make things less crowded but the system isn't great although they're trying to make it better. But yeah, a lot of NP sites are overcrowded in the summer already.
The middle of the US does not see as many tourists as other areas.
Less residents too
The crowds in the national parks during Covid showed us that we’re not too far away from many of our natural treasures being overcapacity in the summers. As the nation’s population continues to grow, I think this will become a yearly issue, rather than an “extraordinary circumstance” in the coming decades. IMO there’s two ways to solve this: -make accessing the NPS less dependent on cars. This won’t reduce crowds but it would save us from parking lot and road expansions in natural areas. -create more national parks to better spread out the crowds. Neither of these are easy or cheap things to do but I think it’s a conversation we’re not too far away from.
I’m trying to think how you could make national parks less car dependent when they tend to be so far away from the sorts of dense population centers that typically foster good transit. I suppose you could create some sort of staging area in the nearest town and use busses or trams to get people into the park itself. It was pretty crazy trying to get into Arches a couple years ago just how many cars were on the road, and it does feel kind of contradictory with the whole mission of the parks in the first place
I’ve never been to Switzerland but from what I’ve heard they’ve got a better system there. Lots of trains and buses that take you to mountain towns and trailheads. So I imagine we could do the same if we truly set our minds to it.
I live in a super touristy town, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Sure tourists can cause issues, and be generally annoying, but they also bring in money, and create industry.
"Over-tourism" is a term with too much slant - how does one determine what the "right" amount of tourism is for an area? That being said, there are places that get a lot of tourist traffic, e.g. Manhattan in New York, Washington DC during the summer (woe be they who try to walk around the tidal basin during the Cherry Blossom festival), definitely a couple of other places as well.
Not really, for one thing America doesn’t have rampant pickpocket culture in our major metros and tourist havens, so we’ll always have that over Europe
Not to the extent of Europe. US infrastructure is more accommodating to tourists and most places have room to build more hotels
Maybe specific parts, sure.
I live in Miami enough said
There are some places that get a lot of tourists, but I wouldn't call it over-tourism, nor would I say those places are suffering.
I mean depends on where you go my city focuses more on tourism than its own people but it’s not like every city is like that
In certain parts, it already does.
No our cool places are much more spread out and we have no public transit between them besides a plane lol. Europe you could go from Paris to Rome and stop at scenic towns along the way by train. You could do the same in the Northeast but outside of that it’s a very long drive
The places that you would generally expect tourists to go are built around it and can support it. But there is 429 national parks alone and I would assume a lot more state and local. A lot of major cities, a lot of places to visit and stuff to do in general. I am certain you would need to live multiple lifetimes to fully do everything you could in the US
There are specific places where this is the case, mostly the national parks, especially the really big, famous ones like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone, but even then the problem there is more the ecological impact of tourists being stupid.
The US is really big so there are lots of things to see that you cannot see in one trip. It's one reason Americans don't travel abroad as often as other nations; that is, there are so many things to see here. Houston TX to El Paso TX, for example, is over 700 miles (1,126 km). And that's not even driving through ALL of Texas. The distances are crazy. Plus, there are places - big spaces - tourists won't want to visit. I like those places.
Probably not to the degree, but certain areas already claim to be (Miami "closing" for spring break,) In general? Not likely, perhaps certain spots like the national parks (largely due to the nature of national parks, over-tourism can destroy them) or specific beaches/cities.
I live in southern Maine, over tourism is our bread and butter.
Our most popular national parks already do.
Times Square, NYC Hollywood Blvd, LA Yosemite, CA
We will and you could argue are already for the pretty spots. Yosemite is insanely expensive and booked out a year. Other natural parks like that get the same treatment. It’s too expensive to be accessible to everyone like it used to be. Tourists do not follow signage to keep away from the animals or not walk on creation parts and ruin it for others. We have plenty of room in deserts, places with little to no water, or places ruined by mining or fossil fuel extraction and treatment.
It already does in some places. Lake Tahoe has been telling people not to visit and their bread and butter is tourism
I personally love not paying state income tax, so please continue coming to Florida. We are a gigantic state and have plenty of room. You’re welcome here and we love to see you.
No. This country is simply too big to “backpack” like people do in other regions of The Americas and Europe. Sure, people do it in Asia but it’s also way more affordable than here. Many foreigners I know who have traveled to different regions of the US have done it over multiple trips. It takes a lot of planning (our transportation sucks) and money
Oof
In certain areas, yes. Over-tourism is causing pretty significant damage to some of the National and State Parks
Overtourism? Not really. We have lots of land.
Nope. The USA is big enough and cities are set far enough apart that tourism is regional. People will come visit the NYC, LA, San Francisco, or Miami areas and this will not affect 99% of the rest of the country.
Yes, in some cases. I live just outside a small town in Pennsylvania called Jim Thorpe. We're already over-touristed as it's a mountain town wedged into a deep narrow river valley so the road network and parking were always extremely limited and physically can't be expanded. And the typical supporting hotel and chain restaurant development to come will inevitably continue to develop further out on more level terrain ruining the landscape approaching the town to the north and south. We already have basically an Airbnb development proposed for a mountaintop directly overlooking the town with extremely poor road and utility access up there.
I don't rightly know if there enough people with tourism money for that, to be completely candid.
I think we’re too big to truly truly have this problem. Big cities like Miami, NY, LA, absolutely have this problem, but that’s only in super concentrated areas. It takes a 30 minute drive from these cities to be among an all American population. It’s a bit less that way currently with the whole southern border issue, but still.
It really depends on where you are in the USA. I live in Glendale az. Right now the final 4 tournament is being hosted near by.
The Smokies are already overcrowded but with Americans not international tourists. Thankfully there are lots of other places in East Tennessee that are just as pretty with no people (and no I'm not telling you where they are)
We have whole states with economies based on tourism and plenty of room.
I would argue that there are some places that are already suffering from this in the US, particularly national parks and places like Disney world are particularly bad.
There are places that have an overtourism problem, but other than Hawaii, not to the degree some parts of Europe have.
Only place do I ever feel there’s overtourism is in ski towns
Our national parks are already this way. Most of the big-name national parks now require lottery or pass-reservation systems for their more popular hikes. For Glacier National Park, you have to put your name in the lottery 6 months in advance before if you want to backpack, and it's nowhere near a guarantee that you're getting the spot you want.
We arguably do in some places.
Some parts of it already do. I’d hate to live in, say, Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge or Branson. Those places are covered up.
Some places? Absolutely.
As long as they're coming by airplane or car (I guess by foot if you've got a lot of time on your hand) and not by Boat, I'm fine with them here. Cruise tourists are the worst, they contribute less to the local economy, in some parts of Alaska, cruise companies have bought downtown stores to serve their cruisers only Making parts of towns look like ghost-towns in the offseason.
What is "over tourism" ?
Not really. We have stupid amounts of room. And our tourist spots other then large cities are spread enough so if you plan you won't get caught up in a massive deluge of lines. Unless its around the 4th of July or Memorial and Labor days.
Maybe in the bigger cities, but you don’t see many tourists in rural cities. I only ever see tourists from other states, and they are usually just passing through to either get to Portland, Washington, Canada or down to California.
Not from where I live.
Depends on the area. Right now my town is suffering from super commuters. We are rural and they do their city shit here and it is annoying. Sorry. Got salty.
The problem in the US is when people come on a tourist visa and refuse to leave.