A trip properly planned after a review of cheap traveloptions, including cheapairplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, and cheap vacation packages, canend up being less than ideal when you arrive at a destination trying to dealwith a horde of visitors that overpower the limited available touristfacilities.
Over tourism is emerging as a serious problem in manyvisitor meccas where local officials are trying to figure out how to eitheraccommodate larger crowds or limit the number of visitors.
Over tourism plagues a variety of tourist destinations:
Historiccities including Barcelona, Florence, London, Paris, Rome, and Venice as wellas Waikiki during peak visitor months tend to be very crowded.
Smallcities and towns and isolated attractions with limited infrastructure tend toget over run, ranging from Carmel to Oxford to Haleiwa to Stonehenge.
Smallcity cruise ports, where a shipload of 5,000 visitors can completely clog acommunity such as Skagway and Santorini.
Naturalresource areas with limited car capacity, including Yosemite and Great SmokyMountains.
Many of these destinations have identified over tourism asa major problem and are looking into ways to cope. Italian cities are considering chargingaccess fees for entry. Small cruiseports are looking at seasonal limitations on the number of cruise shipvisits. Some U.S. National Parks areconsidering a combination of higher entry fees, requiring advancedreservations, prohibiting private cars, coupled with external parking andshuttle buses.
Avoiding popular visitor areas completely is not a viableapproach for most travelers given that these destinations are popular for areason. There are no substitutes toFlorence, Venice, Santorini, and Carmel, all of which are unique.
The following are ways you can best minimize being exposedto tourist destinations dealing with too many people:
Doyour best to do is avoid visiting popular destinations during their busiesttimes. Steer clear of peak summervacation times, in most places as well as Christmas-New Years Eve weeks.
Insteadof driving to heavily trafficked tourist destinations, use publictransportation where available.
Whenvisiting attractions that draw large crowds, stay overnight locally and visitbefore the day crowds arrive or after their leave.
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