Throngs of tourists are overwhelming the world’s most popular destinations. Here’s how to rethink the way you travel — and an alternative bucket list to get you started.
Entry fees and increased tourist taxes in travel hot spots like Venice, Bali, and New Zealand. Temporary stoplights installed to deter selfies in crowded pedestrian zones in Rome and Florence. Protests against tourist overcrowding in Barcelona and Mallorca. Even a temporary barrier erected in a Japanese town to deter tourists from thronging the area to snap photos of Mount Fuji at a site popularized by social media.
When it comes to headlines about tourism over the past year, the message has rung out crystal clear from the people living in some of the world’s most desirable travel locations: Enough is enough.
And while the lament that travelers are loving to death some of our favorite destinations on the planet appears to be reaching fever pitch of late, the trend’s origins predate the COVID-19 pandemic. “There was this hand-wringing and hysteria during the pandemic,” explains Paula Vlamings, chief impact officer of the nonprofit Tourism Cares. “And understandably, because it shut down many, many livelihoods — and not just in the industry. Many communities were really suffering from the lack of tourism. “But really, overtourism was already a problem in 2017, 2018, and 2019. You were seeing the same headlines back then.”
With tourism not only rebounding to but exceeding 2019 levels — according to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, summer air travel in the United States alone reached record heights in 2024 — the trend toward overtourism is a worrying one, admits Vlamings. It leaves conscientious travelers wondering not merely how best to see the world, but whether they should venture out at all.
In Venice, officials added day-tripper entry fees and installed stoplights to discourage selfies and control pedestrian flow.
Pavliha/Getty Images
With so many livelihoods dependent on global tourism, the answer is not to stop exploring the world. Rotary members in particular know the power of the bonds forged when people from different cultures meet and exchange ideas, hopes, and dreams. Rather than stopping travel altogether, it’s time to rethink the nuts and bolts of travel — to consider, for instance, new ways to travel to new places, perhaps with an ecotourism or voluntourism slant, and always with the idea of meeting locals where they live in a way that benefits them as much as possible.
A symbiotic relationship
As a start, Tourism Cares strives to foster a more symbiotic relationship between travelers and the local communities and environments upon which the tourism industry is dependent, Vlamings says. The organization debuted a Meaningful Travel Map in 2018 that’s grown to spotlight more than 300 “impact partners” across some two dozen countries, tour operators and other tourist-serving businesses and organizations that prioritize social and environmental sustainability.
Though the map is primarily meant as a business-to-business tool to help tour operators integrate more meaningful experiences into their itineraries in destinations around the world, it is also a useful resource for travelers hoping to find inspiration for their own intentional, independent trips. Pinpointed on the map is everything from a beachfront rental apartment on Mexico’s Pacific Coast operated by a local turtle rescue and conservation center to marine expeditions led by guides from the Indigenous Haida group in the remote Haida Gwaii archipelago off British Columbia to conservation-themed scuba dives, local cooking lessons, and multiweek volunteer opportunities in Malaysia’s Perhentian Islands.
As you do your own research, Vlamings encourages conscientious travelers to look for companies with B Corporation certification, a reliable gauge of sustainable choices in business. “Those are the companies that have been through a pretty rigorous vetting and certification process,” Vlamings says, referring to social and environmental performance, transparency, and legal accountability. “It’s a very interesting and growing network of companies around the world.”
Thinking outside of the box when planning your travels is one way to ensure you are benefiting the places you visit rather than potentially harming them. In addition, the care with which you choose your destinations should also be applied to any tour operators with whom you book your travel and excursions. “It’s more important than ever to go beyond the surface of a destination and seek off-the-beaten-path, authentic experiences,” says Matt Berna, president of the Americas for the small-group adventure travel company Intrepid Travel.
When planning a trip, Berna urges people to carefully consider what kind of experience they are truly looking for, whether that’s a cultural experience, an outdoor adventure, or something else.
Next, dive deep into your research. “There are so many amazing alternative destinations that will give you a fresh take on the world if you’re willing to go beyond the classic bucket list attractions,” Berna says.
Traveling during the shoulder season — that is, the time between a destination’s peak period and its offseason — can be a win-win for everyone. Visitors will encounter fewer crowds and have more opportunities to connect with locals, while the people who live there have a chance to extend their earning opportunities.
In Spain, visitors to Barcelona this summer were greeted by protesters, some of them wielding squirt guns.
ZUMA Press Inc./Alamy
“You will often luck out with the same or even better weather [in shoulder season] than that peak travel time,” says Abbie Synan, a freelance travel writer and blogger who also works as an adviser with the travel agency Fora Travel. If you are limited to traveling during high season, consider alternative destinations away from the crowds. That will spread the wealth from tourism dollars and likely provide a more enjoyable vacation experience.
“Amalfi in the summer can bring in hordes of beachgoers,” says Synan. “Stay within Italy but move to another beach region like Puglia, which offers small towns and scenic seaside drives.”
Going ‘Elsewhere’
You can go a step further, too, once you have decided on a destination. Contact travel professionals in the country you’re visiting instead of consulting a travel adviser in your home country for advice. Many mass travel advisers and tour operators sell the same itineraries over and over, says Alexis Bowen, the CEO and co-founder of Elsewhere, which brands itself as a “direct-to-local” travel company that taps on-the-ground experts to craft bespoke vacation itineraries.
Joel Krueger, 55, from the United Kingdom, used the services of Elsewhere this past summer when planning a vacation to Vietnam with his wife and their 19-year-old son. “We’ve traveled in many different places including several heavily touristed locations” — like Florence and Venice — “that have been over-touristed,” Krueger says.
This time around, the family was looking for a more authentic and meaningful way to travel. When Krueger reached out to Elsewhere (which was acquired by the travel guidebook company Lonely Planet in 2022), he was put in touch with a local expert in Vietnam. They discussed places Krueger had visited on prior trips to Vietnam and what the family would ideally like to see and do during their upcoming exploration. “He listened and put together a nice itinerary in places that we hadn’t visited and which he thought would give us a good feel for the country,” Krueger says.
Among the highlights were a hike in Pù Luông Nature Reserve and a cooking class and dinner at the home of a family in Hanoi. “The cooking instructor and mother to the young family took us on a tour of the community vegetable and fruit garden where they raised produce for sale locally and to Hanoi restaurants and markets,” Krueger says. “We met some of her neighbors and got a real sense of the community and their daily life. We wouldn’t have been able to do that in any other way other than through someone who could make that local connection.”
Follow the Kruegers’ lead and get off the beaten path.
This story originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.
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