I grew up with stories of people like Maco Polo and love of travel but my recent trips to Europe has almost repulsed and disillusioned me. Tiny European countries are being swamped by huge swath of tourists, everyone with Rick Steve’s guidebook, they all go look at exact same thing, take exact same pictures and even eat at exact same recommended restaurants. There is a lot to see and little to reflect when you are among herds of camera clicking tourists. I wonder if there are any other guidebooks people use (especially for Europe) that puts them more on path of becoming traveller and less on tourist.
> everyone with Rick Steve’s guidebook, they all go look at exact same thing [...] I wonder if there are any other guidebooks
Is this sarcasm? The existence of guidebooks, in itself, ensures that multiple people will do what the guide says. A "better" guidebook will just ruin those "better" experiences too.
In there you have the contradiction of tourism, which really extends to a lot of our modern lifestyle: everybody wants to be first and original, but also to be led safely. The two concepts are fundamentally exclusive; trying to chase them is a fool's errand. Just be yourself and experience what you want to experience, damn the guides. As a famous comedian says closing his show, "drive fast and take chances".
> Is this sarcasm? The existence of guidebooks, in itself, ensures that multiple people will do what the guide says. A "better" guidebook will just ruin those "better" experiences too.
That assumes the guidebook is the same for everyone. In today's world of smartphone apps it's not hard to imagine a "personalized" guidebook for each tourist. You could even take it a step forward and make it fully dynamic and "re-route" tourists based on site congestion - sort of like Waze for tourists.
It would still break down at scale, statistically speaking, at least for the most famous destinations (i.e. the above-mentioned European capitals). And the experience would still be sub-par: you appreciate more what you discover on your own, because your brain is reacting to your own instincts rather than being intellectually told what you should like. It's also much harder to be disappointed, because there was no guide raising your expectations.
Don't take this the wrong way but if you travelled to Europe and your main criticism is that places are swamped by huge swaths of Tourists all trying to see the same thing then unfortunately you're one of them.
Michelin guides are generally fairly comprehensive, obviously they also include the big tourist traps but they list too many places of interests to have all of them be swamped by tourists. If you follow a Michelin guide and ignore everything listed in the common "Visiting Europe 101" guides then you're probably off to a good start.
The world is a staggeringly huge place. It's filled with complexity from top to bottom. There are more wonders than could fill a library of travel books.
But it's the travel books that are the main problem, along with our extremely narrow collective obsession in a few specific experiences. Our need to meet expectations. The crowds of tourists gather in just the thinnest spider web of places. Usually you can escape them by walking a single block from the guidebook must-see.
The only way to be a traveler is to reject the fools gold the tourist industry has for sale. Traveling is risky. Time consuming. You could be embarrassed. Lost. Changed.
Seriously? You'll be killed if you don't use a guidebook? Most of the world is quite safe. For the few places that arn't, I dont think Lonely Planet is going to going to be much help unless your keep it in your breast pocket.
Don't take bad risks. Use your wits and common sense. Stay aware of your surroundings. Fear is the mind killer.
I often wait until I have a personal connection to a place, such as a friend or related hobby, before traveling. The experience becomes very removed from that of a tourist, and so much more rewarding.
Am I selfish if I put extra effort into maintaining friendships with foreign friends so I might end up visiting them?
I can relate to this. I have had some more rewarding travel experiences in Europe on short work trips, than I have in similar places as a tourist. I think its a combination of better connections with locals and a reason to be there beyond just looking at things.
I never had much interest in travel. Peers and friends are constantly nagging me I should visit awesome places. Something with a beach and a blue ocean or something. I am german and hardly anyone ever told me a story about my coutry that made me curious about germany. But I know the day I find the curiosity and patience, I will travel germany. I had little travels here in the past, but if you opt-in into those seemingly boring things there is a lot to find. But one should look and for historical stories and places, not for fancy stuff. Germany played several roles how the modern western world came to what it is today and this story is insanley deep and complex.
If you don't want to be a random tourist, then this is my hint.
One of my favourite cities in Italy is Venice, I am italian, and I have been there visiting friends several times. Tourism have ruined the city, they are there all year, residents don't have breaks...
Anyway... there are nice alternative guides that do what you are asking, and for Venice the one of "Corto Maltese" is a good example. I managed to find this guide some years ago after some research. It is a bit rare, a friend had the first edition (I think only in italian), the second one was published by Lonely Planet, I think in 2008, and it is the one I found (in french, but I am guessing also the english version exists).
It is a very nice guide, full of drawings of Hugo Pratt's character Corto Maltese and his world. The guide takes you on a number of walks through the city and tells you a lot about history, people, buildings, and it does telling you also some stories about when Pratt lived there. Most importantly it points you to nice historic restaurants/bars (baccari and taverne :)) where venisians usually go.
I used it last time there and the experience was really nice.
"One of my favourite cities in Italy is Venice, I am italian, and I have been there visiting friends several times. Tourism have ruined the city, they are there all year, residents don't have breaks..."
I understand you. But tourists are the only thing that keeps Venice a little bit afloat. It will sink sooner or later. Venice was once a former banking and trading center. They had some industry. All this is lost. They don't have the money to sustain the infrastructure anymore. Even the money from tourists won't be enough in the long run.
Very much agree, there are ways to avoid the masses with a little thought and research.
But that still doesn’t change the fact that most tourists do not and the swarms of tourists do ruin things for the locals. I live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and I basically don’t go out in my neighborhood anymore. The sidewalks are filled with tourists, so I’ve had to plan alternative (longer) routes to the subway. My favorite neighborhood restaurants I rarely go to anymore as they are filled with non-residents with waits routinely over an hour. And I’ve gotten used to drunk tourists urinating in front of my house as they come out of the bars down the block.
Ten years ago it felt like a neighborhood, even five years ago it wasn’t so bad, but now I’m considering defeat by moving and renting out this apartment on Airbnb.
My only personal thought is to use as many resources as you can to plan. A lot of places have Tripadvisor forums as well as other old school forums or other pages on the Internet where you can get deeper options than many guidebooks can provide, as well as other opinions of many other people. The biggest issue with Rick Steve is that a single opinionated guide is misinterpreted as a bible. I don't think one single guidebook suffices that well these days.
I have not traveled in Europe for a while, but in most places I have found it fairly easy to escape the crowds. Most of the crowds focus on the top spots; usually it seems like the crowds fade considerably even by walking a short distance a way.
It helps some to have some activity in mind other than "see stuff take pictures", something that fits your interest. Sure, some of these activities can also be crowded, but there is a better chance of much of the crowd being locals.
You can take a "Last Minute Trips"[0] approach and just throw a dart into a map. You'd have to work a bit harder to find out the interesting stuff about the place you're going to. You're going to miss some of the huge popular stuff. But it's going to be a nicer experience.
Somewhere like England is small enough that if you end up throwing your dart in Swindon[1] it's a short drive from a nicer place.
I'm about to launch a startup which if it works well will distribute experiences, moving people away from all getting the same recommendations for the same places because some algorithm created the recommendation. The problem with crowd sourced averages is that the curve is exponential. If there are 2 places with 4 reviews and one has a 3.5 rating and the other a 4.5 rating more people will go to the 4.5 rated place.The increase in traffic becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of validation. Bibimapp is a social place recommendation engine using the follower / following model. You can signup for early beta access here: bibimapp.com
You might want to consider that if you’re seeing them a lot you are also there and part of the problem. There are lots of places you can go and not see lots of tourists. You just have to go see things that tourists aren’t as interested in.
