Since my recent surgery a few weeks ago, the doctor only allows me to walk, so I walk. But the tricky part is that walking in the lion’s den of mass tourism isn’t so easy. You have to be early, very early to avoid the crowds. As my walking radius and general state improved a little bit, I have seen a lot – too much if you ask me – of tourist behaviour that makes me question my own frequent travel habits. Is it still okay to travel to popular destinations? I honestly don’t know. Already visiting Dubrovnik this summer – a destination my family has been holidaying in since the 1950s – was unpleasant this year. Hundreds of tourists rolling through the ancient streets, buying trinkets made in China and seeing nothing beyond a façade featured in Game of Thrones.
I wondered whether any locals are actually still living there or whether all apartments have been snatched up and converted into holiday apartments. Most restaurants have unfortunately already downgraded to selling pizza and burgers only – with pictures of course – and waiters addressing every customer in English by default.
I wonder whether it is normal to order a full English breakfast outside of the UK or what goes through someone’s mind when they decide to lay their baby on the table in a restaurant at lunch time. Luckily, I left before finding out what the purpose of that was (besides filming a TikTok) because the other scenarios I could come up with were too unpleasant to imagine. And what’s up with Aperol at 10 a.m. or shady business deals done on a bistro table? Let me tell you, if your business partner or estate agent asks you to sign papers in a café, you should run, not sign.
Another ‘favourite’ of mine are those who feel so much at home, they forget they are in a foreign country. Since when is it okay to address people in your own language when abroad? No, Mallorca is not a part of Germany and ‘Danke’ isn’t Spanish, just in case anyone was still in doubt.
Not only do the masses of people make it unpleasant to walk around after 12 a.m. (with a COVID-style surgical mask of course because people seem to find it okay to cough into a stranger’s face on the street) but they kill any sort of uniqueness of the places they go. In quite a few cases, It also does not seem that they were looking for it in the first place. Thrown out of a tour bus or only following the crowds of others on the main street, they do not look left or right, and I wonder what it is they see apart from the screen of their mobile phones and the same high street shops they have at home.
But if you care to find the things you don’t have where you live, you got to get up early. Then, you will be able to admire the beauty of the architecture and soak up a bit of the original charm of where you are. You’ll see people going to work, stopping for a coffee; you’ll see the waitress usher in and greet the regular, who has trouble moving about with his simmer frame, waiting for his friends to take a morning coffee and catch up. You’ll catch a smile and see beyond the masses of rowdy, noisy tourists buying counterfeit bags around the main tourist attraction sites supporting all sorts of illegal activity and unpleasant vibes with their impulse buys without the glimpse of reflection about their significant contribution to this dark economy.
It makes more and more sense to me that many popular tourist destinations are photographed at the crack of dawn or even at night: Venice, for example. Just because there is no more Venice to see once the hoards descend from the cruise ships and flood the tiny streets of Europe’s most popular destinations. Maybe I have too much time on my hands now that my main task in life is to go on recovery walks. Maybe. But what I see makes me think about my own tourist behaviour and whether less isn’t more.
The comfy traveller's diaries 