Pros and Cons of living in a popular holiday location

[itmsylifeitsnowornever]

We are considering re-locating to a seaside town (undecided exactly where yet but around Devon and Cornwall).

If you live in a popular holiday location, what are the pros and cons?

Just as you’d imagine, not being able to park or get a table in a restaurant in summer, and an almost empty town in winter

I love the winter here (algarve) but it’s too quiet for some people

Very small scale touristy place...
Having to buy our bloody permit to park on our own St....

I lived in one for 5 years and hated it. You'd be surprised at how much crime/drugs there are in towns like that, as most work is seasonal so unemployment is high.

I'm not in a seaside location, but it's a popular tourist destination so I think a lot of the issues are the same.

One enormous pro is living somewhere that people travel to from all over the place, and being in a beautiful part of the world.

Cons include:

Inflated prices - housing is extremely expensive, lots ofAirBnBs (a friend has enormous problems with this; we fortunately don't).

In peak season: lots of people around who have no local reputation to uphold. They're far away from everyone they know and they don't care about chucking rubbish on the street, drinking too much, yelling and screaming late at night [obviously not everyone does this, I mean I don't behave like that when on holiday, but enough people do it that it's really noticeable].

Limited range of shops in some places where every second shop caters to tourists, so it can be hard to find things like a decent sit-down meal, or a quality butcher (for example; I'm veggie anyway). Lots of shops flogging tat.

Crowds/traffic/general overcrowding in peak season - enough to make me not want to go out at times because it's like tackling Oxford Street on Christmas Eve.

That said, none of those things would ever make me leave. Again, a major pro is living somewhere that I really love, and that I'm very proud to call home.

Having to buy our bloody permit to park on our own St

Oh this too, when my in-laws come over they have to either park miles away and get public transport, or pay $$$$$.

It's crap. Everything closes in off season and during the summer months you cannot go anywhere or do anythibg easily as it's all packed with tourists. Even the simplest of things like finding a parking space is a nightmare.

Relatives turning up on the doorstep unannounced in summer expecting tea and cake after deciding to have a nice little ride out to the seaside. Which would be fine if they ever bothered visiting in winter. (Bitter, moi?)

My village isn't a holiday location as such, but we get a lot of day visitors from the local towns, especially during the summer, as we're on the seaside.

And it's shit.

Visitors don't give a shit. They piss in your window boxes (yes, it's happened, but it was a child), throw litter everywhere, leave their dog shit on the pavement and beach, park their cars all over the place, including on the blind corners our 500 year old village specialises in, they destroy our peace with their stupid ghettoblasters (who the fuck goes to the seaside to play fucking radio one?) and generally are a pain in the arse for every single person who lives around here. We all hate them, except the pubs, shops and cafes, who love the increased footfall but do not a thing about clearing up after their customers. I've had folks leaning in against my windows to look inside my house, ffs.

Don't move to a touristy area. It. Is. Shit.

Lovely seaside/university town.

Pros: Great shops, bars and restaurants.
Able to access the uni facilities and courses.
Beautiful beaches and surrounding countryside

Cons: Very busy in the spring/summer months.
Hard to get parked sometimes. I tend to go into town early before the tourists are out and about.
Hard to get restaurant bookings on a whim.

I love it though and the pros outweigh the cons hugely.

A journey that takes 10 minutes during off season can take over an hour in the summer.

Drugs, particularly county lines although I think this affects most places now but with a high turn over of people it's a big problem.

Job shortage out of season, the popular seaside town I live near isn't naice like Devon or Cornwall but a lot of people are out of work for a large part of the year which leads to social problems. Large increase in Homeless people that might be everywhere due to politics though.

Bonus is, the actual town I live in is mostly unknown to tourists and has a lovely beach.

Waves at Costa!
Also on the Algarve, depending on the size of the location you buy in, the worse case scenario is fuck all open when you can get near it and when it is open, nowhere to park and having to remember to book in advance.
Visit in the lowest and highest season before buying.
It’s not like that where we are, but we avoid certain places in high season and chill at home more or head inland.

If you will be commuting to work or school drop offs, I’d check what the journey time is in high season as that could be a ball ache.

Not first hand experience admittedly, but I have several immediate family members who all live in a very touristy town in the south west. Things that they find annoying are lack of parking spaces and extortionate parking charges in the town centre, roads are absolutely rammed in the summer and the have real problems doing their weekly shop because people empty the supermarkets stocking up their caravans.

I'd love to know where you all are.

Posted too soon...
Another problem was when my then teenage cousin developed a bit of a gambling problem because all there was for the local kids to do was hang round the arcades on the sea front.

I don't live there, but did my degree in the south west. The traffic in the summer was unreal. Everywhere, not just the main roads.

Don't live there but when we visited a coastal resort off season last year during the week it was lovely but at the weekend it felt like the whole world has arrived. Literally took an hour to drive 3/4 miles.

People taking weird angled pictures of their GFs for Instagram
People taking pictures of your house. All the time.
People trying to come into your house, your garden, asking for cups of tea/scones
People parking on your drive ("well it's only for a bit. You weren't here")
People stopping dead in front of you. All the time.
Grrr.

Cons- people!!

Once watched a family park in the permit zone - empty numerous dc and buckets /spades onto The Green. Changed the baby and left the nappy in the roadside..
Therefore I didn't tell them they were most likely to get a ticket!!
Grim bastards.

Grew up on the North Devon cost.

Parking was always a nightmare. Not terrible if you have a drive or parking space but hardly any of the houses did in the town. The only ones I can think of that did were geust houses or b and bs. Some of the houses thst were built later had alicated parking in half of the car park in the centre of town but were very often taken by tourists in season. The town council took the attitude that tourists were needed so never did much about it. But were happy for parents who had to drive their children into school to be ticketed at pick up and drop off if they didn't pay for a half days parking in the car park, only place you could park, next to the school. My dad got very stressed by parking. He would often refuse to take the car out and insist we cancel plans unless essential in season if he had managed to get a parking space. I really don't blame him. Often it would be impossible to get a parking space on road or in one the towns 4 car parks. Or in the town at the bottom of the hill which had 2 massive carparks and seafront parking. There just physical wasn't enough space for all the vehicles that wanted to park. No residents parking either as we need the tourist trade...

Cost of car parking can be madness. The traffic warden that would turn a blind eye to parents running in to collect their children was always moved on as soon as the season started.

The added travel time in season journeys could often be trebled or more. Caravans being towed dangerously. Beauty spots where tourist through nothing of completely blocking the road to take pictures.

Half day closing at the chemist could mean needing the travel an hour to the next pharmacy if you were unlucky enough to get poorly that day.

Things being ovverpirced in the shops, although be around long enough and you might get given the locals discount. Petrol costing much more. Shops could sometimes be cleared out of essentials by a coach party.

Everything closing down in the off season. Holiday homes making large areas into ghost towns and making it impossible for locals to be able to afford to buy. The town at the bottom of the hill might have well been uninhabited in the winter.

My sister and I always had summer jobs from as soon as we were old enough to work. But no long term employment prospects and as you got older, and more expensive to employ, jobs would be given to younger people.

Some places are worse than others. The very very beautiful are often souless communities now, so to live in have stronger pros and cons.

Where I am is just beautiful (but not very very). A community still exists. So i try snd remember that without tourists we would all be worse off, then the cons are acceptable. Just make sure you buy a housr with parking and, if you are going to have a great view, its not a million steps to access it!

It's fine. Tourists are the reason we have nice beaches and shops and restaurants in the first place.

Traffic is busy on certain weeks/times but no worse than congestion in towns and cities.

You get to meet nice people from all over the world who are envious that you are living in their holiday destination.

Sometimes you get to see celebs on holiday.

There are festivals and events.

And it's peaceful when they all bugger off home again.

I wouldn't change it.

I've lived in lots of touristy areas. In a popular beach area at the moment. I adore it in may and June when the flowers are all out, the warm weather starts and we can go for an evening swim after work and school. It's also lovely in September.

August is a write off and if you need to go out for anything it needs to be first or last thing or you sit in traffic. It generally rains throughout august. We try and go away then if we can.

Winters are cold, wet and drab.

Shops tend to be low end tourist tat, high end tourist tat and some basic high street fare. I miss access to culture - we don't get the big gigs or productions anywhere near and it's a trek to the nearest major airport.

I have lived in two very different seaside towns.

One was proper old school donkey rides on the beach stuff. It wasn’t so bad. I lived one street from the seafront and I liked it. Parking was a pain but I didn’t need to drive anywhere as I walked to work. I loved being able to go down the road and feel like I was on holiday.

The other was more of a party seaside town. That was a pain. Some days I couldn’t even walk home for the amount of people. Also you’d have to tiptoe through the sick and kebabs in the morning.

Small town on Cornish coast. Pros -being able to enjoy the beach all year round, taking the children down after school in June/July or at weekends. Easy access to lots of other beaches/coastal walks etc.
Cons, house prices, traffic, queues in local co-op,although the worst of it is just for the 6 weeks of the school holidays. To be honest the traffic isn't really an issue for me as I go to work before any holidaymakers are up and about, you just can't get anywhere on Saturdays when its changeover day. Oh and if you go out of Cornwall for a bank holiday weekend you're going in the opposite direction to everyone else so you don't get stuck on the M5
The town I live in has a smallish permanent population (though its growing) but because the town is so busy in the summer there are more shops/facilities than a non tourist town of its size could support. Another con is being a long way from anywhere else, moved here from the Midlands so lots of long journeys to see friends or family.

Not coastal, but have lived in 3 popular tourist destinations.

• The parking - no spaces, very expensive even to go to supermarket. Chasing tourists away from our private space. No where to put visitors. Having to walk 20 minutes with baby/shopping because that's the closest you can park to house
• The traffic, even worse at peak seasons like summer, Christmas market etc
• Tourists taking photos through dining room window as I sit eating breakfast in my pyjamas (previous flat was in a grade 1 building and listed as a destination in tour guides)
• Tour buses go past the window and everyone can see in even though the lower half shutters are closed
• Having to give directions every time I leave the house in the summer (must have a friendly face)
• Cost of housing
• AirBnB party housing on our road, yay.
• Difficulty of moving down pedestrianised streets due to sheer volume of people
• Having to change usual restaurant/local pub etc in the peak season, because it's packed full of tourists
• Lots of fireworks
• People want to stay at your house (good and bad)
• Higher house prices

On the other hand, culture, incredible views, beautiful buildings and surroundings. It's a privilege but it does have some big downsides.