AIBU to be frustrated at this trend of turning nice places into queues?

[Emori]

I've noticed this phenomenon across Europe, specifically in Italy, Spain and Greece in the past year where I've been somewhere on a day out, tourist attractions so obviously always going to be busy with lots of people taking photos etc, now there's an additional queuing etiquette which is something else. It's like there are certain points within the attraction where people get fucked off with you just walking around like a normal person and instead expect you to stand in a line to take a photograph. Even though there's no official signs to such effect. I find it really spoils my enjoyment, appreciation and concentration. Am I alone in this?

I would never photo bomb but no, I don't stand in a queue for 'the' photo at 'the' angle and 'the' spot... you can blame SM for this one. We had USA family stay and we went to Paris/Rome/London and the teen kids were like this - couldn't just stand with the Eiffel Tower behind them, had to be in a certain place at a certain time of day to get the shot that all the Instagrammers get.

Was so tedious! Ditched them quite early on as it was apparent they had no interest in actually experiencing anything just getting the photo, uploading it and moving on. No idea why their parents entertained this nonsense as they barely actually went inside anything - Notre Dame? Got the pic, didn't go in. Eiffel Tower, got the pic didn't go up it, St Pauls? Tate Modern? Colosseum? Vatican? selfie selfie selfie, didn't go in.

I dont mind standing aside while someone gets a quick picture or 2.
However if your going to try to take up public space to get your perfect Instagram shot you should be hiring out the space for your personal photo shoot

Mass tourism is a horror.

Recently Rome and Venice brought in a rule about not sitting on steps and monuments etc. People whinged, but what do they expect? These places were never meant to absorb the thousands upon thousands who now trail around them.

If I were going, I’d be pissed off to see tourists flopped down all over the Spanish steps and Piazza San Marco. My one experience of mass tourism was actually in Venice and it was awful. I was there on a work (school) trip, not by my own choice.

We all travel far too much and not always very mindfully.

Another I’ve just remembered. I regularly drive along Abbey Road and it’s always tricky to time driving over when the people who are milling around either side of the famous crossing are really intending to cross or just working up to it. I once saw someone scattering ashes on the crossing! I get that one a bit more as it is a very famous photo but it’s not easy as it’s the middle of a busy road

Dear lord, I've seen some batshit stuff on here but this takes the wedding cake!
4 hours having your photo taken of cutting into a fake cake that people are only ever going to look at once, if that because there are few things more boring that someone else's wedding photos.

Wonder if they'll regret it in years to come when they have no proper memories or pictures of their big day.

I get you OP. I have always tried to be polite for photo takers, but I hate this trend of reducing experiences to a series of photo opportunities.

If I want to walk around a gallery or museum looking at the exhibits, I will.

It sounds like you’re triggered by people taking photos so maybe don’t go to the places that people do that.

We also saw lots of IG-ers posing in ludicrous positions, using ring lights, jumping and tossing hair etc. all in an attempt to get 'natural' looking photos... one woman was doing this weird hop, skip, jump thing dressed to the nines with what appeared to be her long suffering partner taking an d re-taking pics... we laughed out loud and she looked pissed off but she was in the middle of a famous bridge so had quite the audience

Why do you think your photo taking is more important than anything else?

This drives me crazy too. I'm not a big photo taker and I'm not looking for an insta perfect shot. I just want the experience! My irritating experience recently was at an outdoor museum. There was a play area. A woman told my DD to stop playing and get down so she could photograph her kids! I told DD loudly that she didn't have to move and that climbing frames are for playing on! I also work in London and walk across millennium Bridge to get to the station. I am not stopping for everyone who wants to take a pic on that bridge!

I know. It was the most bizarre and odd thing to do!

I don't get that level of fakery, what is it a memory of?

Where I live is "touristy" so we make a point of not letting anyone know the quiet beaches etc lol

Regarding the Snowdon pic - I confess to joining the queue but not for a photo if that makes it better!! I've been to the top 3 times in the past but have never joined the queue for the very top - this time I went on my own and just wanted to touch the actual, official top of the mountain once. So I queued for about 20 minutes - some cheeky sods went up the exit route and got shouted at by a lady with a very broad Liverpudlian accent to get in the queue like everyone else

Oh, I wondered what was going on last time I walked past there!
Don't venture into London on graduation day, Westminster Bridge was rammed with graduates getting their shots with lovely backgrounds and standing in the way of everyone else.

These people are deluded.. They are living their lives as an anticipated memory.

Live in the moment, people.

I don't see why anyone should have to be apologetic for queuing for a photo there.
It's entirely different from blocking a busy pavement or going to an art gallery and just taking selfies in front of the art.
I always went hill climbing (until I became disabled) and we always took a photo at the top. Even in my childhood (and that was long before digital cameras existed)

I seriously think it's an addiction. I went with some friends to the big Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam, and every painting was mobbed with people taking photos. The really mad bit is that the museum had set up an exhibition website with high-res, professional photos of every painting, which were free to download. So your crappy phone snaps weren't even necessary to remember the paintings.

The problem is that so many people seem to think they're David Bailey or whoever and take forever to take their photo when in reality they're just using their phone. I recall being in some water gardens in China and one woman was expecting the entire area to be cleared for her snap, she was very angry when not everyone scuttled away.

I'm going to avoid most destinations that are known to be popular with instagrammers. None of them care about seeing these places, just in getting their photos. But the videographers are the worst.

I saw a Russian influencer post online about her frustration with people's "selfishness". She was trying to make "an aesthetic video" at an underground train station (probably in London) which consisted of her striking poses in front of a moving train, then walking off. She had to do many takes because people kept on walking into shot. Heaven forbid that people cared more about getting to and from work than about her "aesthetic video".

YANBU OP. I first noticed this when I went to Versailles in Paris. It was a very cold day and people were queuing up to take their coats off, artfully arrange their hats and scarves, pose in front of a nice view along an avenue down to the fountains, take several shots of each other and selfies before putting their coats back on.

I often go to a spa village in the Spanish mountains and I was when I was told to wait walking through a little square, because there was a queue of people waiting to take pictures in front of the fountain, which had appeared on a social media list of '10 most beautiful plazas in Spain' or other nonsense.

These people are making a real nuisance of themselves when capturing these images due to illegal parking, litter and even BBQs causing fires. Plus causing a danger to themselves and mountain rescue when they get into trouble in the mountains without sufficient experience and equipment.

But the worst was a couple who turned up on a beach in Mallorca with a preschooler, who they ignored for a full 10-15 minutes while she posed and directed him to take photos of her on the beach. The child wandered off and they were oblivious and continued to ignore her when she tried to show them bits of sea glass she'd collected. Depressing.

I think it’s sad that people can’t just use their senses to enjoy the moment. Why do some people have to experience everything through a camera lens?

You are not unreasonable at all! I am sick of it, sick of how busy everything has become in general to be honest. I tell my children how 'back in the day' you could decide to go to Paris, rock up at the Louvre, and just walk in. No queue, no security line, no lockers, no stress. Not that long ago at all! Now everything is a queue including photo taking. I have no solution. I understand it's great that now everyone can travel everywhere, I really do. Maybe the solution would be: no photo taking!? Just walk around and enjoy ... (and that may result in some of those masses of people not wanting to visits these sights at all - an added benefit!!)

I thought the photography thing had gone beyond a joke back in 2022 when we visited Lake Como and saw ridiculous posers with accessories at every beautiful place in the towns around the lake. It’s got worse in the intervening years.

We visited our local RHS garden for the Walkies evening where you can bring dogs recently and were aghast to see a couple with a chihuahua in a frilly pram laden with outfits and accessories. They stopped every few yards to change the poor dog into another outfit and the woman was stepping into the flowerbeds and held the dog up to her face in the middle of the plants to pose for pictures. They kept stopping abruptly and abandoning the pram in the middle of the path getting in everyone’s way. We headed off to get away from them, the last I saw the poor dog was being told off for snapping at her 😔

I used to cross London Bridge as part of my commute, and to be fair, half way across gives a lovely view of Tower Bridge. But honestly, the number of people who would stand at the balustrade for a photo while their companion stood with a camera on the other side of the pavement, in rush hour, was bananas. This was 20+ years ago, I shudder to think how much worse it’s all got since.

Oh, and do not get me started on the absolute shitbags posing and smiling for photos in Dachau, including parts that I’m not going to mention here. Truly, nothing was off limits to these people, the disrespect was upsetting.

SM has a lot to answer for.

This is probably going to sound elitest but honestly travel was so much better when only people who could afford it travelled or those who were prepared to lug a back pack around Europe could see things that the lazy couldn’t be bothered to.

Hyper cheap tourism and social media has pretty much ruined it all.