Does your hometown get insane and awful in summer?

[CurdinHenry]

Mine does and the horror is in full swing. Everyone out on the streets plus thousands of tourists and other visitors and for some reason everyone gets ruder and more stupid every year. You can't walk down the main street without being knocked about like a pinball. Step ASIDE OMG I am not capable of evaporating to let you walk directly through me.

I wish this had died for good with COVID times.

Village in Yorkshire.
In the school hoilidays and weekends, the traffic is insane. But its all headed fo the tourust attraction, rather than the village itself. But the car park queue can stretch a mile at peak time... and theres no alternative for parts of it.

(And the planning geniuses want to build more houses right next door to the attraction...)

I live in Brighton so yes!
Although I still don't think it's as busy as before Covid.

Maybe, but its scraping the barrel. Our town is generally known as one of the worst locations in Cornwall.....

Edinburgh too. And yes it’s hell most of the time to walk through town. But tourists can be cute though.

Im really baffled by the posing though. I walk home past the station / Princes Street Gardens and there’s an incredible number of tourists (mainly Chinese I think) who have a range of props with them (hats, different handbags, sunglasses etc) and they take endless posed pictures trying out different accessories between takes. What’s that all about? It’s like their own amateur fashion shoot. And no I don’t bust a gut to avoid getting in the background!

I've noticed a real difference in the type of tourists visiting my town over the last few years. Fewer language schools since brexit. But we have been discovered by tik tok/ insta people.

We have a very pretty park (think historic buildings, stunning flower beds, lovely clear river gently flowing with swans floating about, etc). And people now come there in hoards to take endless photos of themselves posing in floaty dresses.

Last week dd and I sat by the little cafe in the park and just people watched, because watching the girls endlessly posing whilst their boyfriends/family take hundreds of photos is surprisingly entertaining.

Nope. I live in a suburb of London with a fantastic community but nothing, literally nothing to attract visitors. It's great!

Hmmm.
I live in Cornwall.
So…..yeah.

Hooters on Scooters!

Not that many of them round this bit of London but it’s party central from May-Oct cos huge park and good clubs.

Worst summer eruption: every bike runs red lights, terrifying for pedestrians.

Three cyclists got killed last year by lorries which upset the police cos riders, clothed or not, ignore warnings.

All year round, but much more irritating in the hot weather. People with no self awareness and the dogs on extendable leads, really take the pee

This endless posing for ridiculous pictures is a trend everywhere now unfortunately - we do a lot of city breaks and the insta poseurs are an endless source of entertainment (and sometimes irritation!). We equally don’t avoid getting in their photos as half the time they’re monopolising the viewing areas that everyone has come to enjoy 🙄.

I'm from London originally, horrendous in the summer, especially on the tube. I reckon the Piccadilly was the worst, too many tourist spots like Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, green Park (for the Palace) Knightsbridge ( (for Harrods) South Ken (museums) plus Russell Square (hotels) and Kings X and Holborn for interchanges. Durring heatwaves and rush hours it was horrendous.

I live in small town Somerset now....reasonably popular. It's close to Bath which is obviously full of tourists and we get some day and weekend visitors. We have a successful indie market and a venue often used as a warm up for Glastonbury (Foo Fighters,Paul McCartney, Kate Nash, Gary Numan have all played there) and a Soho House venue often used by celebrities especially as a wedding venue. But it's much more manageable.

Our village can get very busy .
But tourism = income = investment so I don't mind at all.

Depends what you mean by ‘home town’…where I’ve lived for the past 30 years in Lancashire should be fine, but where I grew up is definitely going to be insane this summer - Clacton!😂

Not really, tourism is a only a small fraction of London’s economy

Not too bad, but locals have to shop earlier in the week. You can’t find a box of eggs or a loaf after 6pm on Friday when all the mobile-homers stock up. Also why why why does 3 generations of family need to wander around the supermarket together arguing over cereal?

I think if you are lucky enough to live in a place that others want to holiday in, you can't really complain. Or move to somewhere shit maybe?

Coastal, so inundated in summer. I avoid going into town - no parking, no room on narrow pavements, too noisy.

But complaining about toirists is one of the joys of living in a touristy place.

Exactly! I live in a shit hole, no tourists want to come here 😁. People have the choice to come and live in shit holes like this if they want to avoid tourists!

Exactly this, even on a bleak mid January Monday afternoon, it’s absolutely rammed!

In Edinburgh, the last little hidden gems are discovered and it’s almost impossible to find somewhere quiet all year round. And it’s The Festival next month which is amazing but boy, does it get crazy!

When you can't get home after work because the regular bus service is swamped with tourists and flies past every stop, meaning you stand waiting for upwards of an hour to when it's a 15 minute service, when the bus does finally stop it's akin to a fistfight to actually get onboard, then the traffic is nose-to-tail because the tourist hotspot is 2 mins off the main route and this means what should be an hour commute turns into a 2 to 3 hour trek, and you are trying to deal with this 5 times a week for the entire month of August, then yes, you have every right to complain.

This is on top of the aforementioned nuisance of just trying to walk streets perpetually blocked by tourists crawling along in groups of anywhere from 2 or 3 to 20, stopping constantly and milling around, blocking access to doorways, crossings, bus stops etc.

Edinburgh has always had tourism, visibly so, but 20 years back it did not interfere with the life of the locals just trying to go about their daily business. When you actually live here, commute, and have to set foot in the city centre, then you very quickly realise why there have been campaigns concerning "over-tourism" in cities like Barcelona and Berlin, because Edinburgh is now beset by the exact same problems which has made life a misery for locals in those cities, namely hyper-inflation re cost of accommodation and socialising, and the chaos caused by streets and public transport being completely overwhelmed with non-residents.

Tourism should, on paper at least, be a great thing because of the money it brings into the local economy, however, when the town or city in question gets to the stage where it's run entirely for the benefit of tourists and to the detriment of locals then there are questions to be asked about how you got to that point. Since Brexit especially, Edinburgh has become akin to some sort of bizarre Tartan/Harry Potter theme park, Disneyland North, and it has totally ruined the city I used to love. It's always been a fascinating place, but it always still felt distinctly Scottish and for Scottish people despite the fact it always had visitors coming and going. Nowadays, it's like living in a totally ridiculous glorified holiday camp.

London. So full its no fun. I think a tourist tax is needed.

There is a part of the city that still feels like Edinburgh did back in the 90s, and it has it's share of mercifully tourist-free delights, but give it time.

Yep Bath - totally mental, full of language schools, tourists, day trippers on overlays at Heathrow , and at the moment totally dug up - everywhere!!