Tourists 24/7 365 days a year..

[IsawwhatIsaw]

I have lived in a tourist town for several decades.
And we always had tourists but it felt manageable with a quieter time during the winter.
But now there is no quiet time at all, and I actively avoid the centre as so many coach loads of people arrive daily . It’s so busy it feels oppressive.
So it feels like there is no let up at all. I spoke to a friend in Edinburgh who had a similar story - she is now looking to move out.
Just wondering if other cities experience this?
we are wondering about moving elsewhere, but like where we live.
Is it unreasonable to resent how our City has changed?

I live in a ‘trendy’ SE seaside town. We are very busy April - September, busyish the rest of the year and completely tumbleweed dead in January and February. It’s busiest right now but I tend to adjust my errands and outings to off peak times to avoid crowds. If I have to go out when it’s busy I know all the shortcuts and sneaky parking spots! I popped my kids out at 10am to their summer clubs and it was really quiet, but my guess is it’ll be a lot busier at pickup later.

I don't really mind the busy times, most of our friends and neighbours do what we do and head to the beach in the morning or at teatime, if you go then you’ll see lots of local families with our kids and their boogie boards.

I actually find Jan/Feb hardest. It’s depressing to walk down the street and nothing is open with the freezing wind howling off the harbour.

But I lived in London for fifteen years and every day here is still preferable to all my days there,

Tourists bring money. Be grateful. Said as someone who lives in London so is constantly surrounded by tourists.

If you want to see what your town would look like without tourists, visit a little mining town in the depths of the Welsh valleys where there are no buses, no shops, no investment in parks, streets or infrastructure, no jobs, no services. It’s dire and young people leave.

When we lived in Notting Hill, there were Instagram and Tik Tok people outside the window probably 80% of the time. I used to just wave and make sure I had clothes on. My cats were in so many videos they were semi-famous (according to DD). They quite enjoyed the attention actually!

I'm sure it's the same for people in the Cotswolds. The houses are so pretty, people want to look through the windows.

We are all tourists somewhere, so just go with it.

Similar here. Great for part time jobs, jobs for students etc but annoying when they park terribly, block driveways etc but the good over rules the bad. Would be worse if totally shut down over winter.

I sympathise to an extent about the increase in the number of tourists all year round in some places.
However I live in a large town which is not attractive to tourists. The centre has hardly any shops, facilities such as parks are overgrown and neglected and places of interest closed down or threatened with closure because of lack of funds. the place looks scruffy and the centre has hardly any shoppers.
Be grateful for the money that tourists bring.

I live nearby and you’re not wrong. I don’t have an issue with tourists (or students) as they prop up the local economy. It’s when they roam in large groups and don’t seem to notice the world beyond the end of their own nose. They take up all available space on pavements etc and act completely entitled. As you say, they just get chucked off the bus with no supervision and left to roam. I’ve been shoved out of the way by more than one group when walking with my mobility aid.

As PP have mentioned, shops start to cater for this audience and not the locals. Cambridge is terrible for shopping anyway but we really don’t need that many Harry Potter themed gift shops. Especially not when it was filmed in Oxford!

Move to Wigan to remind yourself that there are worse things that can happen to a town centre than too many tourists in an economically successful location? Or just move somewhere generally ugly that nobody wants to visit?

I lived in a tourist town for a few years and yes, it was wearing. But everywhere else I have lived, the town centres have become run down and depressing, full of vape shops and down-and-outs smoking weed. It's hard to win.

I can only think, if you can afford it and circumstances permit, live somewhere affluent but not touristy.

There is a corner in Cambridge city centre, and there is a display in a window of a big shiny gold pendulum thing with an insect on top, showing my ignorance now because I really should know what it is. 🤫 Anyway, the tourists love it, taking photos. They walk backwards into the road, dozens of them, whilst traffic is trying to get through. Crazy.

It's the Corpus Christi clock. Looked it up. Every day's a school day.

Overtourism a global problem and I'm not sure what anyone can do about it, unless destinations start introducing controls on numbers or something. And unless each of us never goes anywhere, we are all part of the problem too.

My hometown is very historic but by the late 90s, many of the old buildings were being demolished to make way for "modern" shopping malls etc, the core historic area was saved in the nick of time by gaining UNESCO World Heritage status. This was great of course, but it has culminated in massive loud crowds (cruise ship-loads), queues of Instafluencers clogging up every pavement and alley, tons of AirBnBs, crappy tourist-trap overpriced food stalls taking over where locals used to eat, locals being priced out of living there, very unsympathetic overdevelopment in the surrounding areas by developers looking to cash in on the halo effect...

On the other side, recently we were on holiday in another country that DH had been for work before some years ago. DH was telling us about a particularly interesting historic area of the city, said "it's very peaceful and atmospheric" - well, it wasn't and we couldn't walk anywhere without being in some Instafluencer's shot, the local residents had to have volunteers walking around with signs in multiple languages asking people to keep the noise down. But of course, we were also part of the problem!

Can’t reply to everyone individually….
But of course I knew it was a tourist city when I moved here. Back then I liked to see people come and visit.
I used to welcome tourists, give directions, occasionally - if they wanted to- recommend places to go.
But we have over tourism now. The place has changed , it’s unpleasant and people don’t seem to have respect - I’ve been pushed into the road recently by a big group.
too many coaches, day trippers not spending much .
i wish we could reduce tourism numbers.

You moved to a desirable area and now resent other people who want to see the city where you were once a visitor.

Basically the whole country i live in is like this, as winters get warmer peak season is extending april to november then another rush for xmas/ny and its intolerable. Can’t move around anywhere.

Then we get the joy of everyone telling us to suck it up because tourists are the only thing holding the economy together, which is really comforting as we’re missing three buses in a row to work and all our affordable housing is air bnb

YANBU to leave if you no longer like it.

But I'd suggest visiting somewhere like Blackpool which has lost nearly all it's tourist economy and see whether you'd wish that on your area.

"Add that to the students (a significant proportion of whom treat Cambridge as their own personal theme park, rather than a real city with real residents) and it makes actually living here a bloody nightmare a lot of the time..."

The students in Cambridge have earned their right to be there. They have as much right to be there as other residents, who just happen to have moved there. It's the oldest and most famous university town in the world (with Oxford). You can't really complain about students in Cambridge 😁

Hopefully Edinburgh city council will use the 5% visitor levy sensibly to deal with the extra costs of accommodating millions of tourists.

Skye is the absolute worst. An island with 12,000 inhabitants is overrun with a million tourists a year. Massive issue with campervans, traffic, antisocial behaviour

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crlwj7z7481o
https://nypost.com/2024/09/02/lifestyle/popular-tourist-spot-is-total-chaos-with-cars-stuck-in-4-hour-traffic-jam-horrific-experience/
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/travel/skye-joins-barcelona-list-places-destroyed-mass-tourism-113985 (and that was 2017 and has got worse since then)

All because many tourists are like total sheep and do the same route as a billion others - Edinburgh - Loch Lomond - Glencoe - Fort William - Skye - Inverness - Edinburgh.

My dad used to live in a tourist town but there were other towns and villages nearby that didn't get the same foot traffic. Maybe you could just move a few miles down the road?

Well the simple fact is that you either have to suck it up, or leave. No one is going to ban tourists, so you have to deal with the situation in front of you.

In Edinburgh there are hardly any people living in the Royal Mile or the closes off it because they are all Airbnbs. Just look at the number of keysafe boxes on the walls to let people in.

we have a camp site here, and at times there are queues in the fish and chip shop on a friday

we also have mass amount of new builds
so just more people generally.
i do miss how it was before - i think its natural to miss the peace

Blackpool?

I live in edinburgh and work centrally and love the buzz - have lived there for 20 years ish and still love August. I avoid the city centre on Saturdays as I’m Jewish but otherwise like living somewhere that other people enjoy so much. Of course there are the odd annoyances and when I had wee ones in buggies it could be frustrating to get anywhere, but overall I’m glad my city is so busy. We are quite lucky to have a car so we can go somewhere quieter when we need a break though.

No, not true. It’s a village, there’s only a certain number of people that actually live here but the post office, laundrette and grocery store were used all the time by residents. These were here for decades.

BUT there’s more money to be made by large numbers of passing tourists that want to spend a small fortune on a coffee and a tea towel. Since Covid, the numbers of tourists here have hugely increased.

So it’s a case of catering to those who bring in the most money….not who will use the stores the most.

I grew up in one of the medieval cities that has been mentioned several times here. The tourist season became year-round in about 1970. The thing is, the major local industries have been bought out and shut down. Without tourism the city would die. Now that the main industry is tourism, stuff for tourists is better organised than it was in the 70s, so in a way, it has become less intrusive and easier for locals to avoid.

Similarly I lived in London for decades and rarely went near any of the tourist attractions. I took two friends round London this year and one of them asked me if I'd been in Westminster Abbey and the London Eye before and I said 'only once'. I've been round the Tower of London once, and Madame Tussaud's once. The London of Londoners is not the London of tourists. I walked on Hampstead Heath once a fortnight, in Regent's Park weekly, shopped on Marylebone High Street and Oxford Street, never went to Knightsbridge. You just learn to avoid the tourists.

I was looking at booking Bath for a few nights before Christmas but this thread has put me off.

Are there any nice places that are quiet these days? I live in London so used to crowds but hate the extreme crowds you get these days around Covent Garden or Borough market on a weekend. I prefer to go on a Tuesday when I'm not working.