Insta vs reality - holiday destinations

[fizzynotflat]

I’ll start:

Capri

insta - blue sea, beautiful location, chic, amazing food etc etc

reality - severely overcrowded, huge queues for everything, extremely overpriced, beaches tiny and so full, struggling to cope with the number of tourists, crazy busy, chairlift was fun, blue grotto website said it was closed but other tourists told us it wasn’t, however there was a 2 hour queue for it. Sea was very blue and clear, that was a positive. Really grateful we were only on a day trip as not impressed and would not go back. This was in May so god knows what July, August would be like!

Same for Santorini, Venice, Barcelona, Rome, London and anywhere worth a stunning picture/photo. I don't know how anyone could be bothered to go to places where the queues take longer than the flight to get there!

I know we are all part of the problem in one way or another though. I do my trips in November and late January. It's not as instagrammy but I can get around very easily and see the same things in relative comfort apart from needing warmer clothes!

Amalfi coast similar!

Venice in February was amazing.
wouldn’t fancy it in summer.

Grim

I disagree, I thought Capri and everywhere else Amalfi coast was amazing and matched what I’d seen online.

pricey though 😅

I deliberately choose somewhere quiet, and avoid the school holidays now that DD is a student.

I realise with school aged children you can't go in term time, but even when DD was at school we still managed to choose low key resorts in Croatia, Lanzarote, Crete, Corfu, the UK and Italy.

We avoided hotels with kids clubs and obvious Brits abroad destinations.

Calo des Moro, Majorca.

Insta: Google it. OMG.

Reality: Two-hour queues to get on it from June through September. There's a box to empty the sand out of your shoes because they were losing so much by accident (never mind what people take as a souvenir). Zero space on the sand after 9am. Sitting on rocks, ouch.

The shipwreck beach in Zante. The shipwreck is actually a rusty oil tanker from not that long ago. Busy. Not as picture perfect.

Tourism is killing the planet sadly. There are just too many people everywhere now. It's horrible and stressful. I expect some people find it 'bustling and exciting' but I hate it.

Capri and the Amalfi Coast were stunning when I went twenty years ago. Was back there recently and the number of tourists was astounding to the point that it made the experience not that fun.

The Blue Lagoon, Comino, off Malta. We've been going for years as scuba divers and we'd mostly spend it diving from a boat moored a little to the side of the main area although they'd often land us there so we could buy food from the snack vans. Was never crowded.

But we went on a tourist trip in autumn 2021? when everything was just opening up post COVID and Malta was one of the less restricted places to go.

OMG it was horrific, hundreds of people crammed everywhere, posing for selfies and talking to their phones as if they were TV travel presenters. We went for a walk around the quieter parts of the island and had a swim so to avoid the insta crowd as much as possible.

I was going to say this and the beach is all pebbly

More and more people can afford to go on holiday than ever before, even with the COL crisis. So everywhere is much busier than it was 30 years ago say. I read on MN that people are forgoing a holiday because their mortgage has gone up etc. but I see zero evidence of this IRL. In fact, I feel as though places are busier than even 5-10 years ago as COVID has made people realise that life is short and they shouldn’t take being able to travel for granted.

I seek out lesser known places and almost always travel outside the school holidays. Sometimes it can’t be avoided, like I have to go to Europe in mid-late July because I have tickets to a festival. Luckily it’s in Belgium, which is not as popular to travel as France, Spain etc.

We've still found stunning places for the kids to Insta in Albania, North Macedonia, and farther away, the Caribbean and central America. Tho' long haul isn't necessarily the answer - I've heard Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia are horrific. Tourism is certainly killing our planet and the Internet is to blame. It has made access to these places, in terms of information and travel, so much easier. You never used to see French, Spanish, Italians or Eastern Europeans in popular travel destinations, now they are everywhere.

My recent photos from a holiday in Scotland are very insta worthy.

No crowds, stunning scenery and wall to wall sunshine.