Places you’ve been which have been insanely busy

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Friends have just come back from Santorini and they said that in one town (I can’t remember the name), they were literally queuing to walk around. They couldn’t actually walk, but just shuffled along behind the people in front. It’s my idea of hell. My parents said similar about the old town in Barcelona and parts of Lake Garda. Where have you experienced this?

@WonderknicksOh no, we’re going there next year!

The sheer number of people being there put me right off Santorini and Venice, even though I'd like to see both. I can't be doing with shuffling along to see all the same things everyone else is seeing. Last year I was in Rhodes with my husband and kids and he booked a day trip to Lindos. It's a pretty place and clearly there's some people making an absolute killing from it but the sheer volume of people was just totally overwhelming. That was in May before the high peak of holiday season. Goodness knows what it's like now

St Ives was like this in when I visited a friend there in summer 2023. The streets were absolutely rammed.

Edinburgh during the festival is mental. Agree re Venice. Santorini wasn’t too bad (I’ve been three times).

Probably outing myself here, but DH researched Santorini for his PhD in the 80s. There was no airport or cruise ships, no hotels, no tourists. He was there on and off for 4 summers and has amazing memories of it.

Ten years after he finished his PhD he took me to visit. By then there were a few tourists and when DH took me to a "special" place to watch the sunset he was appalled because about 50 people turned up.

He now views the pictures of Santorini with horror, and feels that "his" island has been completely ruined. He would love to visit again but there is no way he's going to. He would find it too upsetting.

What I find upsetting is that he had the opportunity to buy a traditional little house in Oiea, which is where all the amazing photos are taken, for £500 but turned it down because he was a poverty stricken student who didn't have that sort of cash. It would have been the world's best investment in hindsight!

Castle Combe.
Bath
Bourton on the Water.

Always full of tourists and foreign school groups who arrive by the coach load to "do" the attraction in a day. I'm local to Bath and try to avoid visiting (luckily I'm not far from Bristol, which never seems as hectic apart from Balloon fiesta and Christmas market weeks).

Primark in westfield

@footiego

The parking is beneficial but it still takes 45m to drive a mile to get to the carpark as so many people travel there when the weather is nice.

The Hermitage in St Petersburg was insanely busy when we went (midsummer, bad move) but it's probably a lot quieter now.

New York the week before Christmas. It was batshit. The area around radio city on the Sunday before Christmas was bordering on dangerous

Cairo

Dubrovnik in July

Hoi An

and yy Santorini (and that was 25 years ago!)

Any bloody water park. Hate them.

Conversely I have been to Venice, Lake Garda and Rome in May half term and found them fine. Busy, but not ridiculous at all. But then we didn’t try to do sights (except the Colosseum and Pantheon), just wandered around, so perhaps that helped.

The British Museum - absolutely heaving! I have been to all sorts of touristy places and this was by far the most hideous in terms of the sheer amount of people.

Ambleside this summer, normally avoid ot but a friend wanted to go. Insane parking and pavement shuffling.

The parking is beneficial but it still takes 45m to drive a mile to get to the carpark as so many people travel there when the weather is nice.

which is preferable for many vs driving to the beach & not being able to find any parking...

The summit of Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon - obviously not insanely busy but far busier than the summit of a mountain has any right to be!

Cefalu Sicily in August. Literally no space on the beach packed like sardines. Fortunately we had a pool. I loved Sicily would love to go back in June or early September though

He now views the pictures of Santorini with horror, and feels that "his" island has been completely ruined. He would love to visit again but there is no way he's going to. He would find it too upsetting.

Tourist hates other tourists 😆

Mont St Michel was horribly busy. Also Padstow - v unpleasant. Heading to Venice this Autumn and am concerned that the crowds are going to spoil it judging by some of the responses here. Might try to prise the teens out of bed early.

Edinburgh in August

Also Weymouth.
Zanzibar was pretty busy at times 20 years ago. Can't think what it would be like now.
Ski resorts (we went to St Anton with Esprit when they existed and DH queued up for ages for the lift but I went on the totally deserted cross country tracks).

Doesn’t need to be Xmas I went on Saturday it was unbelievable, so busy.

Christmas is worse though plus lots of dicks doing photoshoots with xmas lights in the background.

The trafford centre at christmas in about 2005. It was before online shopping was a big thing, and we didn't realise it was the christmas light switch on (I think it was gareth gates or someone who was very big at the time doing it as well). Absolute nightmare and honestly very scary. My friend had a similar thing in Cornwall about three years ago, possibly when we were in that weird in-between bit of lockdowns. Horrendous!

In England, pretty much anywhere south of about Carlisle these days. Where the heck did all these tourists come from?!

Borough Market