Everywhere is England is rammed

[Hyperfish101]

Maybe different elsewhere in UK but Covid has certainly wiped out options for a peaceful day out anywhere. Or so it seems.

Went to a local beauty spot for a walk yesterday. At 10 am cars queuing for the car park. All the NationL Trust type places swarming. Even little walks by our local river are overrun with people.

Had a week in a usually quiet place in the Scottish Borders. Nope. Jammed. The usual quiet beach was overrun. Car park rammed. Rubbish everywhere.

It’s horrible. I realise I was there too so limited grounds to complain but I’ve been going to these places for years and suddenly I can’t even park.

That’s even before mentioning the ‘wild camping’ we saw in the Lakes. Tents abandoned, rubbish everywhere.

I’m hoping when people can stop ‘staycationing’ and go abroad, things will settle down. I feel as if there are no unspoilt areas left now.

The weather - apart from that brief heatwave - has been spectacularly crap this summer. I certainly wouldn’t pay £4,000 for a week in Cornwall (some of the position A cottages were going for this) banking on good weather. You are quite likely to have to spend all day and every evening playing scrabble, doing a 1,000-piece jigsaw with four pieces missing and watching a DVD from the 90s. Oh,no: haven’t even these been removed due to Covid precautions?!

@RedRiverShore quite agree. I was one of those people that went abroad but personally I did so to escape the massive crowds of tourists where we live. Couldn’t walk down the street or go to the shop at home and felt far safer in the remote mountainous area of Europe that we stayed in. People don’t consider all angles before spouting the “selfish” line.

Slot of frontline workers couldn't go on holiday in June. My kids still had school work to do and we couldn't take leave from work.

We've had days out nearby and a couple of nights away in the UK. It's busy but the people who would normally stick with holiday parks and have large groups go abroad are now everywhere. We usually holiday in the UK and it's not that it's busier it's the thoughtlessness of lots of people that has made it draining and tiresome.

We've found the Lakes not as busy but with no organised foreigners it's become a free for all. Peak District wasn't too bad at all but we stay away from the tourist traps and walk the hills.

I'm going nowhere today. I've not been to a beach or NT place this year and I won't be going. Utterly fed up of this year. There is no joy in anything we do. I hate having to book, being herded like cattle and I'm sick of people in general. Christmas can't come soon enough. I've had no personal time on my own since match and it sucks.

@IrmaFayLear

The weather - apart from that brief heatwave - has been spectacularly crap this summer. I certainly wouldn’t pay £4,000 for a week in Cornwall (some of the position A cottages were going for this) banking on good weather. You are quite likely to have to spend all day and every evening playing scrabble, doing a 1,000-piece jigsaw with four pieces missing and watching a DVD from the 90s. Oh,no: haven’t even these been removed due to Covid precautions?!

I saw £50 a night for camping on a rugby pitch near (ish) the Lakes with just a portaloo in the field.

Not my idea of camping.

Luckily I live in a beautiful part of the UK and know where to go to do some lovely walks without tourists.

It is one reason I have not even gone on holiday in England. I suspect there will be some places very hard to get to (remembering our time in remote Northumberland moorland and places with very long walks to get there) which may still be empty but hard to know for sure.

One of my student children is going on holiday in England today. I hope they manage to find some isolated walks.

We have 16m or 17m people more in the UK than when I was born so it is getting harder to get peace and quiet.

We've just been to Cornwall and I didn't see any of what you describe.

The beaches we went to had lots of people there but everyone was spacing out and carefully distancing. I saw no rubbish left behind.

We went to several National Trust places (2 needing prebooking, 1 general free entry). All were well organised, quiet and no one was crowding.

We ate out lots if times using outside tables. Most were very good. My only concern was with the staff at one place who didn't wear masks and were hugging friends as they arrived. We left after we finished our drinks and didn't order food because of this.

Having said that we did deliberately avoid hot spot areas like St Ives and Port Isaac. I think anyone going to well known overcrowded places is pretty daft and can't really be surprised that they are busy.

You're not picking your places carefully enough OP.

@georgedawes

I live in the peak District and it's crazy at the minute. So much rubbish, cars parked illegally, people using the place as a toilet :(

And the amount of used bog roll scattered on paths and hedgerows 🤢.

We are so lucky to live here and I don't mind sharing but the litter/left behind camping stuff/ dangerous parking is exasperating.

Spain has been doing us a big favour for years...

I don’t understand why everyone is going on holiday in July and August. It’s not like there has been any school since March. You could have gone in June instead

Maybe think about why that might be. Many many people were working through lockdown as normal, or even from home, and had booked annual leave along with their holidays abroad as they normally would, so in school holidays if they had kids or worked in schools. People's holidays abroad were cancelled last minute. Hence many people suddenly looking for holidays in the UK.

Ihavent and *Bookwitch'
Nice to read your welcoming comments (agree on litter/parking) especially wrt wanting visitors to enjoy the scenery.

I live in the most landlocked part of the country and have been holidaying every year in Cornwall since I was a baby (47 years!).

A pp asked why people keep going to Cornwall.

There is nowhere like it for me after 47 years of going. I went elsewhere in the UK this summer and while I enjoyed it, it is never the same. Cornwall is the only place I want to be.

When you live in a built up city, why wouldn't you want go to the sea? Especially if you have kids. Love seeing the waves crashing in from the Atlantic. It's good for the soul.

The weather - apart from that brief heatwave - has been spectacularly crap this summer.

What part of the UK are you in? It was more of less non stop sunny from start of lock down to the heatwave (couple days of rain) and then we’ve had a few stormy days and days of heavy rain in the last few weeks but it’s been generally sunny! I’m looking up now at a bright blue cloudless sky!

I certainly wouldn’t pay £4,000 for a week in Cornwall (some of the position A cottages were going for this) banking on good weather. You are quite likely to have to spend all day and every evening playing scrabble, doing a 1,000-piece jigsaw with four pieces missing and watching a DVD from the 90s.*

Just come back from Cornwall where it cost us under £1000 for a week and we had one morning of light rain where we got up went out and still went for a walk to the coast gasp* and by lunchtime it was nice and warm and sunny! Even if it wasn’t, you make your own fun, holing up in a cottage moping around if it rains would be your choice.

Not sure why we let weather dictate what we do, no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing etc etc.

@middleager Completely agree.

NW seaside town - absolutely rammed yesterday. No parking spaces, one car park on the edge of town which gets busy during festival times but never full was full.

It's noticeably busy

@middleager

Ihavent and *Bookwitch' Nice to read your welcoming comments (agree on litter/parking) especially wrt wanting visitors to enjoy the scenery.

I live in the most landlocked part of the country and have been holidaying every year in Cornwall since I was a baby (47 years!).

A pp asked why people keep going to Cornwall.

There is nowhere like it for me after 47 years of going. I went elsewhere in the UK this summer and while I enjoyed it, it is never the same. Cornwall is the only place I want to be.

When you live in a built up city, why wouldn't you want go to the sea? Especially if you have kids. Love seeing the waves crashing in from the Atlantic. It's good for the soul.

You are missing so much though by only going to Cornwall, not just abroad but in our beautiful country too.

Unpopular view- we are over crowded in the uk. During the start of lock down whilst walking with my dd I remarked how this level of traffic and people was normal when I was a child, that is very quiet. I was able to cross roads as a child without any pelican crossings etc. You could go out and play and not see adults. Dd was amazed as she has only ever known life to be 'busy'. Where we live we can go on walks and see very few people. Admittedly you have to go off the beaten track and wear walking boots, cutting through fields and walking on mud/grass. There isn't anything other than countryside there. No cafes, bars, historic relics etc just greenery that's all. Not everyone's cup of tea doing a round wa!ling trip of several miles without any out stops.

Dam my quoting has gone wrong above but hopefully you get that Im quoting someone else in this bit:

I certainly wouldn’t pay £4,000 for a week in Cornwall (some of the position A cottages were going for this) banking on good weather. You are quite likely to have to spend all day and every evening playing scrabble, doing a 1,000-piece jigsaw with four pieces missing and watching a DVD from the 90s.

What part of the UK are you in? It was more of less non stop sunny from start of lock down to the heatwave (couple days of rain) and then we’ve had a few stormy days and days of heavy rain in the last few weeks but it’s been generally sunny! I’m looking up now at a bright blue cloudless sky

It's been crap up here - Yorkshire.

Lockdown was nice - but I was working.

I don’t understand why everyone is going on holiday in July and August. It’s not like there has been any school since March. You could have gone in June instead

Non-food shops were not open in June. Nor were any leisure facilities, nor were campsites or hotels.

They could have been if Mr Johnson and his government had reacted in early/mid March as far fewer people would have had Covid.

top Don't get me wrong, we do go elsewhere too at home and abroad, but I've not found anywhere yet that pulls me back like Cornwall does (I think part of this stems from happy childhood holidays there in the 70s and 80s).

Of course it is.

We are overcrowded, and now with no foreign holidays, no the amusement parks not at full capacity and the shopping malls not very attractive people have to find something to do.

It's bloody tons of rubbish and the bloody disposable barbecues that are a real nuisance as well.

Going back to the OP, you’re going to the wrong places!

There have been a handful of people at recent places we have gone too (not Cornwall, where I live) and it’s not been rammed at all.

Maybe you’re choosing the same places as everyone else? There’s a coastal area around here that is jam packed every day but you move a bit over and there are empty beaches with one person walking their dog (selfishly don’t want to say in case they get popular)

There’s also a couple English heritage places around here that have been nice and quiet.

I disagree. Just back from Devon and it was fairly quiet. We don’t go to tourist hot spots though.No issue in pub gardens, beaches etc.If you’re picky well known places it stands to reason.

Picking

It's been very upsetting to witness how rural Scotland has been treated this summer. I've been visiting for years, from the central belt, and yes it's got progressively busier but this summer was something else in terms of both numbers and the sheer horrible, destructive behaviour of many of the people.

It's partly a problem with lack of facilites - there's a particular shortage of facilities for campervans - but that in no way excuses it. Cheap tents left everywhere, a sea of litter, shitty nappies, human shit. Trees butchered for fires. Ancient woodland burnt and destroyed. Locals having people invade their gardens to toilet and then abuse them when they obect. Incidident after incident - some poor woman got so badly verbally abused when she asked a group of men to leave the field she owned as they were upsetting her horses, that she had to call the police. Very elderly residents given verbal abuse in their own gardens.
I feel like I must be a different species to these people, honestly. Who the fuck thinks it's okay to behave like that?

I feel deeply sorry for the poor Spanish people that presumably have to put up with these dregs descending on them in normal years.

At least in Spain you can avoid it - we were there last summer and there wasn't a single anti-social yob as long as you avoided the usual-suspect areas - just nice people of all nationalities behaving considerately and enjoying the beautiful scenery and architecture.

Whereas now it feels like there's nowhere left that isn't affected - all the tiny, quiet special little places that a few people have loved and visited for years have been desecrated.

I’m having the same problem. I’ve never been able to afford to go abroad but have happily had summer days out in the local area. Now everywhere is packed or sold out and I can’t get in. It’s partly because people aren’t going to other places (abroad, shopping, cafes, other events) and partly because venues are limiting numbers to about a quarter of what they’d normally accept.

@Darker

I am also mildly irritated by the word ‘staycation’ which used to mean saving money by staying in your own home while doing holiday things.

It annoys me too.

Going to spend a week in a seaside resort when you don’t live there is a holiday.
A staycation is staying in your house but doing local holiday stuff.