Fodor's No List.
June 22, 2018 12:01 PM   Subscribe

Though in the business of selling travel to people, long-time guidebook company Fodor's is now also advising you where not to go. The inaugural list in 2017 told us what was too dull or crowded or full of Zika virus to rate a visit, and where you should go instead. The 2018 list is more focused on the damage that too much tourism is doing to a number of areas and places that don't rate getting your money because of human rights issues.

Fodor's links courtesy of this article in Bright Magazine.
posted by JanetLand (57 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
Got friends and family in ol' Mizzou, will not stop visiting them just because the laws suck. Especially since none of them support those laws.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:11 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


It's telling tourists not to spend vacation money there, not advocating a travel ban.
posted by inconstant at 12:13 PM on June 22, 2018 [26 favorites]


Don't go to *London* because Big Ben is under construction? Okayyyyyyyy
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:21 PM on June 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


Dear Fodor's,

Some of us aren't in the US, and Cuba is great.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 12:22 PM on June 22, 2018 [9 favorites]


(Though generally, I highly approve of the concept of a No list-- so many places are just overwhelmed with tourists that they're impossible to enjoy. Basically, if it's one of the first places you'd think to go, it's a mess. I haven't enjoyed my last several trips due to that)
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:22 PM on June 22, 2018


Not sure how much sense a No lists insofar as it might be counterproductive to their intent but I get it. I skipped the Galapagos when we had a chance to include it in 2 weeks in Ecuador partly because I'd heard it was already pretty stressed. On review, it looks like pretty much all of these were already known to me to be problematic for one reason or another. I wasn't aware of Honduras or Venice but the inclusion of Missouri is a nice touch.

Don't go to *London* because Big Ben is under construction? Okayyyyyyyy

That one struck me (hehe) as odd as well but, to be honest, a trip to England will likely be a once in a lifetime trip for me so knowing that I'd miss Big Ben chiming might be the little nudge to put it off for a different decade. I actually don't travel all that much, and likely won't till the little ones are older, but you know what I mean.

Thanks for the post.
posted by RolandOfEld at 12:23 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


From the 2017 list: I really liked Pisa. It has a tower! And it leans! You may have heard of it. We also ate some delicious pizza. Plus, the campo santo there has a fresco of the Last Judgement that features the devil eating people and then pooping them into hell.
posted by purpleclover at 12:41 PM on June 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


A friend and his husband went to Vietnam last year, and he said he could not get over how polluted Ha Long Bay is. I was honestly surprised not to see it on this list.
posted by briank at 12:42 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


I've been to two of the places on that list this year (and I swear I don't travel that much).

As for the US travel ban; I certainly saw a *ton* of US citizens while in Havana; none of them had a US minder. The idea of having a US minder is *super* weird IMHO. Furthermore, I'd advise everyone who wants to see Cuba to do it before American's view it as a travel destination. They are going to transform the place (in both good and bad ways). Honestly a few years ago was the time to go, but go now before US tourists invade the place (more than they already are).

That being said, I like the idea of this list; and one could expand it far beyond the entries they have listed. There are a ton of countries that you might want to be wary of for human rights reasons; how ethnic minorities are treated, how LGBTQ folks are treated, how religious minorities are treated. But these aren't the folks to create such a list, they eagerly list countries in their 'visit this instead' sections that have deplorable human rights records; I question their sincerity in adding this concern.
posted by el io at 12:48 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


It is pretty striking how much worse some of these places have gotten over the last 25 years, although Great Wall rebuilding is amazing too. I remember when Simatai was some falling down towers and a suggestion of a wall that you climbed more than walked. Now it looks pretty nice.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 12:51 PM on June 22, 2018


Glad to see my home state representing. Well done as always Missouri.
posted by gc at 12:53 PM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


I've been to four of those places and it's hard to regret any of them. I'm going to another next week. I think I can probably stand to continue my lifelong missouri boycott, though.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:55 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


While I understand the list, it almost feels like the message is "Don't travel, just stay at home". You will cause ecological damage by traveling any distance. How do you travel without causing damage to the environment?
posted by zabuni at 12:56 PM on June 22, 2018


I like the idea of lists like this. There are a ton of wonderful places to go in the world - this is helpful to narrow it down to things that aren't worth your time or aren't worth the harm. While I don't totally agree with their choices, I appreciate the idea. It would be interesting if each year there was multiple categories of lists: overcrowded, become too expensive, many things under construction, harmful effects on environment, human rights violations, etc. I travel maybe once or twice a year and am not plugged into all those things about everywhere I might want to go, so it would be a cool resource.
posted by hepta at 12:57 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Zabuni, I feel more like the list is suggesting that you keep that impact in mind. One good way to minimize impact is not to go to the same place everyone else is.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 1:03 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


The person writing that list of middle school only places definitely only half understands Williamsburg and Sturbridge not at all.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 1:05 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: the devil eating people and then pooping them into hell
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:24 PM on June 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


My white young friend will co-sign on using The Green Book while traveling through Missouri. His black friend was serving at Ft. Leonard Wood and when they went out locally, including fishing or to a local bar, they were threatened. Road trips to St. Louis & large cities became the norm. Though what’s the deal with the historic courthouse highlighting the ultimate failure of Dred Scott? Maybe they have updated the highlights for Voting Rights since the Minor case. Maybe look at how we could grow since Ferguson. Until then, we can see it destroyed in the movies Supernova and The Black Hole.
posted by childofTethys at 1:30 PM on June 22, 2018


Find door!
Find door!
Find... door!
Fuhn... dor...
Fo... dor...
Fodor.
posted by LeDiva at 1:35 PM on June 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


One good way to minimize impact is not to go to the same place everyone else is.

That, or maybe someone wants to have a different experience. I get cranky when people tell me I absolutely must go see NYC or London or some other giant, world famous city. Or imply that I absolutely must go see the world to be a well rounded, fully developed person.

No. No, I do not. With the former, it stinks of exceptionalism, and a lot of those places sound like stressful, expensive hell holes to me. Of the latter, there's the smell of faux spirituality and worldliness or, worse, that one is operating at some kind of possibly racist/otherist deficit that needs correcting through exposure.

The latter has always chafed at me because my default approach to humans is simply a Mr. Rogers grade "Hello, you're a human." and it seems to me that if you feel everyone has to go backpacking through an impoverished or developing part of the world to learn this lesson, I think there might be something wrong with you or how you see the world, and I'm not sure if tourism will actually fix that.

Also, if I had the money to fly and stay in NYC and have a relatively good travel holiday - I'd frankly rather buy a pricey new touring bike and some new bike camping gear and head out for local adventures under my own power, and go places most people don't go.

They'd be about the same price, except I could do the bike camping thing for months instead of a weekend or a week, and then I'd have a new bike and some cool, durable camping gear to use again and again.

On the LGBTQ side of things, one thing I definitely came to terms with was that my travel around the world is now much more limited and/or risky. Oh well, at least I landed in a good place.

On the environmental side of things - flying is horrible for the planet, and there really isn't a "Oh, but our tourist dollars help this developing nation." feel good clause.

No. Tourist dollars are fiscal crack cocaine for local economies, especially smaller ones. They don't foster much development beyond hotels and service industry jobs. If someone is that concerned about the plight of these people, they'd go there to build them a hospital or school or just give them money, not force them to earn it via luxury services and tourist trinkets.

To be honest, when I hear people talking about their globe trotting travels or how much they have to travel and fly for work, it bothers me more than a little. It's like hearing someone bragging that they took a few thousand gallons of gasoline and lit it on fire.


And I'm not anti-travel. My idealized dream world involves a culture where we aren't wage slaves tied to jobs in time/space and people can freely travel via slow and low impact stuff like, say, a huge solar powered blimp, or even zero emission fixed wing aircraft, or even orbital/suborbital spaceplanes or craft.

The way were doing it right now is pretty shitty and crazy.
posted by loquacious at 2:01 PM on June 22, 2018 [15 favorites]


The Beijing/great wall one is a little strange as well. My understanding is that most tourism in China is domestic rather than international tourism. My guess is that readers of Fodors are a drop in the bucket of tourists who will visit the great wall (itself an extremely large structure with varying levels of development, upkeep, and visitor numbers) this year. There are better reasons to avoid visiting China (its human rights record at the top of them, IMO).

Disclaimer: I am going to China (including Beijing, probably including going to see the great wall) for the first time next month. Should be interesting, and I'm looking forward to it, but I definitely have concerns about it.
posted by quaking fajita at 2:19 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


I went to Cuba last year with my partner and had an excellent time. We'd booked our lodging ahead thru AirBNB which to our knowledge provides more income to individual citizens vs staying in hostels/hotels run by the government. Bonus, we were treated super warmly with home cooked food, and in Trinidad city our host was the city architect and a wealth of knowledge about the town. She also candidly lamented how the rise in tourism had closed several local businesses in favour of restaurants and lodging, as well as stripped her office of some talented people who decided the paltry government wages weren't worth the struggle.

Our main difficulty as US citizens was the lack of connectivity to our banks, so when we ran low on cash we had no access to more.
posted by a halcyon day at 2:24 PM on June 22, 2018


I was at Yellowstone 2 weeks ago. It's #1 on my NO list now. That place is a nightmare and I kind of wished they would have doubled the entrance fees.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 2:31 PM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


I'm surprised that Russia (and their absolute disregard for LGBT rights) is not in the list considering the inclusion of Missouri.
posted by Memo at 2:31 PM on June 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


How do you travel without causing damage to the environment?

Maybe we can't, in which case we mostly shouldn't.

Taking loquacious' point one step further, if I don't travel to consume culture elsewhere I have the time, the money, and the skin in the game to produce culture where I am. Which is a ton harder and slower and less guaranteed payoff, but someone has to if we're to have any.
posted by clew at 2:51 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


Hanging Lake, Colorado. Just no.
posted by Monochrome at 2:52 PM on June 22, 2018


That, or maybe someone wants to have a different experience. I get cranky when people tell me I absolutely must go see NYC or London or some other giant, world famous city. Or imply that I absolutely must go see the world to be a well rounded, fully developed person.

No. No, I do not. With the former, it stinks of exceptionalism, and a lot of those places sound like stressful, expensive hell holes to me.

loquacious

You can certainly go or not go where ever you want, but it's kind of shitty to dump on places you've never been like this.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:59 PM on June 22, 2018 [19 favorites]


Nowadays I'd also add the USA and its concentration camps to the list.
posted by Memo at 3:16 PM on June 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


Me: *Ctrl-F Iceland*

OH THANK GOD.
This tourism boom is one of the worst things to happen to the country.
posted by myotahapea at 4:38 PM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


Places You Should Only Visit on a Middle School Field Trip
Prepare to be underwhelmed.


This list is ridiculous. I have never been to Colonial Williamsburg, but my understanding is that after a bunch of research and discussion the cabinet shop there files all of their saws rip! They also put in a new saw pit last year. I doubt most of us would have appreciated that back in middle school . I don't have any plans to fly across the country just to go, but If I found myself in the area I would definitely check it out.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 5:02 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


But with a seat on Virgin Galactic going for a cool $250,000, you’d better be Richard Branson himself. Even if you did have the funds for a ticket, you could buy a perfectly lovely house outright, never mind the luxurious vacations you could take right here on planet Earth!

You can't get a one bedroom condo for that here. Take your money and go to space, if you have it. It's easier than breaking into the real estate market at this point.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:26 PM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


You can certainly go or not go where ever you want, but it's kind of shitty to dump on places you've never been like this.

I'm not dumping on any particular big city - or even big cities as one's home. I'm dumping on the weird idea or tautology that you simply must go see a given big city simply because it's a big, famous city. And, anyway, this thing also applies to big cities I have been to. Say, San Francisco, or LA.

This reaction is kind of what I'm talking about, or related to it. "But you haven't been!" as a reaction to "I have no desire to visit X big city" is actually seems kind of defensive and is irritating to me.

Just because I don't want to spend hundreds/thousands of dollars to visit a given city and that I would find the whole experience of traveling to somewhere where everyone else goes and going and seeing all the famous things everyone goes and sees stressful and hellish doesn't mean I'm dumping on that city.

I felt roughly the same way just trying to get some groceries at Pike Place on any given Saturday, and I lived less than half a mile from the place for almost 5 years.

Almost every damn time I've gone and done the big touristy thing it's almost always regrettable, miserably overcrowded, anticlimactic if not outright tacky.

I'm sorry, it actually really bothers me that there are millions/billions of people flying all over the world to gawk at dumb shit like someone throwing a dead salmon around and to look at a bunch of bubble gum stuck to a wall.

That is very against my personal values of trying to have a very low carbon and energy footprint. It bothers me very much that most of the world doesn't even think about or see travel in this way and thinks nothing of jetting all over the world like it's a trip around town in an Uber.

This includes a ton of progressive people I know who subscribe to organic, local CSAs, avoid non-local, out of season food, own a Prius and mainly transit/bike.

It kind of makes it all moot if you fly out to Europe or Australia a few times a year by a couple of orders of magnitude on the tons of carbon produced indexed.

And I'm in full agreement with clew. I enjoy my local culture and participating in its creation very much. My life is very full.

Again, what I'm arguing against is this tautology that I need to travel the world to be either culturally developed, as well as the tautology that "all travel/tourism is good for either the tourist or the destination".

Neither of these things are true.

Further, I'm strongly stating that the kind of casual, globe-trotting travel people do today is incredibly bad for the environment in its current form.
posted by loquacious at 6:08 PM on June 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


>Hanging Lake, Colorado. Just no.
My husband (then boyfriend) took me up to Hanging Lake some ten years ago and it was gorgeous. But even then parking was a fustercluck and the state was starting to talk about what it needed to do to curtail traffic to the site.

I'm glad I got to see it. It's amazing. But I'm all in favor of visitor caps to keep it that way.

(Same with Yosemite Valley because oh my god that was a nightmare last year when we went.)
posted by offalark at 6:28 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


I really like the idea of lists like this. Certainly it's easy to quibble about what is and isn't included - I think we all have our own, personal "no" lists - but the idea of travelling mindfully, thinking about how and where we travel is really important. And honestly, I think rich westerners have for many years regarded large parts of the world as different zones of a theme park that their global status entitles them to experience no matter what

I don't think this means a hard no for many destinations, but I do think it's absolutely worth considering how you go there, and what you do.

Burma/Myanmar is an interesting one. I remember for years people defending travelling there under the regime because some of the money was going to locals. Tourism has taken off there now, but the majority of the population is supportive of the genocide being perpetrated there, are we still so comfortable giving them our cash?

I think, as a tourist, an easy question to ask before jumping on a plane etc is "is my presence there going to be a net gain for the people of the country?". Superficially it seems a simple question, but breaks down into more complexity quite quickly. By the end, however, you can still get to a clearish answer.
posted by smoke at 6:57 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


what I'm arguing against is this tautology that I need to travel the world to be either culturally developed

you dont need to travel the world to be culturally developed, but there is utility for many people-- especially americans, especially nowadays-- in seeing firsthand how other people in other places live. i think it increases their empathy and their understanding that everyone everywhere is basically the same and there are no "aliens." not saying you dont know that, obviously, but perhaps that's why a lot of liberals (who you are calling hypocrites for flying) feel it's worthwhile to do.
posted by wibari at 7:09 PM on June 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


I was at Yellowstone 2 weeks ago. It's #1 on my NO list now. That place is a nightmare and I kind of wished they would have doubled the entrance fees.

By nightmare do you just mean crowded? Summer is pretty bad from what I understand. I went in September last year and it was great (but of course I have the flexibility to not worry about school schedules, etc). The short season (May-September is the only time you can see most of the park, and even then May and September can be highly variable depending on snow timing) is certainly an issue.
posted by thefoxgod at 7:11 PM on June 22, 2018


you dont need to travel the world to be culturally developed, but there is utility for many people-- especially americans, especially nowadays-- in seeing firsthand how other people in other places live.

And I'm making the very uncomfortable argument that this may be an otherism and is usually code for poverty, and that people can usually see "how other people live" in their own cities and neighborhoods and learn the same lessons, and they might even be more valuable to someone progressive and the cities they live in.

I might be a radical who believes in acting local, so I'm confused as to why people think that pointing this out is hypocritical, or why people think they need to travel to go backpacking in Africa to learn these lessons.

So, sure, that may or may not be hypocritical. I'm ok with that and this soap box and/or high horse, because it's a often a seriously overlooked one in people's carbon footprints - and, again, I'm questioning the need for globetrotting travel to gain this utility, and pointing out it seems to really be a weird form of overlooked cultural exceptionalism.

JFC, how would you honestly feel if a bunch of people who were - to you - hyperwealthy showed up en masse to see how you lived and slum it in your neighborhoods and lounge on your beaches while your kids didn't have a decent school or hospital or even clean water, while (relatively) hyperwealthy tourists stayed in resorts that could afford water filters? Or even backpacker's water filters?

So they could be edified with the utility of seeing how other people live? And this isn't weird cultural tourism at a pretty dear carbon footprint cost? And I have the wrong end of the stick in this thread or about travel?

I'm pretty sure that the net benefit might not be worth it's own weight in Jet A. I don't see the USA getting less xenophobic or violent for all the travel it's collectively been doing.

So, an economy round trip flight from LA to London is about 2.5 metric tons of carbon. Your average family car footprint per year is 4.5-ish. For a lot of people I know in the upper to middle middle class, a few flights a year in this range isn't uncommon, if not more for work. This is really huge. People think "Oh, it was just two days of flying there and back, how bad is it?"

Well, pretty bad, really.

And yeah, I know MeFites as a demographic unapologetically love travel.

I'm not one of them. I've spent my whole life intentionally not owning a car and trying to avoid having to use them. I even recently dragged two backpacks worth of audio gear to the all day show by bus, carrying around an old MIDI keyboard like a skateboard.

I've flown exactly once and while it was fun it was honestly unnecessary, and I would have rather taken the train. I tend to be extremely aware of my carbon footprint and careful with it. I understand I have had some privileges to be able to do so.

These are my values and I have been mostly able to live them.

posted by loquacious at 8:38 PM on June 22, 2018 [4 favorites]


Since 2008, almost every country in the world has entrusted the seed vault with specimens totaling more than 865,000 different samples, out of which 150,000 are rice alone. The facility on Spitsbergen serves as a backup to the more than 1,700 genebanks worldwide, ensuring against man-made or natural disasters.

From the 10 Fascinating Places You Are NOT Allowed to Visit list and yes, I am deeply fascinated. I don't know if I'd even want to visit, but I love knowing it exists.
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:46 PM on June 22, 2018


And I'm making the very uncomfortable argument that this may be an otherism and is usually code for poverty

nah, i didnt mean poverty tourism, which i agree is gross. i mean like, for instance, for a middle class american to see how a middle class mexican person or japanese person or italian person or korean person lives. not saying it would be a complete antidote to nationalism or racism, but i think it helps. and i think nationalism may end up killing us all before climate change does.

in any event, i respect your opinion. and given how few americans have passports, my point is moot anyway.
posted by wibari at 8:54 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


And I'm making the very uncomfortable argument that this may be an otherism and is usually code for poverty, and that people can usually see "how other people live" in their own cities and neighborhoods and learn the same lessons, and they might even be more valuable to someone progressive and the cities they live in.

This has been 100% not my experience, and I think the argument that, say, Botswana, is basically equivalent to a migrant area in one's city, is appalling. It's so bad that I have to assume I'm making a strawman out of your argument.

There is a similar, real, argument, that money on space programs are wasted when we have so much poverty on Earth we could be spending that money on. I dislike that argument. Putting aside that space programs are valuable on their own and can actually help us on Earth, the cause of poverty is not the existence of space programs. The existence of poverty is a political choice.

In every country I've been to, and I am by no means an experienced foreign traveller, the simple experience of being in a foreign culture and seeing some of my own cultural assumptions blown away has been something I cannot replicate at home. The migrant areas in my own city are in constant negotiation with the culture they're in. When you travel, you get put in that situation, where you're not on sure footing any more, and you get to see how artificial your cultural exchange at home is when you see someone doing it to you. Even the little things get you, like the available drinks being flavours of iced teas, something you've never heard of before, and Fanta.

I remember seeing how many goddamn mobility scooters Seattle had. I remember how eloquent the announcements on the London Tube seemed. I remember seeing a rack of comics in a French service station. I remember the massive potholes on the road just outside Nadi and how badly it contrasted with the carefully maintained roads and manicured lawns of the Western tourist area (that we didn't stay in). I remember attempting to communicate with someone who spoke three languages, none of them English, and being well aware that I was dropping the ball. And that's just travel to wealthy countries, or English-speaking countries.
posted by Merus at 9:34 PM on June 22, 2018 [11 favorites]


ActingTheGoat: "I have never been to Colonial Williamsburg, but my understanding is that after a bunch of research and discussion the cabinet shop there files all of their saws rip! They also put in a new saw pit last year. I doubt most of us would have appreciated that back in middle school . I don't have any plans to fly across the country just to go, but If I found myself in the area I would definitely check it out."

One thing I've worked to develop after some exposure to the concept in passing is finding joy in these sort of things (or the tiny button museum in some one horse town that is open on alternate tuesdays or goofy tourist trap stuff or something simple like the intersection of Main street and E-W Main Street). The too cool for X that is dripping off that article is both annoying and makes me sad for people who think that way. Life is so much better if you can find wonder and engagement in things.
posted by Mitheral at 9:38 PM on June 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


That middle school list made me feel personally attacked because I love state fairs and state capitals.
posted by kendrak at 11:07 PM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


You are not going to save the world by not flying, because you will not save the world period. It's far too late for individual, consumer-scale actions like that. So you might as well see the things you want to see in this lifetime, before either they or you disappear forever. Choose judiciously, and with consideration for the places and people you propose to burden with your presence, but by no means should you deprive yourself of experience under the delusion that it will preserve the global ecosystem.

That one struck me (hehe) as odd as well but, to be honest, a trip to England will likely be a once in a lifetime trip for me so knowing that I'd miss Big Ben chiming might be the little nudge to put it off for a different decade.

Dude. There is so much to do and see here that I lived in central London a year and then Zone 2 an additional four years before ever approaching the Houses of Parliament for anything but a cocktail party. (That said, my wife took me on a tour of Parliament a few weeks back as part of an extended birthday celebration, and it was extraordinary, one of those rare occasions you really do want to sign on for the guided tour. No tower or bell though.)

You can easily have a lifetime's worth of vividly memorable experiences here without crossing paths with the main-force tourist hordes. Take Sunday-afternoon high tea in the Silent Running surroundings of the Barbican Conservatory. See what's on at the Black Cultural Archives in Windrush Square, and then (if you must) go and take your selfie under the Electric Avenue sign. Take your shade in the Serpentine Pavilion. Watch some dance company you've never heard of burn it down at Sadler's Wells. Gird yourself for pathological goodness at the Hunterian. Cruise down to Kew Gardens in a riverboat and then spend the rest of the day wandering the greenery. Buy picnic fixins in Ridley Road market, with insanely juicy one-quid mangoes for dessert. Ride the top deck of an old Routemaster on Fleet Street. You get the idea. It strains credulity for me that anyone would give all of this a pass because they won't get to hear a single bell chime — and I love the sound of that bell beyond all reason.

And I know the same thing is true of all great cities. Even if you don't get to travel more than every few years, even if you don't have more than a few days when you do, and have no control over when in the year those few days are, big cities are such amazingly good value for your investments of time, effort, energy and budget. But then, I know I'm preaching to the choir. : . )
posted by adamgreenfield at 2:09 AM on June 23, 2018 [5 favorites]


For those who want to go where you put your life in danger: The World's Most Dangerous Places by Robert Young Pelton. Published irregularly in five editions between 1993 and 2003, it describes where to go, how to get there, how to get around and how to avoid being captured or killed in the best guide book fashion. The familiar guide book organization combined with some deadpan humor completely twists your perception of what it means to visit a place where mayhem is a normal occurrence. Obviously out of date, it still can make you rethink your assumptions about people in "those places."
posted by Metacircular at 2:34 AM on June 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


Don’t visit Pisa and instead visit Abu Dhabi because it also has a tower that leans? That does not seem like good advice, especially as you could go to Bologna instead of Pisa if all you care about are leaning towers. Pisa is quite pleasant away from the throng around the tower too.

I am also unsure about not visiting Iceland because tourism and instead going to New Zealand which has its own tourism issues.

I am totally with the travel as a perspective changer though. I spent a year in Australia, which is culturally fairly similar to the UK in the grand scheme of things, and it was still different enough to make me see home anew. It’s not necessarily about “life is terrible for people elsewhere” as much experiencing a bit of how what seem like small changes in values can change the way people live and how places are set up. The food culture in Italy is a great example of this I think. In a country as large and diverse as the US I imagine you don’t need to go abroad to see some of that but it a thing to be somewhere that starts from a different shared history.
posted by mr_stru at 3:51 AM on June 23, 2018


In my hiking days, I enjoyed Mammoth in the off-season and Tuolumne Meadows (the east end of Yosemite). It was grand and a little scary (in a nice way) to feel alone in the great, big world.

This No list makes my heart ache. I would love to visit these places, but for all the damn people...!
posted by SPrintF at 3:57 AM on June 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


Why don't gulf countries ever show up on lists like these, given how oppressive their authoritarian regimes are and how many human rights violations they have?
posted by svenkatesh at 5:17 AM on June 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


I have Honduran friends who have gotten hijacked in Honduras by the police and then had to pay trumped up lawyer's fees. They are not queer, but in Honduras anything goes.
posted by DJZouke at 6:19 AM on June 23, 2018


I was struck by the very big difference between the objectives of the 2017 and the 2018 lists. The 2017 list is more cheerful travel guide advice: "Hey, here's a list of places that are sort of overrated; here's underrated, similar destinations!"

The 2018 list is saying, "Here's some places that may be unethical for you to visit this year."

It's a big difference, and I think justifies some of the confusion people are having with listings like London and Pisa.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:58 AM on June 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm surprised some people were so het up by this list. I think it's doing a valuable service. The intent clearly does not seem to be to try and stop people from traveling to particular places, but rather to encourage people to recognize that: a) places are not static and there are good and bad times to go; b) the sociopolitical moment a place is experiencing matters and should be taken into account; and c) your presence in a place affects that place and maybe not always in a good way. The list, such as it is, is a list of talking points to encourage people to take these points into consideration.

They're asking you to be thoughtful travellers.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:20 AM on June 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


Sorry, I’m a knitwear designer with a deep and abiding love for sheep and I finally was able to afford to go to Iceland and meet ALL the sheep and buy ALL the yarn and stay on beautiful farms with nice people and dogs and barn cats and it was WONDERFUL. (Not to mention swooning over the warp weighted loom in the National Museum). We aren’t all there to buy puffin magnets and drink overpriced beer.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:11 PM on June 23, 2018 [4 favorites]


I went traveling to places where the dollar goes far recently. After studying history and then reading metafilter for a bunch of years since I last really went traveling abroad much. And I looked around at the poverty, and at my privilege, exposed like a log lifted up to see what lives within, and I thought about things some more. After a couple months, I reached two simplified conclusions:

1. Fair trade and direct trade are bare minimums. It’s paying someone what their time and effort and resources are worth, and does not address the basic inequalities that persist.

2. Reparations. Should be done on governmental scale (military budget, I’m looking at you), but barring that, individual reparations. (Not sure how the mechanics of this work, but I heard of a guy literally handing out money at a transit station in North Portland.)
posted by aniola at 4:45 PM on June 23, 2018 [2 favorites]


You are not going to save the world by not flying, because you will not save the world period. It's far too late for individual, consumer-scale actions like that. So you might as well see the things you want to see in this lifetime, before either they or you disappear forever.

I find this to be an incredibly depressing if not dangerously eschatological and binary world view.

It's not about saving the world as an individual, but living my life in a way that aligns with my values because it brings me somewhat more peace.

By your logic we shouldn't bother with not littering or reducing individual plastic use. We might as well party like it's 1999, because there's no future. We might as well just go get ours, because who cares if it's there in the future or not? Well, the bank account is almost empty, might as well spend the last of it on cigs and lottery scratchers, eh?

I wonder if this is what someone was thinking when the last dodo died? "Oh well, might as well enjoy it and make a hat out of it."

To think that your individual choices and actions don't have results and consequences seems to be a rather toxic and destructive way to think about life and one's place on this planet.

I can't help but notice that a lot of the pushback I'm getting in this thread is pretty similar to a lot of the general pushback I get when I try to bring up this topic to my progressive friends that fly a lot.

It still seems like a lot of complicated justification for a luxury leisure activity.

And, again, this isn't about travel or journeys or learning from other cultures - all this stuff is great.

This is about cheap and dirty jet travel and it's hidden costs that are often ignored or brushed under a rug by people that I know and love that I would think would be more mindful of.
posted by loquacious at 6:34 PM on June 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Sorry, I’m a knitwear designer with a deep and abiding love for sheep and I finally was able to afford to go to Iceland and meet ALL the sheep and buy ALL the yarn and stay on beautiful farms with nice people and dogs and barn cats and it was WONDERFUL. (Not to mention swooning over the warp weighted loom in the National Museum). We aren’t all there to buy puffin magnets and drink overpriced beer.

No need to take it so personally, bitter-girl.com. Nowhere did I imply that Iceland should become the next North Korea or Turkmenistan wrt allowing in outsiders.

But speaking as a citizen who has watched tourism grow from a trickle a decade ago to three times the population of the island (this is not an exaggeration -- an island of 330k has had over 1m visitors in recent calendar years), the number of visitors is unsustainable and is turning the island into a Disneyland for the hordes of tourists and causing serious long term/possibly irreparable damage to very fragile ecosystems. And this doesn't even take into consideration the effects on locals, who are unable to visit their own natural wonders without dealing with queues/littering/people disrespecting the environment and finding it nearly impossible to live in the central areas of Reykjavík due to all the housing being eaten up by tourism. And most visitors don't think about these things, because they're too concerned with their own entitlement, of enjoying themselves on their own terms and having the experience they want to have and griping about their overpriced beers without thinking of the effects of their actions or why those prices are as high as they are.

I used to love to travel, and tried to do so responsibly. But after seeing the damage tourism inflicts in my backyard I've started to align far more with loquacious' attitudes toward it. The rise of budget airfares, travel blogging and the like has made travelling even cooler and trendier, and loads of people are doing it 'just because', and not out of a real interest or desire to see the places they're visiting. I can't tell you the number of people I've dealt with in Iceland who are only there because they saw a TV show about it or read a NYT article about how it's one of the 10 places you have to visit before you die, who have little interest in the actual place and expectations that don't align with reality, and I'd imagine it's the same for many other locations on these lists.

I would love to be able to tell you that this is changing in Iceland and it's not as overwhelming anymore, but I moved away a few years ago, in part because it was exhausting to feel under siege every time I walked out my front door, and I personally know a few other people who have made the same decision. I won't be moving back to my home unless the tourist numbers decrease. I had to spend a few days in Barcelona last year and couldn't even enjoy it; all I could think about was 7m tourists a year and what that must make daily life like for Barcelonians. I have real trouble with simple pleasure travel now because I've seen it from the other side.
posted by myotahapea at 5:42 AM on June 25, 2018 [3 favorites]


svenkatesh: "Why don't gulf countries ever show up on lists like these, given how oppressive their authoritarian regimes are and how many human rights violations they have?"

Those sorts of countries rarely feature on American Bucket tourism lists. Maybe it's different in Europe where distance is less of an issue but the featured list is pretty US centric (what with it's call out of a specific US State rather than the country and Cuba being on the list for reasons that only applied to Americans in the first place).
posted by Mitheral at 6:09 PM on June 25, 2018


I had to spend a few days in Barcelona last year and couldn't even enjoy it; all I could think about was 7m tourists a year and what that must make daily life like for Barcelonians.

Barcelona is notable because they currently have an influx of tourists and an influx of immigrants, and Barcelonians are, reportedly, furious over the tourism but largely delighted with the migration.
posted by Merus at 6:28 PM on June 25, 2018


Re: Barcelona
In 1990 the city received 1.7 million tourists; last year the figure was 32 million – roughly 20 times the resident population.

Damn. I had read 7m/yr somewhere ... frightening to think the actual number is nearly five times the one I already thought was horrifyingly high.

Residents say the sensation is of being under occupation. It’s this that gives Barcelonans the sense of displacement, that their city and its identity are being stolen from them, making them little more than extras on the set of their own city – a sensation that not even large-scale immigration has provoked.

This is painfully familiar.
posted by myotahapea at 4:45 AM on June 26, 2018


« Older The first glimpse of Kubrick’s genius   |   robot security system Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments