These ATMs are plenty useful for contributing to the local money laundering industry. More signals are unlisted prices, fading storefronts, fluorescent lights. Read more about what’s happening in London https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/oxford-street-candy-sho...
It’s not about scamming tourists at its core, it’s about avoiding electronic banking networks and pulling cash back into the system.
A lot of the London candy store thing is about not paying the very expensive business rates to the council. They are all owned by foreign controlled companies which just go bust come enforcement time.
Briefly put, it’s not just the ATMs but the shops who launder. No prices makes it easy to lie about intake cash (revenue) which is part real revenue and part dirty cash. Then cook books for costs to extract clean cash.
A bit elitist? "Ugly mass tourism places" are there because weather is good, location is convenient, one of a kind landmarks, it's easy to get food and supplies for the whole family and so on. Yes, it's going to be expensive and not super authentic. But not everyone can take a month off to live like a local. If I only have one day cruise ship stop in Mallorca and I have to pay 60 euro fee to get cash, it's still preferable to missing out on a nice dinner or something to take home to remember the trip.
The subtext here is that some people hate it when the poor can enjoy things. I know it sounds like a joke and that it's hard to believe, but that's what's happening.
Huh? It's the less wealthy in particular who benefit the most from choosing paths less traveled, finding places to eat where the food doesn't carry a 2x or 3x tourist markup and the ATMs are not rigged to scam you. Often these paths are literally a quarter hour away from the worst tourist traps.
I have wondered is there actually anything wrong with mass tourism? Wouldn't properly build for tourism destinations actually be overall better option? As long as they do not become over relied on. At least if we must have tourism and do not ban it altogether...
Mass tourism would allow optimization for environment and not to destroy areas that people actually work and live in. See the AirBnB effect for example. And in general the drug use and noise caused by them...
The thing is if you have to take the plane to get there you're already a major net negative for the environment, and that would get rid of most mass tourism places
We should live like our grandparents, a few (if any) big trips in your lifetime, everything else: in your country or close neighboring ones.
If you really want to reduce your carbon emissions you can start smoking, that will cut years off your life expectancy and, as a consequence, your lifetime carbon emissions.
Lots of people choose to go to tourist traps for their own reasons. You don't have to like what they like. Like many, I even go back to some "terribly" touristy places because it is what I wish to do.
I also do off-the-beaten-path travel as well. But I usually can't blend in as though I were a local. I also have the freedoms and restrictions usual to tourists.
Examples: I enjoy touristy Queenstown in my own country. I like Bali. Not a fan of Bangkok.
On-topic: Backpacker accommodation and number of hotels signal tourist areas. To avoid tourists, don't stay in convenient accommodation!
I was on cruise... I think that is beyond tourist trap.
In February I got trip to Canary Islands, because that was rather cheap. Pure tourism, but it is a vacation.
I have been to cities like Florence and London and more. Both tourist traps in essence.
Now that I think I don't think I have really gone to non-tourist trap place. As you know there is no flights or transport to such location which make it hard to visit...
You seem to be suggesting that by creating purpose-built mass-tourism destinations, tourists wouldn't continue to congregate in real places, where people live, shop and work.
I live in the centre of an attractive, old university town. We have druggies and dossers; typically, they don't have local accents (druggies and dossers seem to have their own accent, so perhaps that doesn't mean they're non-local).
But the streets around here are increasingly impassable, because of people taking photos (of anything) and blocking pedestrians, and columns of foreign language students 100-strong. These people don't come here because it's "properly built" for tourists; they come here because it's old and pretty.
To be fair, most of the tourists are daytrippers; they don't stay here overnight, and they don't spend much. Maybe they're only here because it's on the tour company list, and maybe it's because they want a selfie in front of $MONUMENT for their instagram feed.
IMO they'd get more out of their visit if they'd actually look at $MONUMENT in real life.
Having lived in Palma I can confirm that this is indeed a decent way to avoid the two nightmare tourist areas (and not just a population density, as the central Palma area would be larger).
I like this idea for proxy maps. Do the same for London with American candy stores
But the candy stores are in some popular places that are otherwise interesting to visit. Same as Angus Steakhouses. The winning move is to look at the sights but bring a packed lunch.
I had a wonderful trip in Thailand last year by doing two things: 1. roadtripping: I rented a motorcycle and chose a (relatively touristy) destination, but enjoyed the trip to get there over several days, during which I designed my own itinerary and stopped to look at the countriside and visit small towns. 2. I designed the itinerary while avoiding Lonely Planet and the like. By now everybody uses that and goes to the same places. Instead, to my surprise, I found that Google Maps makes a great guide. You can click on any places around an area, and see how they look like, whether they have hotels and cafés, if that temple over there is worth a look, if the view along that road is nice. For ANY town.
Yeah, strangely google (and more local tools like Openrice or Tabelog) is much better for finding good spots. Locals are more discerning, but if you don't speak the local language it can get difficult. Travelocity is almost the opposite since ratings are almost directly proportional to the ability to interact with (English speaking) foreigners.
Hmmm yeah. Google Travel used to provide very useful n-days itinerary on a city level, where it plans out, and shows on a map, the most efficient way to visit a city.
That feature seems to have been nuked and I’m sad.
I was helping my sister plan a trip recently and she asked how I was finding all these places to check out. I told her I just randomly pan around Google Maps and click stuff. She thought I had some super secret travel sites.
The mention of the presence of a Spar supermarket in Europe being a marker for overtouristed areas seems oddly area specific. In most European countries which have them these are bog-standard supermarkets.
Maybe I'm wrong but that's probably only true in DACH and maybe a couple other1 surrounding places. Outside that sphere, the rule does seem to apply that Spar is a mass tourist smell.
In .D(e) SPAR is dead. What can be seen labeled as SPAR, or Spar-Express, 'to go', or whatever, is operated by Edeka and is indeed catering to so called 'captive audiences' in airports, railway-/subway-/metro stations, little kiosks on platforms, gas-/fuel stations, and some larger locations in some downtowns, whose independent owners couldn't be bothered to 'reflag/relabel'. With the exception of the latter, they all have one thing in common: huge prices for common crap.
Was going to say the same thing. There’s zero correlation between touristy spots and Spar in Ireland, unless East Wall has suddenly become a tourist hot spot without me hearing about it
Expensive hotels, airport, American or pizza restaurants, guidebook with >3 editions, supermarkets instead of traditional markets, construction right up to the waterline, a 'bar street', a dense cluster of backpacker hostels, open drug dealing, monopoly lockdown on connecting transport (flight/bus/boat company), tourist behavior making international news, existence of mass-market souvenirs, a 'tourist police' department, dance clubs, high end ice cream chain stores.
Readit News
It’s not about scamming tourists at its core, it’s about avoiding electronic banking networks and pulling cash back into the system.
Disclaimer: Amsterdammer…
They are not much of a guide to bad areas, for example American Candyland (bad) is opposite Selfridges (popular). Streetview: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.514156,-0.1516145,3a,75y,1...
They get a clean €101 when someone makes a withdrawal, and the tourist has no problem spending the money.
They are scam but not for money laundering. Just scam.
So it's beneficial to society!
You make it sound like a good thing.
Wild.
Mass tourism would allow optimization for environment and not to destroy areas that people actually work and live in. See the AirBnB effect for example. And in general the drug use and noise caused by them...
We should live like our grandparents, a few (if any) big trips in your lifetime, everything else: in your country or close neighboring ones.
They exist for people who don’t want to actually experience anything unfamiliar when they travel.
Lots of people choose to go to tourist traps for their own reasons. You don't have to like what they like. Like many, I even go back to some "terribly" touristy places because it is what I wish to do.
I also do off-the-beaten-path travel as well. But I usually can't blend in as though I were a local. I also have the freedoms and restrictions usual to tourists.
Examples: I enjoy touristy Queenstown in my own country. I like Bali. Not a fan of Bangkok.
On-topic: Backpacker accommodation and number of hotels signal tourist areas. To avoid tourists, don't stay in convenient accommodation!
In February I got trip to Canary Islands, because that was rather cheap. Pure tourism, but it is a vacation.
I have been to cities like Florence and London and more. Both tourist traps in essence.
Now that I think I don't think I have really gone to non-tourist trap place. As you know there is no flights or transport to such location which make it hard to visit...
Mobility for hedonistic reasons therefore can only be worse.
I live in the centre of an attractive, old university town. We have druggies and dossers; typically, they don't have local accents (druggies and dossers seem to have their own accent, so perhaps that doesn't mean they're non-local).
But the streets around here are increasingly impassable, because of people taking photos (of anything) and blocking pedestrians, and columns of foreign language students 100-strong. These people don't come here because it's "properly built" for tourists; they come here because it's old and pretty.
To be fair, most of the tourists are daytrippers; they don't stay here overnight, and they don't spend much. Maybe they're only here because it's on the tour company list, and maybe it's because they want a selfie in front of $MONUMENT for their instagram feed.
IMO they'd get more out of their visit if they'd actually look at $MONUMENT in real life.
I like this idea for proxy maps. Do the same for London with American candy stores
That feature seems to have been nuked and I’m sad.
Therefore, all of Ireland is a ugly mass tourist place.
QED.