Tourism Is Overwhelming the World's Top Destinations
In one of David Foster Wallace&#x27;s essays[0] I read when I was younger he said:<p>&gt; To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience, It is to impose yourself on places that in all non-economic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.<p>That has always stuck with me and made me realize the delicate and potentially destructive nature of being a tourist.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;harpers.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2008&#x2F;09&#x2F;HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;harpers.org&#x2F;wp-content&#x2F;uploads&#x2F;2008&#x2F;09&#x2F;HarpersMagazi...</a><p>Edit: I misremembered which essay this quote was from. It is actually in a footnote on page 3 of this one <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.columbia.edu&#x2F;~col8&#x2F;lobsterarticle.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.columbia.edu&#x2F;~col8&#x2F;lobsterarticle.pdf</a><p>Leaving the original link up because it is still a great read about some of the potential horrors of mass tourism.