[jihadjihad]

You see the same thing in Yellowstone--inattentive Instagrammers with selfie sticks hoping to snap the perfect pic next to the wildlife and scenery. Nothing quite as real as being scalded by a hot spring when you're used to viewing the world through a screen.

[growlist]

Mass tourism has ruined travel for me.

[merpnderp]

Try Yellowstone in the summer if you want ruined. Non-stop traffic jams, trash everywhere, random punk kids carving crap into every tree on a path they meet, and nearly every tree seems to have carvings scraped off it multiple times.

[driverdan]

Why? There are millions of places to visit, the vast majority of which are nearly empty. You don't have to go to the big name locations, there are plenty of others that aren't crowded.

[growlist]

But the unspoilt places inevitably require more effort both upfront and whilst there. The holiday starts to become more like work than relaxation!

[mrhappyunhappy]

If and when I go somewhere, I try to go in off season. And if there is no such thing as off season for a place, I just avoid it.

[growlist]

Yeah. Much of the 'real world' is turning into something like a Center Parks (if you know of it) experience, where what we believe to be reality is nothing of the sort. At least some trips are immune though, like a tropical chill out on the beach. It's the long dreamed of trip to Florence, for example, that is likely to be marred.

[icelandthrthw]

This comment made me realise why this thread gave me an uneasy feeling. It's not being upset about people travelling, it's being upset about the wrong people travelling for the wrong reasons. I don't see why your long-dreamed of trip is more virtuous than one someone chose because they saw a nice picture on social media.

[justaguyhere]

Same everywhere. I still remember going to the NY ball drop new year's eve - all I could see was camera flashes, hundreds of them every second. It was disgusting. I was one of the very few people who wanted to see stuff with naked eye :(

Do these super talented artistic photographers see the photos they take, even once, after they have taken it?

[tomxor]

> Do these super talented artistic photographers see the photos they take, even once, after they have taken it?

Nope, similarly the affect of using cameras in museums has been studied before. In real life it's pretty blatantly obvious that 99% of people don't go to museums and galleries for their interest any more, it's all about being pretentious and shoving as many pictures on facebook as possible so their friends think they are cultured. every time I go there are people who never look away from their phone, just take a picture, next, take a picture, next... all the way.

I find it difficult not to be disgusted by it. If all they really wanted was a picture they could have bought a book far more easily, but they don't want a picture, and they aren't interested, they just want to put it on facebook.

I try to ignore them but they often try to make you get out of the way for their important pictures of EVERYTHING if you dare to appreciate something with your actual eyeballs for more than 20 seconds.

Ok enough this thread is not helping my attitude towards people.

[magduf]

I take tons of photos when I go on vacation in a foreign country, but I don't put them on Facebook. I do put them on Google Photos so interested people (who I specifically invite) can look at them if they choose. (GP also has some convenient features, like being able to add descriptions/commentary to each photo, and being able to see on a map where it was taken.)

Getting a photo book wouldn't help me though. I like to take photos of many things that tourist photos don't show: random city streets, bicycles, vending machines, cars, graffiti, other tourists, locals, shopping districts, residential districts, trains, signs, Apple stores, grocery stores, etc. I like to try to capture what life is really like in a place, good and bad, and a book of tourist photos isn't going to show you that.

[tomxor]

> I like to take photos of many things that tourist photos don't show: random city streets, bicycles, vending machines, cars, graffiti, other tourists, locals, shopping districts, residential districts, trains, signs, Apple stores, grocery stores, etc. I like to try to capture what life is really like in a place, good and bad, and a book of tourist photos isn't going to show you that.

That's great, it's good to take photos like that as a tourist and I wouldn't judge anyone taking photos of any kind in that whole category. But to be clear, i'm talking about something quite different, they are not photos, they are just an extension of social network selfies, "proof I was here", it's about excessive concern with self-image and nothing else - when taken to the extreme in the ways I so commonly see now, it has absolutely no relation to how one takes a genuine photo to capture happy moments, personally unique interests etc when visiting or exploring. These other people have become the extremities of a robot feeding an algorithm.

[justaguyhere]

Many tourists have zero respect for local culture, people, environment etc - no wonder cities around the world are getting annoyed. We live in wonderful times, with travel being so accessible. If we are a bit responsible and respectful, travel can be a fantastic experience - but no, we have to abuse it, as with every nice thing in life. This might come off as bitter but it is also true, so I understand when you say this thread isn't helping your (our) attitude towards people.

[prawn]

Yes, my kids and I often go back through my travel photos and reminisce. They are almost all on Instagram (plus a local copy). We’re not climbing over safety ropes to pose though.

Think of photography in that situation like a hobby, just like people might want to learn programming languages or whatever. There’s a personal sport to it - challenging yourself to get a great shot or document what you’ve seen. Each to their own.

[justaguyhere]

The difference is we aren't disturbing anyone while learning programming languages - the biggest nuisance I can think of is a newbie writing wrong/out-of-date tutorials on the web. Whereas photography by its very nature can be super annoying to others - you have to be polite and wait for some dumb tourist is taking a photo of his girlfriend, you can't enjoy anything in peace with flashes going off all around etc.

[magduf]

>you have to be polite and wait for some dumb tourist is taking a photo of his girlfriend

Actually, you don't: I usually just take a picture of them taking the photo of the girlfriend.

As for flashes, these days with everyone using their smartphones, the phones are smart enough to usually not activate the flash when you're outside. It's not as bad as the "old days" when I used to see dumb tourists with disposable film cameras taking flash photos of the Grand Canyon at night, thinking somehow they were going to light up the entire canyon.

[icebraining]

Why was it disgusting? Were they thrashing something, like those in the article?

[justaguyhere]

Because I couldn't see anything, all I could see were flashes every direction around me.

And yeah, trashing is a never ending issue. You should see the early morning clean up at Times Square, on new year's day - it is quite a sight

[ljcn]

https://xkcd.com/1314/

[tomxor]

Except in this case there is a very good reason to care how other people enjoy their experiences.

[tomxor]

LOL, if you consider me a twat for caring how other people enjoy their experiences when it is responsible for polluting nature, then so be it - fuck you very much.

[Spooky23]

Definitely the downside of cheap travel.

When I was young, my grandparents had a little un-winterized summer cottage in upstate NY in an area that was still pretty active with NYC metro area tourists... basically boorish and annoying people swarming everywhere. ("Hey, look at the cow! Moo! <throws rock at cow> Why don't you mooo!") That isn't a thing now anymore, and of course the folks like from every city globally venture off to Mexico, the DR, and various nature-y places now.

Yuck.