One of 2024’s Travel Trends Is Tourist Shaming. Here’s How to Avoid It.

“I’ve never seen more dog feces unpicked up, people going off route and trampling sensitive areas, Bluetooth-enabled speakers blaring out of backpacks, and Disney-like lines on sections of trails,” says Jim Deters, founder of the Gravity Haus hotels, which are located in more than a half dozen mountain towns across the West.

One of Deter’s goals with his properties is to provide visitors a truly local experience by creating an environment where they can mingle with residents—not just be served by them at a bar or restaurant. “We are the local’s gym, coworking space, and coffee shop,” says Deters. Sharing advice tends to happen organically in these settings.

Kayla Applebay, a resident and business owner in Leavenworth, Washington, says she won’t go to the rivers on summer weekends because tourists turn them into tube-clogged waterways. “You see people walking on salmon habitat, leaving trash everywhere,” she says. “Last summer a car caught on fire, and emergency services couldn’t access it because people had parked illegally.”

The town acted. In 2022, it launched a cheeky campaign called Give a Schnitzel (Leavenworth is known for its Bavarian heritage and Oktoberfest) to educate visitors on how to recreate responsibly. It also hired volunteer recreation ambassadors who post up at trailheads or river put-ins and take-outs, fielding questions and explaining rules. “They’ve probably saved quite a few lives by telling people to unleash from their paddleboards on the rapids,” says Troy Campbell, executive director of the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce.

The upshot is: educate yourself on the area you’re going to. What’s happening there right now? What are locals concerned about? Keep up to date with issues by reading local news sites and magazines, visiting a local outdoor store and asking questions, or joining a local group-cycling ride or trail run.

If you screw up, always give a heartfelt apology. In Hawaiian culture, kids are taught Pa’a ka waha, ho’olohe ka pepeaio, nana ka maka, or “Shut your mouth, listen, watch,” says Kainoa Horcajo, a Maui-based cultural consultant. “This is how you can learn how to get along, how to fit in—and how to be a good tourist, citizen, human.”

Book Your Trip in the Offseason or a Shoulder Season

When you travel during these slower times, not only do you help reduce overcrowding but you’re also likely to have a more enjoyable experience and find better prices and more patient locals, says Amanda Ho, co-founder of Regenerative Travel, a booking platform with a collective of independently owned eco-hotels.

Spring, fall, and winter are good seasons to consider traveling to national parks and other popular places.

Stay and Play with Locally Owned Businesses

When you can be selective with the accommodations, tour guides, and experiences you’re booking, says Ho, it ensures your dollars are supporting residents as often as possible. Many locals’ livelihoods depend on tourism, so avoid big-box stores and chain restaurants in favor of eating and shopping at resident-owned places.

Some Other Rules to Travel By

• Don’t hold up traffic. This holds true from Manhattan to Maui. When you want to take photos, find an appropriate place for it that doesn’t slow down pedestrian or street traffic.

• Don’t create your own parking spaces. The lines are there for public safety and environmental protection. In Lake Tahoe, which straddles the California-Nevada border, illegal parking can create erosion and that runoff often ends up in the lake.

• Don’t use other people’s property as a bathroom. Would you want your kids to see a grown man’s behind poking out of the trees of your yard?

• Don’t go off-trail. It can disturb flora and fauna and pose safety risks to yourself.

• Don’t approach wildlife. Not the bison in our national parks or whales or dolphins while boating or snorkeling.

• Don’t geotag popular natural attractions on social media. It may be tempting to social-boast about your epic vacation, but a viral post can ruin a destination with Instagram-obsessed crowds.

• Don’t be rude to service workers. They’re employed to make your time safe and more enjoyable. Insulting them is about as inconsiderate as it gets.

Remember That Tourism Destinations Are Fragile

Yes, many economies depend on tourism, but too much of it is bad for everyone. Overcrowding adversely affects both locals and tourists, and in the long run it can ruin the natural beauty that made a destination desirable in the first place.

Todd Montgomery, who in addition to working for Visit Bend is the director of Oregon State University’s Sustainable Tourism Lab (which describes itself as “protecting tourist destinations for future generations of visitors and tourists”), got his start working for the mega-resort conglomerate Starwood Capital Group, where he was tasked with finding the next “it” destination in Southeast Asia between 1999 and 2006.

He and his colleagues would go into rural areas, promising the positive economic benefits of tourism to locals, only to have those areas “burn out” on visitation years later.

Initially, he says, travelers “paid for the culture and nature, but when that became diluted as the result of too many visitors, they weren’t inclined to pay as much,” he says. The visitor experience was negatively affected, but the destination also suffered from some combination of environmental damages, infrastructure wear and tear, and cultural damages, resulting in economic, social and environmental costs.

“Back then we assumed there was always another next destination,” Montgomery says. “If Phuket [in Thailand] got overrun, we’d go farther south. The reality was that there are only so many next destinations. You can’t have a turn-and-burn mentality. You have to protect places.” How do we do that, I ask him?

“It feels cliché,” he tells me, “but it starts with education.” 

Travel-advice columnist Jen Murphy wishes she could charge people a fee every time they try to take a selfie with a turtle on the beaches in Maui or a mountain goat while hiking in Colorado.