The Madding Crowds of High-Season Travel

You’ve probably seen that iconic Santorini photo in which a young couple smiles for a romantic sunset selfie overlooking the Greek Island’s white and blue homes —as hundreds of other visitors do just the same thing.

It’s summer high season again, and travel hotspots across Europe and beyond are feeling the heat of tourist overcrowding. In Santorini, the irony is that while the island throngs with visitors into the early evening, it’s rather quiet once the cruise ships set sail as darkness falls.

Some 16,000 cruise ship passengers visit the 29-square-mile island every day. Along with Mykonos, another popular Greek destination, the two islands have become victims of their popularity, with unchecked tourism eroding the serene beauty that attracted so many in the first place.

It’s a problem that’s gotten so bad the mayor of Santorini has proposed cutting the number of cruise ship visitors in half. This sort of overcrowding is upending travel plans and souring countless vacations not just in Greece, but all over the world.

A friend traveling around Italy recently got off the train in Florence only to immediately hop on the next one out of town after seeing throngs of loud guided tour groups crowding the city center.

One Bolognese writer has begun describing her hometown as “tourist hell,” in the wake of Bologna’s surging popularity of late due in large part to growing appreciation for the city’s famed mortadella.

Efforts to curb visitor numbers in Venice have proved unsuccessful, and a cap placed on the number of people who can join guided tours has predictably resulted in an explosion of tour groups, which now bump into each other on the city’s many narrow allies and bridges. Meanwhile, Venice’s peak popularity is driving out more locals than ever.

You’re likely aware of these examples, but what’s more surprising is that much the same is happening even in remote, little-known gems. Since being named Turkey’s happiest town some years ago, the charming Black Sea city of Sinop has been inundated with visitors every August.

When I passed through last week, the constant car noise and traffic in the center lasted well into the evening. Residents complained of inadequate lodgings and services to support the crush of visitors. Dozens of tourists have taken to camping out in random open spaces or sleeping in their cars. Many who come from neighboring provinces leave the same day because there’s nowhere to stay.  

Another one is Kotor, Montenegro’s lovely Adriatic port. Multiple daily cruise ships disgorge thousands of visitors, leading to loitering crowds throughout its Medieval city center. Travel writer Sean Thomas Knox visited in late June and could barely move. Alongside the below photo, he jokingly said on X that Kotor “now enchants 4 million American tourists every 15 minutes. Approximately.”

Hopefully someday local governments will find a way to regulate visitor numbers to ensure a happy medium. For now, we need to find ways to enjoy peak-summer travel despite rampant overtourism. One obvious strategy for travelers is to seek out less popular destinations. Dozens of other Greek islands, like Crete, Lesbos, and Chios, for instance, are lovely but uncrowded, even in mid-August. Already, bookings for Scandinavian destinations have seen an uptick this summer as more vacationers seek to avoid the heat and crowds of southern Europe’s hotspots.

Another smart move is to limit mid-day activities, when crowds are at their peak. A third is to avoid the most popular spots at the most popular times, like the Louvre in the afternoon, or a certain Santorini hillside at sunset. Taking the road less traveled might not be ideal, but in late-summer high season, it just may be the best way to ensure a more relaxing journey. And isn’t that the point of vacation?

Paul Osterlund