Bucket lists are ruining tourist hotspots – here’s where to go instead

In case you are thinking about your next holiday.

Forget the Taj Mahal and head for Orchha, as well as other lesser-known locations, to help prevent popular destinations getting overrun

I first noticed the phenomenon in Seville cathedral. A tour group trailing behind an umbrella-wielding guide were put on the spot. Quite literally. The guide pointed to a particular flagstone and said: “This is where you take your picture.” And they all did. And the next group, too.
That was before Instagram and the trend for bucket lists, so I don’t think either of these can be entirely to blame for the threat to some of the world’s most popular tourist sites, as a new Abta survey has suggested. Instead, they have simply exaggerated a human trait to the point where those favoured sites can no longer cope.
The US national parks have always had a neat way of protecting their real treasures: no roads, no waymarkers, often not even any recognisable footpaths. On one recent trip, I visited Crater Lake, Oregon, and felt the great hole we had come to see might have been filled with all the tour buses. A few days later, I trekked out into the Sawtooth Mountains wilderness area in Idaho and for three days didn’t see another human. The scenery was better, too.
For every Instagram honey pot, there are dozens of alternatives – here are just a few:

Click here to read the article with wonderful alternatives for packed sights:
The_Guardian - alternative to tourists hotspots