One of the most contentious travel issues of the year, overcrowded travel destinations have been in the headlines throughout 2024, whether because locals are trying to reclaim cities for local people or because their infrastructure is quite literally straining under the pressure of too many crowds, too often.
News events and supporting data suggest that there are many overcrowded tourist destinations where it might be best to rethink travel plans, and many of these are on Fodor’s ‘No List’ 2025, which suggests 15 destinations where it might be best to think twice before booking.
Overcrowded Travel Destinations —European Places Where The Locals Had Enough of Overtourism In 2024 (But Not Of Tourists)
2024 was the biggest year yet of news coverage at popular European tourist sites against perceived overtourism, starting early in April 2024 when Barcelona took a bus route off a tourist map because it was overrun with tourists heading to the second-most visited site in the city, the Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell. One local joked that the next step might be to take the park off the map, too.
Site after site followed, announcing plans to reduce tourism, from Italy’s Lake Como touting the idea of an entry fee, residents of Spain’s Canary Islands planning a hunger strike, and Amsterdam announcing a ban on new hotels, only giving the go-ahead on a one-out, one-in basis and only if there was a perceived sustainable improvement on what existed before.
By peak season in July 2024, things reached a head in many European places. Locals sprayed tourists with water guns in Barcelona, holding ‘Go Home’ banners, and the mayor announced plans to ban Airbnb by 2028. Under a real fear of forest fires and water shortages brought on by the climate crisis, the Greek island of Santorini banned construction. Water shortages account for a 50% decrease in wine production on the tourist island favorite, bringing the local wine economy to a low. Shortly after, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced plans to restrict cruise ships as of 2025 to some of the most popular Greek islands.
In France, the island of Bréhat in Brittany in the north of France reintroduced a morning quota to control overtourism. It was Florence’s turn shortly after, as a tourist caused an uproar by performing lewd acts on a statue of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and excess, with locals crying that the ancient city was more akin to Disneyland and arrests should increase against the rising tide of visiting tourists.
Many European cities considered tourist caps, as was instigated in Japan at Mount Fuji, and the new tourist entry fee in Venice proved to be enough of a success to continue and expand throughout 2025.
Popular tourist destinations were similarly overwhelmed across the English Channel. St Ives in Cornwall, known for its artsy vibe, housing painters, craftspeople, and fishermen, lost its seasonal balance. Empty as a ghost town in winter but overwhelmed with wall-to-wall tourists in summer, its infrastructure creaks under pressure.
After being named by The New York Times as one of the Best Places To Visit In 2024, the national park Bannau Brycheiniog in Wales, long held as a secret favorite by locals and its predominant sheep population, was overrun. Just 30 miles north of the Welsh capital, Cardiff, authorities were forced to put on extra buses and tour guides to cope with the 4 million visitors. Moreover, park officials had to ask the mass of influencers arriving to create content to adhere to ‘countryside morals’ and not strip down in the waterfalls to take selfies or treat the park like a beach. Many arrived in the national park known for its changeable weather and remote locales in flip-flops and bathing suits.
Indeed, in many places, the response was as much about asking tourists to behave as it was to reduce numbers. Spain launched a campaign to ask visitors (notably British) to act as they would at home, to put on their clothes when not on the beach, and not sing loudly in residential streets in the early morning hours if they wouldn’t do so in their own countries.
The animosity in these places is as much economic as practical, whether it’s the waste left by departing tourists off cruise ships, the disrespectful behavior from Batchelor parties (heavily reported in Prague), the reduced access to local sites for locals or the lack of access to affordable housing as landlords choose to rent potential homes by the night instead of by the year to earn increased revenue.
Europe is the continent warming the fastest, so the environmental impacts of tourism are very real, and many cruise operators are now choosing to head to the Caribbean instead of Europe, partly due to overcrowding.
Fodor’s ‘No List’ singled out 5 places:
- Barcelona
- Mallorca
- The Canary Islands
- Venice
- Lisbon
These are all defined by Fodor as the places in Europe “where locals don’t want you.”
Overcrowded Travel Destinations 2025—Fodor’s Perennial ‘No List’ Of Overcrowded Places
Fodor’s placed three main travel destinations for 2025 on a No List for tourists to visit next year: Bali, Koh Samui, and Mount Everest. In most cases, there is an urgent need for adequate waste management for the millions of arrivals.
Bali, Indonesia—A Lack Of Waste Management Strains Locals’ Quality of Life
Bali is almost back to receiving pre-pandemic levels of travelers—5.3 million in 2023 compared to 6.3 million in 2019, and 2024 figures look likely to be higher when all told.
The issue is around waste infrastructure, where quite literally the island is piled high with rubbish–it generates 303,000 tons of plastic waste each year, but only 7% is recycled, in what NGOs on the ground are calling a “plastic apocalypse.” Natural areas are disappearing, and the water is polluted, mostly from industry, mining, agriculture, aquaculture, and domestic wastewater.
Koh Samui, Thailand—A Victim Of The White Lotus’ Success?
The island of Koh Samui is only 95 miles wide but had 3.4 million visitors in 2023, which increased by 10-20% in 2024.
Thailand’s Tourist Authority expects 1.56 million foreign travelers to visit the country throughout 2025–a 16% increase on 2023, and Chase Travel is already reporting that 2025 bookings are up 22% year-on-year.
Once again, the problem is the issue of waste disposal. Notably, 180-200 tons of trash are added daily without a proper way to treat it—much of it sits in a large landfill without a long-term solution. The issue will likely explode after the third season of The White Lotus airs (Sicily’s tourism soared by 50% after season two was set on its Italian coastline).
Mount Everest—Unchecked Climbing Permits Disrupts Fragile Ecosystems
Mount Everest has long had an issue with overtourism, but with the main obstacle to ascent now being money rather than skill, anyone who pays can go, getting locals to carry all the gear and taking all the risks.
58,000 people visit annually, and visitors to the Sagarmatha National Park, which contains Mount Everest, have doubled in the past 25 years.
The issue is that travelers generate 1,742 pounds of poop and other rubbish each day, with authorities struggling to remove it. Currently, there are no limits to climbing permits, so this increasingly fragile ecosystem is under threat.
Overcrowded Travel Destinations 2025— Destinations That Are Beginning To Suffer From Overtourism
There is another category of places on Fodor’s ‘No List’ for 2025: those where destinations are starting to suffer from overtourism. There are seven places on this list:
- Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
- British Virgin Islands
- Kerala, India
- Kyoto, Japan
- Tokyo, Japan
- Oaxaca, Mexico
- Scotland North Coast 500
Agrigento will be the Italian Capital of Culture in 2025, and suffering a severe water crisis, the British Virgin Islands possibly has too many cruise arrivals for local resources to keep up, and Kerala has suffered devastating landslides and environmental degradation due to overdevelopment.
Fodor reports the term ‘Kankō kōgai,’ or ‘tourism pollution,’ has entered popular culture to explain the unease over the unchecked rise of tourists to Japan, where numbers are at unprecedented levels primarily due to tourists taking advantage of a weak yen.
Oaxacans in Mexico believe their local culture and customs are being commercialized, with English overtaking Spanish as the dominant language and one of Scotland’s most scenic road trip routes, the North Coast 500 through the North Highlands is congested, and lacking facilities–leading to visitors wild camping leaving behind “campfire scorch marks, trash, disposable grills, and even human feces in their wake.”
Many of these places on Fodor’s List that appear to be suffering from overtourism have recently topped travel lists for 2025. The Canary Islands and Japan were both named on Bloomberg’s Where To Go In 2025. And Japan, Spain, and Greece were featured highly in CNTraveler’s 2024 Readers’ Choice Awards for the 20 Best Countries in the World.
The issue of overcrowding is complex, often because these regions rely on the economic prosperity that tourism brings. Still, many have infrastructure that cannot cope, notably with the waste produced. But it’s also about local access to local resources, which has hit a wall in many of the large European cities, with local protests increasing in scale, and methods. Laws to curb visitors are more and more likely into 2025 and beyond to control overcrowded tourist destinations.
