Overcrowding on Beaches of Sardinia and Sicilyhttps://www.cnn.com/travel/article/italian-beaches-daily-cap-on-visitors-summer

[Hlitner]

Beach lovers (which include me) are now facing restrictions in some popular beach locations of Italy.  As life-long independent travelers, DW and I will often seek out beautiful beaches (generally far away from cruise ship tours).  But like other places in Italy (i.e. Venice, Cinque Terre, etc) overtourism coupled with local popularity has resulted in various authorities imposing restrictions.   Here is a link to an interesting article about some of the problem:

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/italian-beaches-daily-cap-on-visitors-summer/index.html

 

We have previously posted about the overtourism problem which is sometimes made much worse by the presence of huge cruise ships.  One of the best examples are the five villages of Cinque Terre, which have long been a popular day destination for many in the area.  But, when the authorities allowed large ships to stop at nearby La Spezia, what had been a problem became almost untenable.    For beach lovers, the situation is even more acute on some of the popular Greek Islands.  A couple of years ago we drove over to a popular beach on Naxos, and by 11am the place was packed with so many visitors that there were no more available sunbeds.  This is also a problem at a few of the most popular beaches on Mykonos where, on a busy day, it can be difficult to rent a sunbed without an advance reservation.   Many places can no longer handle the larger ships (many with over 4000 souls) and when they get 2 or 3 of these mega-ships the situation becomes acutely uncomfortable.  

 

It is difficult to see a short-term solution to overtourism.  Consider that MSC Cruises (which is major player in the Med) has over 20 ships that are constantly visiting the most popular destinations.  US-based companies like RCI, Celebrity, and RCI, are now sending some of their largest ships to these same ports.  When we are on cruise ships, we join the hoards (although we often go off on our own to lesser visited places).  But when we are doing long driving trips, we deliberately seek out places not visited (or within daytrip range) of cruise ships.  

 

Now that COVID is in the rear mirror, the anti-cruiseship groups are again flexing their muscles.  It is happening in the USA (Charleston, Bar Harbor, Key West, etc) and Europe (Venice, Cinque Terre, Santorini, etc) and in parts of the Caribbean.  The big cruise corporations have responded by helping develop some ports (so they can handle more ships) which inevitably will lead to more restrictions as locals push back against overtourism.

 

On a recent HAL cruise, we met a gentleman who founded one of the most popular series of tour books (he has sold out his interest).  When DW asked him his favorite place to visit, he thought for a few minutes and finally replied "Chad."  Interesting that the man whose books have helped cause overtourism in many places would choose an unpopular tourist country as his current favorite place.

 

Hank

[euro cruiser]

It's not going to be easy or popular to come up with solutions but something must be done.  In addition to the crowding issues, short-term rentals are pricing the middle class out of many places, meaning that what used to be functioning towns are becoming more like Disneyland - they look pretty but no one actually lives there.

 

Venice is probably the most obvious example of this but you can see it in several parts of Italy.