Over-Tourism: It's Not Your Fault

Travelling to places you're not wanted.

We spent my son’s spring break in Barbados. Despite hours of internet searches, research, and planning, it was kind of meh.

Yes, the water on the Caribbean side was a miraculous aquamarine blue—when it wasn’t an overheated bathtub choked with miles-long tendrils of baby-poop-brown sargassum seaweed.¹ Not a thing that came up in any of my travel investigations, by the way.

Sure, the sand was white and soft under our toes, but you couldn’t stay on the beach. After a few days of baking in the equatorial sun, the tons of washed-up seaweed started to rot and stink. And yet, the sargassum invasion wasn’t the worst thing about Barbados.

The worst thing was the Barbadians.

They hate you, and I don’t think a single Bajan (Barbadian) would take offence at me saying the hard part out loud. Based on direct experience, they have no problem sharing their strong feelings about participating in a service-based economy—directly, to your face, and often.

This is not a value judgment so much as a statement of fact.

On the ride from the airport, our Barbadian taxi driver absently waved her hand at our questions as if the answer was outside the window somewhere in the passing cane fields—the flick of her wrist served as both an answer and a dismissal. The dismissal: “Who cares?” The answer: “Not me!” Now, hush up and let me finish my phone call with my niece, who needs me to swing by and pick her up. “It won’t be more than a minute out of the way,” she informed us. And sure enough, a few minutes later, her niece climbed into the front seat and off we went.

A few days later, when I asked the woman at the front desk if the cab she ordered for us had air conditioning, she snatched up the phone as if she was calling in a bomb threat, “I’ll tell him to turn it way up for you,” she barked, before slamming the phone down, never having actually spoken to anyone. I blinked a few times and then slunk away, ashamed of what I wasn’t sure.

After sweating in 98% humidity on our way to the George Washington (yes, that Washington)² Museum, I figured out that the only cabbie on call at our small hotel was either the front desk woman’s brother-in-law or ex-husband, I wasn’t sure which—and no, there was no AC.

Like the good people of Lisbon and Barcelona, the citizens of Barbados are tired.³

They are tired of lines, crowded restaurants, and sidewalks, and they are tired of the holidaymakers in the Airbnb next door waking them at 2 a.m., but even that’s not the problem.

The problem is the lying Internet.

Back home, I Googled, "Do Barbadians hate tourists?” the typical useless, ad-filled, internet-scrubbed lies about how warm and friendly the locals are came up, but nothing, nothing could be further from the truth.

My concern is that if we don’t tell people the truth—that some places are sick to death of us—then how can we know to stay away? Honestly, it’s a conundrum. Once you’re there, it’s too late to turn back. You must forge bravely on in the face of local rage and disdain. No one wants to be an uninvited guest, but how can we know what we don’t know?

The internet is full of tourism propaganda:

AI Overview

Bajans (Barbadians) are known for their friendliness, warmth, and welcoming nature.

Bajans are often described as friendly, especially to visitors. They are known for their smiles and willingness to chat.

Ah, sorry, but no, that would be incorrect. I’ve never been so abused by members of the service industry—not counting Switzerland, where they take truckloads of your money and then make you beg forgiveness when you fail to follow the rules, “As you were informed at check-in, Madame, dinner is from 6:00 to 8:00, not 8:02.” At least in that tiny Alpine village, with no other options for food or drink, my transgression and my punishment (starvation) were clear. I knew what was in store, and I went anyway. My bad.

My son used to love surfing in Portugal, but on his last trip, he was harassed by nonstop banging on the walls from neighbours and threatening phone calls from the realtor who managed the apartment he was renting, not to damage anything or upset the neighbours (good luck!). He came home tanned and grumpy, “Portugal’s not the same anymore, Mom. They hate us,” he said.

I don’t blame the exhausted and over-visited locals or the hapless tourists; I blame the internet for being a wasteland of bad, amateur-generated, AI-regurgitated information and tourism propaganda. Remember when travel experts wrote whole books? Books that we would read—Lonely Planet, Fodor’s and Moon. Now, those titles, if they still exist, are hollowed-out websites that repackage travel influencers’ TikToks and call it travel writing.

Travel has always been a bit of a Russian Roulette—all the research in the world can’t prepare you for the unexpected, and for many, that’s the whole point of travel. But, if you knew you weren’t wanted, would you still go anyway?

How do you plan your travel without a reliable source to guide you?

1. The large influx of sargassum, especially during the summer months, leads to smelly, brown tides that cover beaches, docks, and coral reefs. The decomposing seaweed releases toxic gases like hydrogen sulfide, harming human health and smothering marine life. The influx also disrupts fishing operations and threatens coral reefs, which are crucial for the island's ecosystem. (https://dialogue.earth/en/ocean/a-brown-tide-of-sargassum-is-causing-havoc-in-barbados/)

Crane Beach in south-east Barbados is struggling to deal with vast influxes of sargassum (Image: Lautaro Isern / Dialogue Earth)

2. While staying in Barbados with his consumptive older brother, young George caught smallpox and survived. Fun fact: this is likely why he defied the Continental Congress (anti-vaxers even back then) and had the Revolutionary Army, like the British, vaccinated. (https://georgewashingtonbarbados.com/george-in-barbados/)

3. Yes, we’re all tired, darling Madeline—tired of almost everything.