Paradise Lost

There is a well-known syndrome in travel called the Lonely Planet effect. This is not a syndrome in the sense that someone is afflicted with it…not like, say Asperger’s Syndrome. But what I’m talking about it the matter of how we so often as a traveling species love our places to death. Lonely Planet, the Bible of so many travelers, has always billed itself as the authority of how to get to those far off and away places that others don’t go. But the sheer publication of information, directions, places to eat and stay, about such places, then unleashes the hordes of us that venture to them and, usually, ruin them. By ruin, I mean where lots of tourists go, there will inevitably follow lots of knick-knack salespeople to sell them stuff, lots of cheesy hostels and hotels that want to capture their dollars. You know the problem. It’s everywhere.

This topic actually came up in the conversation I had with LP’s Don George and he rightly defended the guide series. But still, what to do ?

Well, I found a nifty little editorial in the LA Times about this topic. The writer, Bill Stall of the opinion section, discusses mostly the way that Backpacker and Outside Magazines ran certain spots for the best hikes, best [laces to mountain bike, etc., and takes them to task for these rankings and how they inevitably lead to legions of visitors who can spoil them. I’m not sure I totally agree, and I’m also not sure keeping any place safe from tourism is possible. It seems a part of human nature in a crowded, affluent society to want to visit places unvisited by others, and so to visit them….hence a circle of destruction. What to do ?Dunno. Maybe start thinking about visiting the moon.