Tourist Season is pretty much the peak of visitor numbers to a city or region at a certain time of the year.
For a big chunk of the time, it coincides with public and school holidays, and is a good excuse for all sorts of travel providers like airlines, hotels and anything else connected to tourism to add the ‘tourist season’ surcharge to all of their rates so that you’ll have to save up for another few years to take your next holiday!
And it’s also the time of year where you see gazillions of people taking tacky tourist photos in a tourist trap (sometimes with bogans) at the designated attractions that are featured in their guidebooks and other travel information sources!
In fact, many people, including myself, try to avoid the tourist season anywhere in the world like the plague. I’m not a big of massive crowds in the one place. And if for some reason I’m somewhere at peak times, I’ll try and lose myself down a street to see where it leads to, just to escape the camera shutter speed madness!
I’m sure many locals would be familiar with this saying – ‘if there is a tourist season, how come we can’t shoot them?’
Many associate tourist season with summer holidays, but that’s not always the case – for example, ski season in the alps will see thousands of skiing and snowboard addicts descend on the slopes – where there is a very good chance that you might see the ‘yellow snow.’ 🙂
However, because of the popular places that have almost become cliche, loads of people are trying to find the next ‘unspoiled’ destination that you will have pretty much to yourself if you feel like emulating Tom Hanks in Castaway. You know that if you’ve seen a destination on your favourite travel show, then it’s too late!
But you don’t have to be a cattle traveller and go where everyone else is going at the same time!
You can always choose to avoid the hordes of visitors!
But anyway, I’ve come up with a list of reasons why you shouldn’t go travelling somewhere at peak times. And some of these might actually be true!
Why You Should Avoid Tourist Season At All Costs!
- Expense. Probably the biggest sole item why you should avoid travelling at peak season. Its annoying that the same place could cost magnitudes more for everything depending on the time of year that you visit. For the best value for money, you should visit a place the day after the peak period when everyone has left, and you’ll be able to negotiate a very cheap deal with the hotel because they’re desperate for your money. Plus everything else that comes with travelling off peak, including flights and car rental is way more cheaper! Or, even better, go just after some protests or riots have finished!
- Other tourists. I like travelling so I can meet other people. But I don’t like going to places where I have to wait for hours in long queues to see something, or to anticipate the next move from everyone in a crowded area! Lots of people in one place at the same time resemble the sheep mentality sometimes!
- Related to point 2 – you are almost certain to cross paths with an undesirable travel personality, such as a drunkard, gadget geek, or root rat. And they might want to become best friends with you.
- Food. Especially in places where English isn’t the first language. You’ll only receive the ‘tourist’ menu type food, which means something that’s sort of like the local stuff, but watered down a bit at an inflated price! If the menu is in English, you’re in a tourist trap in tourist season!
- Meeting people from your own country. That’s right, you’re more likely to meet people from your home town abroad than actually in your home town. And you don’t travel so you can see more of the same! You travel because you want to see something different.
- Buying useless crap that you don’t need or want. You’ll be so tempted to buy that kitschy souvenir because everyone else has one, only to flog it off in a garage sale or on Ebay a few months later because you think to yourself, ‘why the hell did I buy that piece of &%$?’
- Congested airports. The road that your taxi ride or lift to the airport takes will be chocka block full of other cars, meaning that you might miss your flight. Then you might have to deal with the weirdo airport people when you get there just before you board the plane.
- First World Problems. You’ll tire of hearing yourself and other tourists complain about how overrated a destination is, even though you are one of the luckiest people in the world because travel is a privilege.
- You’ll experience culture shock because you feel like you’re at home even though you are abroad because everyone staying in the tourist trap you’re in is pretty much the same as you, and finally
- Travel bloggers. You’ll see them photographing, Instagramming, Facebooking, Tweeting and Vining all sorts of travel crap for the internet world to see instantly. You’ll know one when you see one… 🙂
There you go!
Do you like travelling at peak tourist season, or would you rather go at a time in the off season?
Leave a comment below and let the whole world know!
All true! And in recent years, this has been accompanied by a large increase in selfie sticks! Watch out!
Someone could lose an eye with one of those selfie sticks!