16 Places That Want You to Stop Visiting (and One That Really, Really Wants You)

Being dubbed ‘‘Disneyland on the Sea” isn’t exactly a compliment. While Venetians fight to keep their homes above water, tourists from all over the world clog up famously narrow streets and canals. You know what doesn’t look great with the beautiful Italian architecture? Gigantic cruise ships photobombing your shot.

Sure, this is a place where Anne Frank is memorialized and Van Gough is revered, but you know what makes the trip really worthwhile? A frigging weed café! The incredibly patient residents of Amsterdam deal with a mass tourism influx to their red light district and marijuana dispensaries. Just what you’d want in a visitor to your home: a stoned creep!

Santorini capped its cruise visitor capacity at 8,000 persons per day, which seems too generous, really. Yes, the island is insanely beautiful. Sure, you’ll enjoy a famously  romantic sunset over Oia–with thousands of other Instagrammers who are working on filtering their shot instead of taking it in. Also, the tourists literally clap for the sunset. What…what are you doing?

Mary Clarkson, Labour councillor and Lord Mayor, tweeted this summer, “Some of us are coming [to the Edinburgh Festival] for a brief respite from the tourist hell of our own small city of Oxford.”  She continued, “Oxford is pretty much impossible between June-October. Cycle lanes all full of illegally parked tourist coaches and pavements blocked.”

The Lord Mayor. Maybe don’t visit during the summer?

People on vacation are often smiling. Russians think people who smile are idiots. Don’t have fun and you’ll do fine.

One of the most unique places on earth with a high concentration of endemic flora and fauna certainly seems worthy of a visit, you selfish, pollution-fueling, trash-creating monster.

The remote and ancient site is so popular that the Peruvian government had to put a time restriction on how long tourists can visit, and now requires visitors to acquire a guide to get there. If you must go, for the love of Incan gods, stay on one of the three designated trails.

Congratulations Bolivia, you rank #1 as the least friendly country in the world according to a report by the World Economic Forum!

It’s called “mass bleaching” and it’s what happens when heat stress kills all the coral in one of the seven wonders of the natural world. Have you ever seen Planet Earth? Can’t you just watch a nature show in HD?

Oh, you big dummies. You big, big dummies. You think you’re better than nature? Gotta climb the world’s biggest rock so you can be the bravest person you know? Over 200 people have died trying to summit this mountain. You know what happens to those who didn’t make it back? Their frozen bodies live on as trailmarkers. The locals just love it.

80 percent of the reefs along these beautiful coastlines have been damaged due to tourist activities like being a total disrespectful jerk. So now they’re closed to everyone!

Humidity and excess sand are leading to the decay of these religious cave paintings that date as far back as the 4th century. Guess who exhales carbon dioxide and tracks in sand?

Watch out, ladies: you are NOT ALLOWED. The men-only island was designated a UNESCO world heritage site, which seems pretty weird since its owners are only willing to concern themselves with half the world. No thanks.

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“Snowbirds,” the citizens of Phoenix say with disdain of the migratory retirees who descend upon the city each winter. Is it that they hate carpetbaggers or merely old people? Hard to tell.

Seemingly random as a destination in itself, if you were on the fence about a visit, know that the residents don’t want you. A very unscientific study from Charter company Stratosjets compiled Twitter data from 37,171 geotagged tweets that included the terms “tourist” or “tourists”, and Arlington somehow won the top spot for having the most negative Tweets about tourists. You can go to Six Flags in other states, so do.

Did you even have to guess? Just do your best to keep up the pace when you’re walking down the sidewalk.

On the other side of the Balkan mountains and far off the beaten track, the town of Nivica, Albania is inviting tourists who enjoy the picturesque coastlines of the Adriatic Sea to dive a little deeper into the countryside and explore the pastoral landscape. Among the sights to see: residents milking cows and sheep the same way they have for 4,000 years.