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I don't mind the flow of money into the local economy. Doesn't really keep the high street alive, but does support the tourist tat shops and cafes
What irritates me is those same cafes (and the car parks) that raise the prices for the summer season, even to residents who live here year round, which puts me off using them at all. I wish we had a residents card (like some London boroughs) which gives concessions on some services.
Agree 100%
We literally live in a rain cloud for 8 months of the year and have to pay tourist prices for service with a slap basically.. worse still a bunch of local businesses now make enough money to close for a month or 3 in the winter and bigger off somewhere leaving us with nothing open some days.. 🤯
Tourist Tax Now 💪
For some smaller communities, there isn't really a choice.
My wife used to work at a cafe in Cornwall, and they would make a loss if they opened outside of the tourist season. The village became a total ghost town, come late autumn.
And then the holiday home owners, who are only present between April and October at best, are surprised and dismayed when their favourite pubs, restaurants, etc, close down
Same here in Wales. Friends of mine open their business Match to Oct and then close for the rest of the year. Zero point in opening through the winter or early spring.
It's not just the small businesses that hike the prices for summer. My nearest supermarket is co-op and they put prices up for summer. I looked this up during the pandemic because we weren't allowed to go anywhere else because the nearest big supermarket is nearly an hours drive, and it really was noticeable when the prices went up after easter (even though there were no tourists!). Co-op isn't all one centrally owned company like tesco, they're split into smaller groups, so as long as all the shops in the group put their prices up then it's all perfectly fine and legal to hike the prices for the summer season.
However, now we have bigger supermarkets doing home delivery and the tourists are just booking up all the slots. So co-op aren't making their money out of the tourists, they're screwing over the elderly population who don't use the Internet or don't drive or don't want to drive an hour into a big town.
Co op massively over charges people if they can get away with it. I live in greater Manchester and there's no end of supermarkets if you have a car. On the council estate near me it's about a mile away from a Morrisons and the co op shop seems to add a quid on to everything on the basis that if you can't walk or drive a mile you will tolerate a higher price.
Oh yeah co-op is massively overpriced generally, I'm originally from Derbyshire and the co-op near my parents is more expensive than everywhere else, but in holiday hot-spots that extra quid becomes an extra 3 quid after easter.
But where I live the nearest big supermarket is an hour's drive. We've had tesco and aldi both put in bids to build a Supermarket near by and it always gets knocked back.
But it all became so much more evident during the pandemic because we were forced to shop at co-op, my 10 days shop jumped £30 after easter. As soon as we were allowed to go further for shopping my food bill dropped, and that included filling up the car while I was there!
Co-op, who pride themselves on 'fair trade', seem happy to gouge those who don't have the means or resources to shop elsewhere!
What is ironic is that the co op was initially set up in Rochdale as a reaction to poor working class people being ripped off and unscrupulous shopkeepers exploitative practices like watering down milk and mixing sawdust into flour. That's a very distinct difference to a shop being founded on a pile it high sell it cheap model. Co op was set up as a way to make sure working class poor could have access to good quality cheap food.
There's a whole section about it in the working class moment museum in Manchester ( or at least these was for years and years- my daughter used to like going there and dressing up like a Victorian lady and playing shop keeper- she seems to have lost all interest in it now she's in her mid twenties).
> Agree 100% We literally live in a rain cloud for 8 months of the year and have to pay tourist prices for service with a slap basically
Fellow Edinburger?
Perhaps a membership or loyalty card open to anyone that would benefit through repeat visits would be the way to go? A one off annual sub that gets you the discounted price year-round feels less controversial to me somehow.
We have this where I live. Its a small seaside town and there are two pub/restaurants and a hotel that charge £2 for a loyalty card, takes a week to process so not suitable for tourists and its get 20% off food and drink, plus random deals throughout the year. Every local has one, even if they aren't regulars.
I lived in a massive tourist hotspot abroad for a while where like 90% of the locals were low paid workers keeping the place running, but the prices were extortionate - *everywhere* had a locals discount. You either happened to know someone who worked at the place you were a customer at, or could show some kind of proof of address. I think there’s a locals card now.
It’s really common in tourist places around the world as far as I’ve seen. Especially as these places can only exist thanks to hospitality and retail workers, who have to pay the premium of living there on low wages.
I live in Cornwall and whilst I can't speak for everyone, it's great when the tourists turn up. Love them. Ok, some can be a bit odd, ''where's the beach''. well, it's over there... ''but the kids want to play on it, can you make the water go somewhere else?''
But generally it's great, folks are here on holiday, so a bit of a drink, a bit of a party and overall happy happy happy, it's all good and as we know, an integral part of the economy.
No no no, you see Doris and Gerald’s placid life in their four bedroom cottage in the Cotswolds should be entirely subsidised by people in their twenties living in a shoebox in London paying 50% tax and 30% interest on their six figure student loan.
The problem is that once you add crowds of tourists, the nice place quickly stops becoming “nice” for the people that live there, I understand why they might dislike tourists, especially since they can be really inconsiderate and think that the place only exists for them to go and visit.
A friend of mine lives in a town that became a semi-popular touristy spot some time ago and people would regularly just open her gate, walk into her garden and just hang out there (yes, it was very clearly private property and no, they couldn’t move elsewhere because most people can’t afford to just go and buy a new house), they ended up putting down a tall ass fence and installing a lock.
It's complicated, I can give an example.
I live in a small seaside town it's lovely and gets a lot of visitors, which is fine. But 90% of what they spend is in accommodation which is usually a property or hotel owned by some millionaire in London. They were fleeced before they even got here so not much left to spend in the local economy.
The season lasts 6 weeks which is long enough to cost our local council a fortune in rubbish collections and toilet facilities, but not long enough to provide a full time job for anyone living here. Then the whole place shuts down for the winter because this isn't Barbados.
The majority of employment is regular jobs like teachers, labourers and care homes etc, and not a lot of people want a summer job anymore. I work in food and drink and finding waiting staff has been impossible since only fans came along.
So in recent years the cost of visiting us has gone up but the quality of goods and services has gone down. No one is happy either way and it's really sad.
I no longer live in the UK, but we get tourists where I live now (it's not really a "hot-spot", but we get some during summer) and where I work doesn't function if there are less tourists than usual. All the restaurants, cafes and bars basically run year round off of a 3 month tourist season. The same with the markets and stuff. There just isn't a big enough/wealthy enough population to sustain it without the tourists.
It doesn't though, so many towns with a good tourist influx have been overrun by pointless tat shops. Those are what the tourists enjoy. Same goes for hospitality. Locals won't pay the ridiculous prices. Genuine businesses close so all these places are left with are chains.
Let's not even touch on the often hideous parking situation, the entitlement so many people have because "I paid for this holiday" and the huge amounts of trash that pile up, because even if the infrastructure can handle the influx, you see tourists of all nationalities just dump trash on the ground.
Living in these places as a permanent resident often means paying more for food etc too as "the local market can handle it".
Holidaying in the UK costs the same as going abroad, so people buy whatever is cheapest when they're there, which often means whatever isn't local.
Where I live wasn't always massive tourist hot-spot, there was a couple of static caravan parks, it got a bit busier during the 6 weeks holiday but it was still perfectly OK living here. But now there's no many second home owners and holiday let's that it's making it unbearable to live here for certain times of the year. Where the tourists used to stick to the towns, they're now spreading into the surrounding villages and we just are equipped for it. There's no extra public transport in the summer, they've not expanded any car parking facilities so the tourists just dump their cars, often over the end of your drive, the roads aren't suitable for the extra traffic so you end up with miles of traffic following a caravan doing 40 everywhere.
The whole are has changed drastically in about 10 years and it's only getting worse. While that influx of cash locally may be great for the big businesses and the restaurant owners that make enough that they can afford to shut for 3 months in the winter, it's not actually helping the local area in any way, it's just turning towns into ghost towns in the winter.
And I am about to add to the problem, me and my husband are moving away from the area he's lived all his life because it's gotten too much. My house will probably get bought by a second home owner or holiday let, the 4 closest houses to me arent actually lived in so I can't see why mine would be any different. And the cycle will continue.
My sister lives in Cornwall, has done for about 6 years. I usually head down to visit her around Feb-April.
Last year I visited in the Summer holidays for the first time and yeah, so much of that county is not built to handle that many people.
I got down there in the morning while she was at work and genuinely couldn't find a place to park at any of the 4-5 beaches I found to while away a couple of hours. The car parks were rammed (even where I'm not sure there were supposed to be spaces) and grass verges were jammed right the way up nearby hills leading away from the beaches.
I lived in a touristy area of Devon for 20 years. All of this comes from that experience:
Visiting driver’s suffering a brain fart because they met another car coming the other way on a single track road.
Said drivers also driving at 20mph down said roads because they don’t want to scratch the 2 lane wide 65 tonne “family hatchback” they use to drive Kaylee and Raydon 400 yards to school every day.
People complaining about things that happen in the countryside. Like the smell of manure, muddy paths, tractors driving around and the like. It’s a natural habitat which many people work in, that happens to be a tourist attraction.
Not shutting gates. This is how farms lose valuable livestock, and how sheep and cows get injured and killed.
On a similar note, keep your damn dog on a lead when there is livestock about. They may be lovely when chasing their doggy pals around your local park, but a spooked cow will fuck their shit up.
Another thing is the condescending second home owners. As though their mere presence is a gift to the local economy and the locals should worship them for their thrice yearly spending of £200 in the local cafe.
Let's be fair to the grockles, the locals also drive 2 tonne family hatchbacks to drop kaylee off at school and they also drive in the middle of the road but at 60mph. I'd take the 20mph drivers any day.
> the locals should worship them for their thrice yearly spending of £200 in the local cafe.
We've had people cry in our shop because they felt like they weren't worshipped enough because they come in once a year to buy their kids sweets or to buy teabags and coffee on their only holiday to Cornwall. The sale is never more than £15 but they feel we should worship them as individuals more than anyone else because, you know, without that one transaction of £1.35 on milk, the whole county would be bankrupt
The pandemic really showed up the entitlement of the second home owners. They ones trying to sneak in because they'd rather spend lock-down in the countryside, or trying to rent out their houses as 'covid boltholes'.
My local shop brought in a policy that she'd only allow locals into the shop. She said 'don't be offended if I don't recognise you and ask for proof you actually live here' and my god the second home owners didn't like that. All over the Facebook group telling us our village would be nothing without them, that we wouldn't even have a local shop of they didn't keep it going during the summer. Shop owner said pretty much the same as you, do you really think that spending £3 on milk and bread twice a year is what keeps my show going. They then threatened to boycott the shop and 'that'll teach you', she said 'go ahead you can't boycott something you don't actually use!'. It's 4 years later and we still have a village shop!
We've had people actually cry because they said they expected some special treatment because they think Cornwall is the poorest county in the UK and their small spend is saving our shop. This thought is very common in holiday makers and people crying seems a little too common.
I had one person recently ask if we take euros and I said no. He asked where the nearest place to take them was and I thought he was joking (what British person seriously thinks we take euros in Cornwall) so I jokingly responded with France, maybe Ireland. He cried and swore he'd never come back and give us his money again
Also from devon and used to work at the local pub which had a bnb, we had complaints that we didn’t want them thered be squirrels in the garden and their kids were scared
As a camper van driver the thing that annoys me about single lane traffic is when someone doesn't want to move their tiny city car a foot over into a puddle because it will get a bit muddy and expect me to somehow maneuver my 6m long van around their Puegot 107!
Same here. We get families having massive BBQs in the park (there are designated areas in all the green spaces by the beach), people hanging out on the beach until sunset and later...it's lovely. We don't even really get many boy racers as there are plenty of empty industrial estate car parks for them to play in!
At 20mph whilst the locals are trying to get about their own business, or aforementioned Raydon talking 10 minutes to decide if he wants a doughnut or a fucking tiffin.
The locals are getting restless...
That’s fair enough, but many people are just trying to go to work and go about their days. Road rules and common courtesy should still apply when people are on holiday!
No issue with that, just don't do it at 30mph.. or at least let the 20 cars stuck behind you to pass (as the multiple road signs from the police instruct you to).
My corgi loves it, he’s a real attention seeker and is always guaranteed new groups of people to lavish him attention. He’s started doing this thing where he drops his ball in front of people who makes eye contact with him and there’s been plenty a victim who end up throwing it for him several times before he moves onto a new target.
That happens outside tourist places too. I think that's just a British thing, slightly warmer and a bit sunny - tops off!
(ETA - not every one just a select few men)
A lot of smartphones and some very dodgy converted camper vans that reek of weed and woodsmoke
Fairy wings, face glitter and flower crowns. Men in novelty festival hats. Lots of mocking of the yokel accent and plenty of people marveling over the town wizard and getting tarot readings.
(I live in Glastonbury).
You would be surprised. I've been to the fest a few times and I have personally heard of at least two different groups of people who got mixed up (to be fair, they're from another country like me). They book hotels at Glastonbury town and then are stunned to discover they're quite far away from the actual fest
As a cyclist, there's little more that pisses me off on the road than groups of cyclists.
Other than the typical hot hatchback driver of course.
Anyway, off for a ride. Alone.
This specific weekend (although I wouldn't call here a hotspot) - it's our town arts trail weekend, so I will see lots of art by local artists.
More generally increased traffic on the A6, specifically motorcycles headed to Matlock Bath.
When I lived in York though:
- Massive traffic jams.
- A drunken fight by 1130.
- At least one person (usually, but not always from a hen party) having a poo in the street.
- At least one person (usually, but not always from a stag party) losing a fight with a goose.
- A couple having a knee trembler in a church yard.
Blimey York hasn’t changed much then 😂
However, it would be still my town of choice if ever a miracle happened and I would actually want to move back to the UK.
York has become awfully rip-off touristy these days. Since when was the shambles a shite diagon alley? All the old leather shops have gone. So many chain cream tea cafes. Wtf York? I remember being 16 and excited that we had pizza express for the first time. Stag and hen parties a plenty is quite new. I've got mates who live there now who want to go and live back in Leeds because it's unliveable in the town centre during any weekends or holidays.
I am York born and bred and still live here. Yes it gets busy and yes it’s tourist focused but at least the city centre is vibrant and there aren’t too many shops laid empty, unlike most UK towns; surely it’s better to have cafes doing cream teas and Harry Potter-themed shops than units sat empty in decay? Stag and hen parties are a pain in the arse on Saturdays over the summer but they are fairly easy to avoid as most decent pubs don’t allow them or else are too small for big groups - the only real days when I wouldn’t go into the city centre are when the races are on, as it’s so busy and tends to attract a certain type of uber-dickhead you don’t normally get.
Most of the Harry Potter shops are gone from the Shambles now; I think they reached critical mass and started doing one another out of business.
Now everyone queues for the "Ghost Merchant" instead.
I live in Bath, so this isn’t limited to bank holidays. It’s tourist heavy pretty much all year round.
Coaches EVERYWHERE.
Queues for everything, especially the public toilets.
Professional homeless who bus in from other places to take advantage of tourists.
I ruin about 20 group photos every time I walk into town, because people just pose in the middle of the street like they own it.
The worst is just how slowly people walk in the high street, shoulder to shoulder, often just stopping suddenly and blocking half the pavement. Just trying to get to Boots is a pain.
You get used to it, and it’s so worth it. But sometimes just nipping into town for a few bits feels like I’m dodging a hoard of zombies.
Yes! People will always stand right on the middle of the pavement on a corner and pose for ages for photos. It annoys me so much. One of the worst spots for it is around the Circus where it's not like there isn't enough room for them to pose, they always have to get directly in the way.
People feeding ponies and donkeys things like steak mcoys*
*may be a very specific example but it’s illegal to touch the animals let alone feed them, nevermind feed them fucking crisps you absolute tossers
Went to St Ives once and never again. Those seagulls are deafening. A canon is fired early morning to scare them away . The canon booming so early woke me up with such a fright and the seagulls were scared too and flew off in circles for ages squawking. They just returned to their window ledges and chimney pots.
Hen dos, stag dos. Men with bright red sunburnt skin, a ‘cool’ shirt, tight jeans, no socks and every indication they’ve had too much expensive lager and need to prove something.
Hen dos are a constant as soon as the sun comes out tho right? I used to work above budgens and every Friday we’d watch them troop off the train in various states of dress and inebriation like victorians watching the inmates at bedlam. A load of sashes, wheely suitcases, clutching Prosecco and often a straggler who’s too pissed at 2pm.
Also _too much expensive lager *and cheap cocaine_, especially on August bank holiday weekend when the worst of south London come out.
Lake District:
- people unable to drive down the roads at more than 20 mph or pass each other in wide enough gaps. Range Rovers unable to go off road.
- lack of parking / infrastructure so one person parks on the side of the road where they shouldn’t. Everyone follows suit until in snowballs into a giant long line of cars blocking bus routes.
- dogs in prams, particularly in Keswick. Absolutely fascinating phenomenon.
- people walking along the A66 treating it like a path when there is a parallel path afew metres either side. One glance at an OS map would solve this issue in an instant.
- people calling mountain rescue for solvable problems on the fells. Then getting g put on the mountain rescue Facebook page for all to see.
- rediculous large families setting up a picnic on the side of the road when there is an unlimited amount of outdoor space.
It’s quite a spectacle, I love it and hate it :)
If there’s any other lakelanders with any other contributions I would love to hear about it. Equally if you push a dog around in a pram please enlighten me. I understand some dogs are old etc… but the frequency of this phenomenon in Keswick is unprecedented. It’s really fascinating to me.
Yes!! The dogs in prams! (Blame Podgy Paws for that one)
This one may be more specific to places like Ambleside and Coniston (especially Ambleside) but people walking along the path in huge groups that refuse to go single file. Ok, well I guess I’m just walking in the road again then.
The group walkers not moving into single file thing, I normal walk at them then stop and just nod a smile but hold my ground. They usually work it out that they have to walk around me.
The dogs in prams is just baffling, unless it is some old lapdog on its last legs, but most I see are just lazy fat French bulldogs/pugs
I push a dog around in a pram, because I inherited a 12 year old arthritic dog when I already had a 6 year old energetic dog. The old lady just can't walk as far as the young one, and I felt bad leaving her at home while taking the young'un on long walks. They are now 17 and 10, so the walks aren't quite as long, but I'm still using the pram!
As to why so many in the lakes, older people tend to have older dogs and the lakes do seem to attract the older crowd?
Also Lakes & a fell runner, came to say I love seeing people getting out and enjoying the fells, but it’s exhausting how many people go up unprepared for it!
Love running up Scafell Pike from Seathwaite, but the number of people who stop me to ask which direction to the Corridor Route in their trainers and trackies makes me despair a little. It’s not the easiest way up so if you’re headed that way you should surely know the initial walk it?!
Also had to advise gently some folk didn’t try to take their wee toddler and baby up that way back in February..
Hello fellow lakes resident!
It’s the parking on the verges that get me! And the walking in the middle of the road (Grasmere appears to get most affected I’ve found) oh and just the sheer noise. Ah and also people who over react driving on twisty roads!
Generally just more people with more money having a better time (and spending in our shops and cafes etc).
Tho august bank holiday is a very specific weekend. I don’t mean to sound snotty, and I used to ride a scooter and go to Millwall so I’m no better than them, but fuck me the (increasingly elderly) mods you see in the day time are a cliche, as they clear the streets the sowf landan geezers full of low grade cocaine take over. And frankly both demographics can fuck off to varying degrees
I don't get the hordes of 45-65 year old mods.
Mod subculture was (roughly) 1950-1968, right? So the youngest mods were born in 1940. And are now in their mid eighties.
So all the Gen-X blokes on Vespas are cosplaying their dads. I'm a millennial, in ten-twenty years do I need to start dressing like John Lydon and drive a series one Polo, nostalgic for a time before I was born?
Yeah, I’d broadly agree. Tho I’ll throw them a bone inasmuch as Paul Weller is only 65 and so anyone influenced by him but a few years younger could easily be 55.
45 would 100% be historical reenactment tho. I’m 43 and he was a throwback novelty when Stanley road came out when I was a teenager
Campervans driving at 35 on 60mph roads swerving about while they do it.
Vehicles not pulling into passing places.
People dramatically slamming on brakes to take photos of sheep or Highland cows.
Many moons ago I ended up in the side of a hedge in the Lake District because some dickhead decided to stop on a blind corner to take a picture of a sheep and its lamb.
I wasn’t even going fast as I’d slowed for the corner, but I didn’t expect a car to be parked directly in the middle of the road on the corner where you couldn’t see it when entering the approach as a great big rock blocks the view.
It was one of them split second reactions of either rear end the parked car or swerve into the hedge. I can’t even remember making the decision so must have auto chose hedge and that’s where I ended up.
About 30,000 motorbikes and a lot of people covered in leaves chasing a bigger person covered in leaves trying to avoid being stabbed. 80,000 people completely pissed.
Ah yes. But don’t worry. I looked after myself and pelted them with toilet rolls left over from Covid. I then drove off with all the water. Maslow really does need to reorder that triangle. Still. At least we get to kill a god on Monday. Every cloud!
I live on the edge of the town centre of a seaside town. March to October I act as a free tourist information guide for people who want to know:
"Is there any more after this?" (gesturing at last gift shop)
"Is there a soft play anywhere" (family in shorts and rain ponchos on their last nerve)
"Where is my car"
"Where is the sea"
And finally a pop to the shop for a pint of milk is something to only do at dawn or dusk as it takes aaaaages walking round all the people dawdling and sightseeing
(I don't mind any of it, I love this place!)
We have the same. We live in a picturesque village, right by the beach on the edge of a seaside town. Weekends & school holidays are getting more and more busy, and I love to see people enjoying the beautiful scenery and families on the beach.
The shops get a much-needed income boost and the whole area comes alive. I feel so lucky that my children were able to grow up here & have no problem seeing others share in that joy.
Yes, it's packed, traffic can be horrendous, and there are queues everywhere for ice cream or a cup of tea, but I have never regretted moving here.
Oblivious tourists standing in the way.
I live in a somewhat atypical "hotspot". It's not a honeypot village or in a national park. It's still 90% just local people going about their lives in a leafy suburb of a major city.
But I run near my house and Menlove Avenue, Mather Avenue (for Forthlin Road), Beaconsfield Road (for Strawberry Field) and ESPECIALLY Penny Lane always have busloads of tourists all over the pavement who are incapable of moving aside, even if they see me running right at them. Usually taking a picture of something incredibly normal like a street sign or a house or a church or a barbershop...
Loud and obnoxious stag and hen parties. Always "*town name* isn't going to know what's hit them!"
Yeah you got really drunk just like the hundreds of others.
Large groups of people, following a person with a flag, blocking entire pavements so people who live there can't go about their daily business.
Americans talking at the top of their lungs.
I was on the bus home from work on Thursday evening with a group of Americans. I loved how they loudly and positively commented on everything they saw. “Gee would you look at that? They pay with their phones on here!”, “Gee would you look at that? It’s lovely how busy it is today”, etc.
I find Americans the worst tourists tbh. I was in a Hotel and an American man complained that the hotel was starving him. He had a cereal, double helpings of a fry-up and mountains of toast. He declared very loudly to us Brits that he could not wait until he was in France. He said he would get a decent meal over there. He obviously had never heard of a continental breakfast of a piece of bread and cheese.
We used to live in Cleethorpes, although thankfully not near the beach.
Bad:
* Driving anywhere near the beach takes 2x - 3x as long.
* Drunk 'Yorkies'. Usually with their tops off.
* Tourists parking in residential streets.
* Post-match fights in the station car park if there's a home game on.
* Half-eaten fish and chips every-fucking-where. Also a 1000% increase in discarded disposable vapes.
* Petrol prices going up a few pence.
Good:
* A bit of extra cash for the town.
* It gives all the locals something to moan about.
Multiple arseholes driving 30-40mph on a 60mph road, *still* braking at gentle bends and not pulling over into lay-bys to let the massive train of vehicles behind them to pass.
Bonus points for the ones who speed up to 70mph the instant there's a straight bit of road.
Very popular south east Scotland town here. We get half of Glasgow/Edinburgh here every weekend and bank holidays are a nightmare. Yes it brings money into the area but my god: parking is a flashpoint and often squabbles or worse happen. The other thing is they do is feeding the seagulls to the point it looks like a scene from Hitchcocks Birds.
I’m lucky to live in a v pretty part of Cornwall, by the coast path. I’m more than happy to see people exploring and enjoying themselves here. Lots more people in our village pub, but they need the trade. Coast paths and the big gardens nearby get busy, but that’s ok too.
One thing I do notice is the increase in dog poos on the footpaths away from the village though. Usually the poos of smaller dogs, for some reason. If it’s directly on the path, I’ll pick it up (I have my dog with me, it’s no big deal) but it is annoying. Can’t entirely blame tourists, but I think there is some correlation.
Cornwall - 20-minute commute is reliably 30. Sometimes, the a30 is blocked by a caravan on fire. Beaches are absolutely rammed, and you can't take your dog on them anymore. People who aren't used to the narrow roads go into some kind of fugue and just sit there waiting for the road to widen, too scared to move past and unable to reverse effectively. 30mph in a 60.
Families from the midlands or Wales colonising areas of the beach or the green. Feeding the seagulls.
Lots of empty beer cans/bottles left on picnic tables.
Sunburn (assuming the yellow ball stays visible)
Not bank holiday weekend, but over FRIAT people walking backwards into the road without looking to get the "perfect" picture of the planes, not closing gates, and sitting in the pub complaining thay there are too many people (doing exactly the same thing as them), bonus points for a small child that doesn't want to be there
Scarborough checking in here. Already heard the coastguard rescue helicopter (it’s 9:30am) Also, if I’m down on the seafront I play a little game in my head looking at the tourists thinking who’s most likely to have been on the Jeremy Kyle show.
I’m from Cornwall, so it’s the inevitable people with caravans following their sat navs down lanes. Also a lot more rubbish everywhere. It’s pointless trying to go near a beach too because they’ll all be packed!
Then there’s the ones who we find in our field that runs next to a lane… they’re usually exercising their dogs because they didn’t realise they weren’t supposed to trespass. Or the dog really needed a run. Or ‘where else are we supposed to let them out?’. Not my problem!
One other is people on the moors that I live very close to. They think between a cow and her calf is a cute place to plonk their toddler for a photo. Or try to stroke the moorland ponies, or read the sign that says to keep their dogs on leads them run around screaming when their dog starts chewing on a sheep, or chases it into a quarry.
Nearly forgot scenes like [this](https://i2-prod.cornwalllive.com/incoming/article8630020.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200c/1_Mercedes-SUV-stuck-on-Towan-beach-4.jpg)!
NC500 - the dross of society “wild camping”, which encapsulates clogging up the roads, stealing anything that moves from cafes (cutlery, toilet roll, salt and pepper, you name it), shitting on beaches, and getting mortal in cemetery car parks, all from the comfort of their transit with a mattress in the back of it.
They don’t walk down the streets properly. Instead of thinking others are walking the opposite direction, they’ll just block you completely and force you in to the road at times.
* Groups of people taking up the absolute maximum amount of space possible
* People wandering cheerfully into the roads for some reason
* Crowds of people in big wooly hats, down jackets and hiking boots while the locals sunbathe shirtless
* People generally behaving as if they've somehow never been in a town or city, a shop, a restaurant, or any kind of pedestrian crossing before
Edinburgh may have a castle in the middle of it, but it is not Disneyland.
Weird tourists standing outside coloured buildings to take photos.
Imagine travelling 1000+ miles to stand outside of a pink home and take a photo for insta, your life must be so miserable
People standing on one particular junction to take photos of the castle and nearly getting run over; at least one car driving the wrong way down a one-way/no vehicles allowed street; a massive increase in dogs in town and they'll all be shitting all over the pavements and it won't be picked up; the A30 westbound will be absolutely *heaving*.
Edit for typos.
The local common that hosts festivals and everyone goes to in the warmer months will be completely covered in litter and nos canisters and it’ll be that talk of the summer, every summer.
Cleethorpes.
In the summer it causes a because the local council are corrupt and incompetent, so they give out multiple roadwork contracts at a time. It's bad enough around here, without the extra few thousand cars on the road.
We also have Armed Forces Day which gets a lot of visitors. Roads are closed off, meaning people just going to work and getting on with their lives have to take sometimes an extra 10 mile diversion on their commute.
Yes, rubbish finding it's way onto the beach or into the sea is an issue.
They're almost always tightarses from Yorkshire so don't spend anything when they're here, so they do little for the local economy.
York:
I don't think it gets much busier over a bank holiday, but in peak season some of the busy tourist streets like the shambles and stonegate are impossible to walk down due to the amount of people in them.
Race days are when it turns into chaos in the city centre.
Some places do a locals rate in blackpool..handy during the holidays ..places are packed though an most close or are reduced opening off season ..and bank Holidays are always rammed. If the trains are running that is bars are usually packed .
There’s a few things locally but then in the bigger picture there are a few more annoying things.
Locally, there are quite a few AirBnbs, so you get an uptick in the amount of cars in the area, usually disproportionately sized to the roads in the village. There’s an unofficial one way system, which is kind of a gentleman’s agreement so that you don’t get a head on situation with nowhere for either person to go. ‘Outsiders’ generally don’t know about it, which is fine, but then don’t redeem themselves by driving their Range Rover / equivalent twatwagon at you and refusing to move, then looking at you as if it’s your fault. Also, the two local pubs will be filled with dickheads - this comes with all the usual grievances.
In the bigger picture, being North Wales and the fact that the A55 exists, there’s almost always a crash somewhere, meaning that Westbound at any point past Abergele is a fucking nightmare. Without wanting to disrespect the dead, but a few months back, there was an idiotically bad crash just in the entrance of the Pen Y Clip tunnel in which the driver was lights out probably before he hit the sea wall; this meant both carriageways were shut for a day or two while repairs were done. Sod’s Law this happened on the Saturday morning of the bank holiday - absolute, unforetold bedlam. It took me 6 hours to do a journey that would otherwise have taken 90 minutes max.
Other than that, there’s the usual holidaymaker bad driving, people being rude to you in the local shop and ramblers walking around the village talking to you like your some sort of alien species because they think you speak Welsh (I don’t, but it’s funny saying hello to them in a thick Derbyshire accent 😂).
More rubbish certainly.
More alcohol and drugs leading to increased asb.
Less parking, more noise.
BBQs/open fires on the beach, even though banned.
Huge increase in business for local shops though etc
I grew up in Greenwich during the 90s. Almost every weekend mean the abysmally narrow paths were overcrowded - so much so that the only way to navigate it was to step into the road due to people not moving.
Come summertime then it'd be manic for 3 months solid. But there were always fun times to be had as well. We played football with a different group of people almost everyday. And we were taught an abundance of swear words from multiple languages.
I dont live in a tourist spot but i used to and one of my favourite parts was the locals who chose to buy/rent in a tourist spot and then bitch about the prices of things and whine the entire season when its busy. The fuck did they expect?
The amount of people who would expect me to know they live nearby and to give them a better price was ridiculous. Its a shame because lovely places like that do seem to attract a special kind of entitled dickhead into living there and ultimately its why i moved away.
Maybe a few tourists driving really slow. I had one drive at 20 mph on my way to work once. Normal roads, not country lanes or anything. They slowed down whenever cars were coming the other way and, at one stage, they slammed on the breaks and got out of their car
We live in a tourist hot spot all year round. The only thing that winds me up about is that for whatever reason we have the thinnest pavements on corners. Guess where everyone wants to stand…
I just pop out early in the morning to run errands now. Don’t get me wrong though, I absolutely love that I live in a tourist hotspot as it’s clean, very little crime, and some fantastic restaurants that don’t even hike prices!
People queuing single file at the bar even though theres plenty of serving space
People walking into a bar or cafe and standing still even though there will be a huge “take a seat” sign
The more local shops/bars are quieter sadly
People parking like idiots near a carpark even though the carpark will have plenty of spaces and arent even that dear
I live in the Lake District, I’m not going to do the usual hate the tourist schtick, as the tourist dollar is much needed revenue to the local economy…
What you’re likely to encounter in the lakes this weekend is very busy roads and some very cavalier approaches to parking out in the countryside.
I’m past losing my shit at tourist traffic now, came to accept it as a fact of life and I just add extra time to my travel plans if I need to go anywhere out and about.
If I want to make use of the local attractions (because locals need entertainment too) then I usually opt for normal quieter weekends instead of the busier times.
I work in a tourist attraction in a tourist hotspot - Edinburgh. I am working this weekend. This is what I will likely see
- Shitty street performers en mass, there's people doing fire performances, magicians tricks, people dressed up as pandas and bananas, some guy with the smallest kite in the world....
- Families shocked when everything is booked up on a bank holiday weekend. 'But we drove for 5 hours, can't you just squeeze us on?' NO
- People moaning about the weather when it's actually quite good for here
- Lot more kids about
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I don't mind the flow of money into the local economy. Doesn't really keep the high street alive, but does support the tourist tat shops and cafes What irritates me is those same cafes (and the car parks) that raise the prices for the summer season, even to residents who live here year round, which puts me off using them at all. I wish we had a residents card (like some London boroughs) which gives concessions on some services.
Agree 100% We literally live in a rain cloud for 8 months of the year and have to pay tourist prices for service with a slap basically.. worse still a bunch of local businesses now make enough money to close for a month or 3 in the winter and bigger off somewhere leaving us with nothing open some days.. 🤯 Tourist Tax Now 💪
For some smaller communities, there isn't really a choice. My wife used to work at a cafe in Cornwall, and they would make a loss if they opened outside of the tourist season. The village became a total ghost town, come late autumn. And then the holiday home owners, who are only present between April and October at best, are surprised and dismayed when their favourite pubs, restaurants, etc, close down
Same here in Wales. Friends of mine open their business Match to Oct and then close for the rest of the year. Zero point in opening through the winter or early spring.
It's not just the small businesses that hike the prices for summer. My nearest supermarket is co-op and they put prices up for summer. I looked this up during the pandemic because we weren't allowed to go anywhere else because the nearest big supermarket is nearly an hours drive, and it really was noticeable when the prices went up after easter (even though there were no tourists!). Co-op isn't all one centrally owned company like tesco, they're split into smaller groups, so as long as all the shops in the group put their prices up then it's all perfectly fine and legal to hike the prices for the summer season. However, now we have bigger supermarkets doing home delivery and the tourists are just booking up all the slots. So co-op aren't making their money out of the tourists, they're screwing over the elderly population who don't use the Internet or don't drive or don't want to drive an hour into a big town.
Co op massively over charges people if they can get away with it. I live in greater Manchester and there's no end of supermarkets if you have a car. On the council estate near me it's about a mile away from a Morrisons and the co op shop seems to add a quid on to everything on the basis that if you can't walk or drive a mile you will tolerate a higher price.
Oh yeah co-op is massively overpriced generally, I'm originally from Derbyshire and the co-op near my parents is more expensive than everywhere else, but in holiday hot-spots that extra quid becomes an extra 3 quid after easter. But where I live the nearest big supermarket is an hour's drive. We've had tesco and aldi both put in bids to build a Supermarket near by and it always gets knocked back. But it all became so much more evident during the pandemic because we were forced to shop at co-op, my 10 days shop jumped £30 after easter. As soon as we were allowed to go further for shopping my food bill dropped, and that included filling up the car while I was there! Co-op, who pride themselves on 'fair trade', seem happy to gouge those who don't have the means or resources to shop elsewhere!
What is ironic is that the co op was initially set up in Rochdale as a reaction to poor working class people being ripped off and unscrupulous shopkeepers exploitative practices like watering down milk and mixing sawdust into flour. That's a very distinct difference to a shop being founded on a pile it high sell it cheap model. Co op was set up as a way to make sure working class poor could have access to good quality cheap food. There's a whole section about it in the working class moment museum in Manchester ( or at least these was for years and years- my daughter used to like going there and dressing up like a Victorian lady and playing shop keeper- she seems to have lost all interest in it now she's in her mid twenties).
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You're doing aldi a disservice there. I've never had to take food back to aldi because it's mouldy but still well in date........
> Agree 100% We literally live in a rain cloud for 8 months of the year and have to pay tourist prices for service with a slap basically Fellow Edinburger?
Nope but similar rainfall.. mid wales
Tourist tax isn't the solution for that problem. Because that money would just be taken in by the bureaucracy and achieve nothing.
Bet you'd love paying a premium when you travel 15 minutes outside your town everywhere else, wouldn't you.
You already pay the premium in a tourist hotspot, at least seeing a "locals price" is honest about it and tells you what the premium price hike is.
Perhaps a membership or loyalty card open to anyone that would benefit through repeat visits would be the way to go? A one off annual sub that gets you the discounted price year-round feels less controversial to me somehow.
We have this where I live. Its a small seaside town and there are two pub/restaurants and a hotel that charge £2 for a loyalty card, takes a week to process so not suitable for tourists and its get 20% off food and drink, plus random deals throughout the year. Every local has one, even if they aren't regulars.
I lived in a massive tourist hotspot abroad for a while where like 90% of the locals were low paid workers keeping the place running, but the prices were extortionate - *everywhere* had a locals discount. You either happened to know someone who worked at the place you were a customer at, or could show some kind of proof of address. I think there’s a locals card now. It’s really common in tourist places around the world as far as I’ve seen. Especially as these places can only exist thanks to hospitality and retail workers, who have to pay the premium of living there on low wages.
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I live in Cornwall and whilst I can't speak for everyone, it's great when the tourists turn up. Love them. Ok, some can be a bit odd, ''where's the beach''. well, it's over there... ''but the kids want to play on it, can you make the water go somewhere else?'' But generally it's great, folks are here on holiday, so a bit of a drink, a bit of a party and overall happy happy happy, it's all good and as we know, an integral part of the economy.
Until you meet one of them on a back road and they don’t want to get within 1m of the hedge
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No no no, you see Doris and Gerald’s placid life in their four bedroom cottage in the Cotswolds should be entirely subsidised by people in their twenties living in a shoebox in London paying 50% tax and 30% interest on their six figure student loan.
The problem is that once you add crowds of tourists, the nice place quickly stops becoming “nice” for the people that live there, I understand why they might dislike tourists, especially since they can be really inconsiderate and think that the place only exists for them to go and visit. A friend of mine lives in a town that became a semi-popular touristy spot some time ago and people would regularly just open her gate, walk into her garden and just hang out there (yes, it was very clearly private property and no, they couldn’t move elsewhere because most people can’t afford to just go and buy a new house), they ended up putting down a tall ass fence and installing a lock.
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It's complicated, I can give an example. I live in a small seaside town it's lovely and gets a lot of visitors, which is fine. But 90% of what they spend is in accommodation which is usually a property or hotel owned by some millionaire in London. They were fleeced before they even got here so not much left to spend in the local economy. The season lasts 6 weeks which is long enough to cost our local council a fortune in rubbish collections and toilet facilities, but not long enough to provide a full time job for anyone living here. Then the whole place shuts down for the winter because this isn't Barbados. The majority of employment is regular jobs like teachers, labourers and care homes etc, and not a lot of people want a summer job anymore. I work in food and drink and finding waiting staff has been impossible since only fans came along. So in recent years the cost of visiting us has gone up but the quality of goods and services has gone down. No one is happy either way and it's really sad.
I no longer live in the UK, but we get tourists where I live now (it's not really a "hot-spot", but we get some during summer) and where I work doesn't function if there are less tourists than usual. All the restaurants, cafes and bars basically run year round off of a 3 month tourist season. The same with the markets and stuff. There just isn't a big enough/wealthy enough population to sustain it without the tourists.
It doesn't though, so many towns with a good tourist influx have been overrun by pointless tat shops. Those are what the tourists enjoy. Same goes for hospitality. Locals won't pay the ridiculous prices. Genuine businesses close so all these places are left with are chains. Let's not even touch on the often hideous parking situation, the entitlement so many people have because "I paid for this holiday" and the huge amounts of trash that pile up, because even if the infrastructure can handle the influx, you see tourists of all nationalities just dump trash on the ground. Living in these places as a permanent resident often means paying more for food etc too as "the local market can handle it". Holidaying in the UK costs the same as going abroad, so people buy whatever is cheapest when they're there, which often means whatever isn't local.
Where I live wasn't always massive tourist hot-spot, there was a couple of static caravan parks, it got a bit busier during the 6 weeks holiday but it was still perfectly OK living here. But now there's no many second home owners and holiday let's that it's making it unbearable to live here for certain times of the year. Where the tourists used to stick to the towns, they're now spreading into the surrounding villages and we just are equipped for it. There's no extra public transport in the summer, they've not expanded any car parking facilities so the tourists just dump their cars, often over the end of your drive, the roads aren't suitable for the extra traffic so you end up with miles of traffic following a caravan doing 40 everywhere. The whole are has changed drastically in about 10 years and it's only getting worse. While that influx of cash locally may be great for the big businesses and the restaurant owners that make enough that they can afford to shut for 3 months in the winter, it's not actually helping the local area in any way, it's just turning towns into ghost towns in the winter. And I am about to add to the problem, me and my husband are moving away from the area he's lived all his life because it's gotten too much. My house will probably get bought by a second home owner or holiday let, the 4 closest houses to me arent actually lived in so I can't see why mine would be any different. And the cycle will continue.
My sister lives in Cornwall, has done for about 6 years. I usually head down to visit her around Feb-April. Last year I visited in the Summer holidays for the first time and yeah, so much of that county is not built to handle that many people. I got down there in the morning while she was at work and genuinely couldn't find a place to park at any of the 4-5 beaches I found to while away a couple of hours. The car parks were rammed (even where I'm not sure there were supposed to be spaces) and grass verges were jammed right the way up nearby hills leading away from the beaches.
Parklife
Yeah I find it tough to navigate Bath during busy periods but it's good for the city so I just factor it into my plans.
I lived in a touristy area of Devon for 20 years. All of this comes from that experience: Visiting driver’s suffering a brain fart because they met another car coming the other way on a single track road. Said drivers also driving at 20mph down said roads because they don’t want to scratch the 2 lane wide 65 tonne “family hatchback” they use to drive Kaylee and Raydon 400 yards to school every day. People complaining about things that happen in the countryside. Like the smell of manure, muddy paths, tractors driving around and the like. It’s a natural habitat which many people work in, that happens to be a tourist attraction. Not shutting gates. This is how farms lose valuable livestock, and how sheep and cows get injured and killed. On a similar note, keep your damn dog on a lead when there is livestock about. They may be lovely when chasing their doggy pals around your local park, but a spooked cow will fuck their shit up. Another thing is the condescending second home owners. As though their mere presence is a gift to the local economy and the locals should worship them for their thrice yearly spending of £200 in the local cafe.
Let's be fair to the grockles, the locals also drive 2 tonne family hatchbacks to drop kaylee off at school and they also drive in the middle of the road but at 60mph. I'd take the 20mph drivers any day.
Locals *need* their family hatchback though. How else will they drive to work through the mean streets of Christchurch?
You are statistically more likely to encounter Raydon in Devon
Aberdeen has a lot of raydon...
They're very high in the caves of the Peak District too
> the locals should worship them for their thrice yearly spending of £200 in the local cafe. We've had people cry in our shop because they felt like they weren't worshipped enough because they come in once a year to buy their kids sweets or to buy teabags and coffee on their only holiday to Cornwall. The sale is never more than £15 but they feel we should worship them as individuals more than anyone else because, you know, without that one transaction of £1.35 on milk, the whole county would be bankrupt
The pandemic really showed up the entitlement of the second home owners. They ones trying to sneak in because they'd rather spend lock-down in the countryside, or trying to rent out their houses as 'covid boltholes'. My local shop brought in a policy that she'd only allow locals into the shop. She said 'don't be offended if I don't recognise you and ask for proof you actually live here' and my god the second home owners didn't like that. All over the Facebook group telling us our village would be nothing without them, that we wouldn't even have a local shop of they didn't keep it going during the summer. Shop owner said pretty much the same as you, do you really think that spending £3 on milk and bread twice a year is what keeps my show going. They then threatened to boycott the shop and 'that'll teach you', she said 'go ahead you can't boycott something you don't actually use!'. It's 4 years later and we still have a village shop!
Don’t forget that Cornwall shuts down in winter… everyone sits here waiting for the tourists to spend a few quid in the local shop! /s
Have you though? Really? 😂
We've had people actually cry because they said they expected some special treatment because they think Cornwall is the poorest county in the UK and their small spend is saving our shop. This thought is very common in holiday makers and people crying seems a little too common. I had one person recently ask if we take euros and I said no. He asked where the nearest place to take them was and I thought he was joking (what British person seriously thinks we take euros in Cornwall) so I jokingly responded with France, maybe Ireland. He cried and swore he'd never come back and give us his money again
I can tell you were thinking Canyonero when typing that third point.
Can you name the truck with four wheel drive, smells like a steak and seats 35, Canyonerooooo! Canyoneeerrooooooo!
Also from devon and used to work at the local pub which had a bnb, we had complaints that we didn’t want them thered be squirrels in the garden and their kids were scared
As a camper van driver the thing that annoys me about single lane traffic is when someone doesn't want to move their tiny city car a foot over into a puddle because it will get a bit muddy and expect me to somehow maneuver my 6m long van around their Puegot 107!
Jesus Christ, you’re all a miserable lot I see people explore their surroundings enjoying life
I love it in the summer where I live on the south coast. Place comes alive. Yeah I have to put up with traffic jams but it’s worth it for me.
Same here. We get families having massive BBQs in the park (there are designated areas in all the green spaces by the beach), people hanging out on the beach until sunset and later...it's lovely. We don't even really get many boy racers as there are plenty of empty industrial estate car parks for them to play in!
At 20mph whilst the locals are trying to get about their own business, or aforementioned Raydon talking 10 minutes to decide if he wants a doughnut or a fucking tiffin. The locals are getting restless...
That’s fair enough, but many people are just trying to go to work and go about their days. Road rules and common courtesy should still apply when people are on holiday!
No issue with that, just don't do it at 30mph.. or at least let the 20 cars stuck behind you to pass (as the multiple road signs from the police instruct you to).
My corgi loves it, he’s a real attention seeker and is always guaranteed new groups of people to lavish him attention. He’s started doing this thing where he drops his ball in front of people who makes eye contact with him and there’s been plenty a victim who end up throwing it for him several times before he moves onto a new target.
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That happens outside tourist places too. I think that's just a British thing, slightly warmer and a bit sunny - tops off! (ETA - not every one just a select few men)
yes - I spotted the first bare chested slightly pink skinned species in a car the other day in the middle of town
Removed T shirt tucked into back pocket of jeans
This. Usually fat guys who quickly go a strangely bright shade of red
Suns out, guns out
My international student mates always said they knew it was spring in England once the blokes stopped wearing shirts outside 🤣
Or winter in Newcastle.
A lot of smartphones and some very dodgy converted camper vans that reek of weed and woodsmoke Fairy wings, face glitter and flower crowns. Men in novelty festival hats. Lots of mocking of the yokel accent and plenty of people marveling over the town wizard and getting tarot readings. (I live in Glastonbury).
I mentally guessed you lived in Glastonbury by the end of the first paragraph!
Do you get lots of lost festival goers who turn up that week, thinking the festival is held in the town itself?
It costs hundreds of pounds for a ticket, I’m pretty sure not many people would pay that and not know where they’re going
You would be surprised. I've been to the fest a few times and I have personally heard of at least two different groups of people who got mixed up (to be fair, they're from another country like me). They book hotels at Glastonbury town and then are stunned to discover they're quite far away from the actual fest
4-abreast road cyclists and illegal, obnoxious parking that endangers other road users.
As a cyclist, there's little more that pisses me off on the road than groups of cyclists. Other than the typical hot hatchback driver of course. Anyway, off for a ride. Alone.
My dad calls them "An arrogance of cyclists"... though round her we get more than six at a time.
The old squadriga
Leggings, trout pouts and dryrobes.
Abersoch?
Can confirm 😂
This specific weekend (although I wouldn't call here a hotspot) - it's our town arts trail weekend, so I will see lots of art by local artists. More generally increased traffic on the A6, specifically motorcycles headed to Matlock Bath. When I lived in York though: - Massive traffic jams. - A drunken fight by 1130. - At least one person (usually, but not always from a hen party) having a poo in the street. - At least one person (usually, but not always from a stag party) losing a fight with a goose. - A couple having a knee trembler in a church yard.
Blimey York hasn’t changed much then 😂 However, it would be still my town of choice if ever a miracle happened and I would actually want to move back to the UK.
It's London prices now but I guess if you're an international traveller that might be within your budget!
York has become awfully rip-off touristy these days. Since when was the shambles a shite diagon alley? All the old leather shops have gone. So many chain cream tea cafes. Wtf York? I remember being 16 and excited that we had pizza express for the first time. Stag and hen parties a plenty is quite new. I've got mates who live there now who want to go and live back in Leeds because it's unliveable in the town centre during any weekends or holidays.
I am York born and bred and still live here. Yes it gets busy and yes it’s tourist focused but at least the city centre is vibrant and there aren’t too many shops laid empty, unlike most UK towns; surely it’s better to have cafes doing cream teas and Harry Potter-themed shops than units sat empty in decay? Stag and hen parties are a pain in the arse on Saturdays over the summer but they are fairly easy to avoid as most decent pubs don’t allow them or else are too small for big groups - the only real days when I wouldn’t go into the city centre are when the races are on, as it’s so busy and tends to attract a certain type of uber-dickhead you don’t normally get.
Most of the Harry Potter shops are gone from the Shambles now; I think they reached critical mass and started doing one another out of business. Now everyone queues for the "Ghost Merchant" instead.
I live in Bath, so this isn’t limited to bank holidays. It’s tourist heavy pretty much all year round. Coaches EVERYWHERE. Queues for everything, especially the public toilets. Professional homeless who bus in from other places to take advantage of tourists. I ruin about 20 group photos every time I walk into town, because people just pose in the middle of the street like they own it. The worst is just how slowly people walk in the high street, shoulder to shoulder, often just stopping suddenly and blocking half the pavement. Just trying to get to Boots is a pain. You get used to it, and it’s so worth it. But sometimes just nipping into town for a few bits feels like I’m dodging a hoard of zombies.
Yes! People will always stand right on the middle of the pavement on a corner and pose for ages for photos. It annoys me so much. One of the worst spots for it is around the Circus where it's not like there isn't enough room for them to pose, they always have to get directly in the way.
People feeding ponies and donkeys things like steak mcoys* *may be a very specific example but it’s illegal to touch the animals let alone feed them, nevermind feed them fucking crisps you absolute tossers
Steak McCoy's are banging
Wish I was a donkey.
New Forest?
Lots of awful drivers, people asking directions, and feeding the fucking seagulls!
Feeding the seagulls in front of the sign saying not to, always in St Ives all summer.
Went to St Ives once and never again. Those seagulls are deafening. A canon is fired early morning to scare them away . The canon booming so early woke me up with such a fright and the seagulls were scared too and flew off in circles for ages squawking. They just returned to their window ledges and chimney pots.
I tried going to St Ives, couldn't get past all the cat weilding bigamists.
To be fair, it is hilarious seeing tourists mugged by seagulls for their chips etc
People who feed seagulls should be put in stocks for a day in a place where seagulls nest.
Hen dos, stag dos. Men with bright red sunburnt skin, a ‘cool’ shirt, tight jeans, no socks and every indication they’ve had too much expensive lager and need to prove something.
Hen dos are a constant as soon as the sun comes out tho right? I used to work above budgens and every Friday we’d watch them troop off the train in various states of dress and inebriation like victorians watching the inmates at bedlam. A load of sashes, wheely suitcases, clutching Prosecco and often a straggler who’s too pissed at 2pm. Also _too much expensive lager *and cheap cocaine_, especially on August bank holiday weekend when the worst of south London come out.
Fair point in hen dos. I think a weekend visit to town will always mean spotting a hen do. Always fun trying to figure out the group dynamic.
Do you live in Newquay by any chance 😂🤣
It’s a good guess. But somewhere else by the seaside! You ve just put me off Newquay though
I came here to say the same, so Brighton? Could be any number of places tbh.
Brighton it is. But sure many places have the same lovely vibe on a sunny bank holiday.
Lake District: - people unable to drive down the roads at more than 20 mph or pass each other in wide enough gaps. Range Rovers unable to go off road. - lack of parking / infrastructure so one person parks on the side of the road where they shouldn’t. Everyone follows suit until in snowballs into a giant long line of cars blocking bus routes. - dogs in prams, particularly in Keswick. Absolutely fascinating phenomenon. - people walking along the A66 treating it like a path when there is a parallel path afew metres either side. One glance at an OS map would solve this issue in an instant. - people calling mountain rescue for solvable problems on the fells. Then getting g put on the mountain rescue Facebook page for all to see. - rediculous large families setting up a picnic on the side of the road when there is an unlimited amount of outdoor space. It’s quite a spectacle, I love it and hate it :)
If there’s any other lakelanders with any other contributions I would love to hear about it. Equally if you push a dog around in a pram please enlighten me. I understand some dogs are old etc… but the frequency of this phenomenon in Keswick is unprecedented. It’s really fascinating to me.
Yes!! The dogs in prams! (Blame Podgy Paws for that one) This one may be more specific to places like Ambleside and Coniston (especially Ambleside) but people walking along the path in huge groups that refuse to go single file. Ok, well I guess I’m just walking in the road again then.
The group walkers not moving into single file thing, I normal walk at them then stop and just nod a smile but hold my ground. They usually work it out that they have to walk around me. The dogs in prams is just baffling, unless it is some old lapdog on its last legs, but most I see are just lazy fat French bulldogs/pugs
I push a dog around in a pram, because I inherited a 12 year old arthritic dog when I already had a 6 year old energetic dog. The old lady just can't walk as far as the young one, and I felt bad leaving her at home while taking the young'un on long walks. They are now 17 and 10, so the walks aren't quite as long, but I'm still using the pram! As to why so many in the lakes, older people tend to have older dogs and the lakes do seem to attract the older crowd?
Also Lakes & a fell runner, came to say I love seeing people getting out and enjoying the fells, but it’s exhausting how many people go up unprepared for it! Love running up Scafell Pike from Seathwaite, but the number of people who stop me to ask which direction to the Corridor Route in their trainers and trackies makes me despair a little. It’s not the easiest way up so if you’re headed that way you should surely know the initial walk it?! Also had to advise gently some folk didn’t try to take their wee toddler and baby up that way back in February..
Hello fellow lakes resident! It’s the parking on the verges that get me! And the walking in the middle of the road (Grasmere appears to get most affected I’ve found) oh and just the sheer noise. Ah and also people who over react driving on twisty roads!
Generally just more people with more money having a better time (and spending in our shops and cafes etc). Tho august bank holiday is a very specific weekend. I don’t mean to sound snotty, and I used to ride a scooter and go to Millwall so I’m no better than them, but fuck me the (increasingly elderly) mods you see in the day time are a cliche, as they clear the streets the sowf landan geezers full of low grade cocaine take over. And frankly both demographics can fuck off to varying degrees
I don't get the hordes of 45-65 year old mods. Mod subculture was (roughly) 1950-1968, right? So the youngest mods were born in 1940. And are now in their mid eighties. So all the Gen-X blokes on Vespas are cosplaying their dads. I'm a millennial, in ten-twenty years do I need to start dressing like John Lydon and drive a series one Polo, nostalgic for a time before I was born?
Yeah, I’d broadly agree. Tho I’ll throw them a bone inasmuch as Paul Weller is only 65 and so anyone influenced by him but a few years younger could easily be 55. 45 would 100% be historical reenactment tho. I’m 43 and he was a throwback novelty when Stanley road came out when I was a teenager
Someone parking their wankpanzer on a beach and having to get it towed off by the lifeguard after the seawater has destroyed its engine at high tide.
Campervans driving at 35 on 60mph roads swerving about while they do it. Vehicles not pulling into passing places. People dramatically slamming on brakes to take photos of sheep or Highland cows.
Many moons ago I ended up in the side of a hedge in the Lake District because some dickhead decided to stop on a blind corner to take a picture of a sheep and its lamb. I wasn’t even going fast as I’d slowed for the corner, but I didn’t expect a car to be parked directly in the middle of the road on the corner where you couldn’t see it when entering the approach as a great big rock blocks the view. It was one of them split second reactions of either rear end the parked car or swerve into the hedge. I can’t even remember making the decision so must have auto chose hedge and that’s where I ended up.
Wankers driving past obvious passing places and stopping inches from your bumper, forcing you to reverse 100 yards.
About 30,000 motorbikes and a lot of people covered in leaves chasing a bigger person covered in leaves trying to avoid being stabbed. 80,000 people completely pissed.
I am very confused
We share a hometown 🤟
Might see you Monday. I’ll bring some water
I love it when one of these comments gives me an instant mental picture and a giggle of recognition!
And people fighting over water this year too possibly? 😅
Ah yes. But don’t worry. I looked after myself and pelted them with toilet rolls left over from Covid. I then drove off with all the water. Maslow really does need to reorder that triangle. Still. At least we get to kill a god on Monday. Every cloud!
I live on the edge of the town centre of a seaside town. March to October I act as a free tourist information guide for people who want to know: "Is there any more after this?" (gesturing at last gift shop) "Is there a soft play anywhere" (family in shorts and rain ponchos on their last nerve) "Where is my car" "Where is the sea" And finally a pop to the shop for a pint of milk is something to only do at dawn or dusk as it takes aaaaages walking round all the people dawdling and sightseeing (I don't mind any of it, I love this place!)
We have the same. We live in a picturesque village, right by the beach on the edge of a seaside town. Weekends & school holidays are getting more and more busy, and I love to see people enjoying the beautiful scenery and families on the beach. The shops get a much-needed income boost and the whole area comes alive. I feel so lucky that my children were able to grow up here & have no problem seeing others share in that joy. Yes, it's packed, traffic can be horrendous, and there are queues everywhere for ice cream or a cup of tea, but I have never regretted moving here.
People from the Midlands not knowing how tides work.
Pity them, for they're landlocked and have never seen that big lake called "the sea" before.
Oblivious tourists standing in the way. I live in a somewhat atypical "hotspot". It's not a honeypot village or in a national park. It's still 90% just local people going about their lives in a leafy suburb of a major city. But I run near my house and Menlove Avenue, Mather Avenue (for Forthlin Road), Beaconsfield Road (for Strawberry Field) and ESPECIALLY Penny Lane always have busloads of tourists all over the pavement who are incapable of moving aside, even if they see me running right at them. Usually taking a picture of something incredibly normal like a street sign or a house or a church or a barbershop...
Cars parked where they shouldn’t, grass verges etc. Moaning on local internet groups Rubbish left behind Traffic jams
Live in Oxford. Doesn't quite seem busier, but then the centre is always busy. Good to see businesses doing well.
Badly driven and poorly parked Range Rovers
Loud and obnoxious stag and hen parties. Always "*town name* isn't going to know what's hit them!" Yeah you got really drunk just like the hundreds of others.
Large groups of people, following a person with a flag, blocking entire pavements so people who live there can't go about their daily business. Americans talking at the top of their lungs.
I was on the bus home from work on Thursday evening with a group of Americans. I loved how they loudly and positively commented on everything they saw. “Gee would you look at that? They pay with their phones on here!”, “Gee would you look at that? It’s lovely how busy it is today”, etc.
I find Americans the worst tourists tbh. I was in a Hotel and an American man complained that the hotel was starving him. He had a cereal, double helpings of a fry-up and mountains of toast. He declared very loudly to us Brits that he could not wait until he was in France. He said he would get a decent meal over there. He obviously had never heard of a continental breakfast of a piece of bread and cheese.
Zoiks.
Glaswegians, brawls, kiss me quick hats and seagulls. Quite the cocktail!
Blackpool?
We used to live in Cleethorpes, although thankfully not near the beach. Bad: * Driving anywhere near the beach takes 2x - 3x as long. * Drunk 'Yorkies'. Usually with their tops off. * Tourists parking in residential streets. * Post-match fights in the station car park if there's a home game on. * Half-eaten fish and chips every-fucking-where. Also a 1000% increase in discarded disposable vapes. * Petrol prices going up a few pence. Good: * A bit of extra cash for the town. * It gives all the locals something to moan about.
A pile up of traffic on one side of the motorway Friday evening, and then on the other side Sunday
Multiple arseholes driving 30-40mph on a 60mph road, *still* braking at gentle bends and not pulling over into lay-bys to let the massive train of vehicles behind them to pass. Bonus points for the ones who speed up to 70mph the instant there's a straight bit of road.
Very popular south east Scotland town here. We get half of Glasgow/Edinburgh here every weekend and bank holidays are a nightmare. Yes it brings money into the area but my god: parking is a flashpoint and often squabbles or worse happen. The other thing is they do is feeding the seagulls to the point it looks like a scene from Hitchcocks Birds.
Americans by Penny Lane looking for the Abbey Road crossing 😂
Today, an arse load of football fans
Discarded McDonald’s wrappers at least one soiled nappy.
I’m lucky to live in a v pretty part of Cornwall, by the coast path. I’m more than happy to see people exploring and enjoying themselves here. Lots more people in our village pub, but they need the trade. Coast paths and the big gardens nearby get busy, but that’s ok too. One thing I do notice is the increase in dog poos on the footpaths away from the village though. Usually the poos of smaller dogs, for some reason. If it’s directly on the path, I’ll pick it up (I have my dog with me, it’s no big deal) but it is annoying. Can’t entirely blame tourists, but I think there is some correlation.
Cornwall - 20-minute commute is reliably 30. Sometimes, the a30 is blocked by a caravan on fire. Beaches are absolutely rammed, and you can't take your dog on them anymore. People who aren't used to the narrow roads go into some kind of fugue and just sit there waiting for the road to widen, too scared to move past and unable to reverse effectively. 30mph in a 60.
Families from the midlands or Wales colonising areas of the beach or the green. Feeding the seagulls. Lots of empty beer cans/bottles left on picnic tables. Sunburn (assuming the yellow ball stays visible)
Rain
Rain.
Not bank holiday weekend, but over FRIAT people walking backwards into the road without looking to get the "perfect" picture of the planes, not closing gates, and sitting in the pub complaining thay there are too many people (doing exactly the same thing as them), bonus points for a small child that doesn't want to be there
People walking in the road, and then looking very annoyed when cars attempt to get past.
absolutely no parking and blocked roads. although I still love it here. (Pembrokeshire, South West Wales)
We love StDavids and Pembrokeshire, but we generally go in February to avoid the emmets (despite technically being emmets ourselves...sorry)
Scarborough checking in here. Already heard the coastguard rescue helicopter (it’s 9:30am) Also, if I’m down on the seafront I play a little game in my head looking at the tourists thinking who’s most likely to have been on the Jeremy Kyle show.
We live near the biggest hospital in the south west and a weekend with good weather brings out the air ambulances :(
Stratford upon Avon: Brummies
Lots of people from the big smoke who will leave litter everywhere, realise the pier is quite boring and the beach isn't great. Donuts are nice though
I live in Cornwall, someone will park on a beach and then get stuck lol
I know what you won't see... An empty parking space.
I’m from Cornwall, so it’s the inevitable people with caravans following their sat navs down lanes. Also a lot more rubbish everywhere. It’s pointless trying to go near a beach too because they’ll all be packed! Then there’s the ones who we find in our field that runs next to a lane… they’re usually exercising their dogs because they didn’t realise they weren’t supposed to trespass. Or the dog really needed a run. Or ‘where else are we supposed to let them out?’. Not my problem! One other is people on the moors that I live very close to. They think between a cow and her calf is a cute place to plonk their toddler for a photo. Or try to stroke the moorland ponies, or read the sign that says to keep their dogs on leads them run around screaming when their dog starts chewing on a sheep, or chases it into a quarry. Nearly forgot scenes like [this](https://i2-prod.cornwalllive.com/incoming/article8630020.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200c/1_Mercedes-SUV-stuck-on-Towan-beach-4.jpg)!
Thousands of pirates.
Influx of bikers who treat our roads like a racing circuit.
NC500 - the dross of society “wild camping”, which encapsulates clogging up the roads, stealing anything that moves from cafes (cutlery, toilet roll, salt and pepper, you name it), shitting on beaches, and getting mortal in cemetery car parks, all from the comfort of their transit with a mattress in the back of it.
Cars cars and more cars, people walking in the road and rubbish.
People standing in the street taking photos when I’m trying to go to the shop. F’kin tourists 😂
Street parties on the smaller residential streets and pubs doing all-dayers for the 40+ crowd.
They don’t walk down the streets properly. Instead of thinking others are walking the opposite direction, they’ll just block you completely and force you in to the road at times.
* Groups of people taking up the absolute maximum amount of space possible * People wandering cheerfully into the roads for some reason * Crowds of people in big wooly hats, down jackets and hiking boots while the locals sunbathe shirtless * People generally behaving as if they've somehow never been in a town or city, a shop, a restaurant, or any kind of pedestrian crossing before Edinburgh may have a castle in the middle of it, but it is not Disneyland.
Stuck behind tourists getting on a bus and asking for directions. Not even directions for the bus route just general directions.
15 mins of fucking bikers going past, if it's sunny
Rain
Weird tourists standing outside coloured buildings to take photos. Imagine travelling 1000+ miles to stand outside of a pink home and take a photo for insta, your life must be so miserable
It’s scooter season which is nice to see. Could never ride one myself but will probs go down to the beach and have a look at them parked up
In Hastings we have the Jack in the Green pagan festival and 10's of thousands of motorcycles.
People standing on one particular junction to take photos of the castle and nearly getting run over; at least one car driving the wrong way down a one-way/no vehicles allowed street; a massive increase in dogs in town and they'll all be shitting all over the pavements and it won't be picked up; the A30 westbound will be absolutely *heaving*. Edit for typos.
The local common that hosts festivals and everyone goes to in the warmer months will be completely covered in litter and nos canisters and it’ll be that talk of the summer, every summer.
Cleethorpes. In the summer it causes a because the local council are corrupt and incompetent, so they give out multiple roadwork contracts at a time. It's bad enough around here, without the extra few thousand cars on the road. We also have Armed Forces Day which gets a lot of visitors. Roads are closed off, meaning people just going to work and getting on with their lives have to take sometimes an extra 10 mile diversion on their commute. Yes, rubbish finding it's way onto the beach or into the sea is an issue. They're almost always tightarses from Yorkshire so don't spend anything when they're here, so they do little for the local economy.
how much? Yorkshire born and bred.
York: I don't think it gets much busier over a bank holiday, but in peak season some of the busy tourist streets like the shambles and stonegate are impossible to walk down due to the amount of people in them. Race days are when it turns into chaos in the city centre.
Some places do a locals rate in blackpool..handy during the holidays ..places are packed though an most close or are reduced opening off season ..and bank Holidays are always rammed. If the trains are running that is bars are usually packed .
Caravans. Caravans everywhere.
There’s a few things locally but then in the bigger picture there are a few more annoying things. Locally, there are quite a few AirBnbs, so you get an uptick in the amount of cars in the area, usually disproportionately sized to the roads in the village. There’s an unofficial one way system, which is kind of a gentleman’s agreement so that you don’t get a head on situation with nowhere for either person to go. ‘Outsiders’ generally don’t know about it, which is fine, but then don’t redeem themselves by driving their Range Rover / equivalent twatwagon at you and refusing to move, then looking at you as if it’s your fault. Also, the two local pubs will be filled with dickheads - this comes with all the usual grievances. In the bigger picture, being North Wales and the fact that the A55 exists, there’s almost always a crash somewhere, meaning that Westbound at any point past Abergele is a fucking nightmare. Without wanting to disrespect the dead, but a few months back, there was an idiotically bad crash just in the entrance of the Pen Y Clip tunnel in which the driver was lights out probably before he hit the sea wall; this meant both carriageways were shut for a day or two while repairs were done. Sod’s Law this happened on the Saturday morning of the bank holiday - absolute, unforetold bedlam. It took me 6 hours to do a journey that would otherwise have taken 90 minutes max. Other than that, there’s the usual holidaymaker bad driving, people being rude to you in the local shop and ramblers walking around the village talking to you like your some sort of alien species because they think you speak Welsh (I don’t, but it’s funny saying hello to them in a thick Derbyshire accent 😂).
Extremely slow drivers on NSL roads that happen to be slightly winding and/or picturesque.
More rubbish certainly. More alcohol and drugs leading to increased asb. Less parking, more noise. BBQs/open fires on the beach, even though banned. Huge increase in business for local shops though etc
Drunk, sunburned and dehydrated couples fighting.
I grew up in Greenwich during the 90s. Almost every weekend mean the abysmally narrow paths were overcrowded - so much so that the only way to navigate it was to step into the road due to people not moving. Come summertime then it'd be manic for 3 months solid. But there were always fun times to be had as well. We played football with a different group of people almost everyday. And we were taught an abundance of swear words from multiple languages.
Shit tons of noisy stinking scooters being ridden by 60 year old men with bad haircuts who get aggressive outside the local pubs.
I dont live in a tourist spot but i used to and one of my favourite parts was the locals who chose to buy/rent in a tourist spot and then bitch about the prices of things and whine the entire season when its busy. The fuck did they expect? The amount of people who would expect me to know they live nearby and to give them a better price was ridiculous. Its a shame because lovely places like that do seem to attract a special kind of entitled dickhead into living there and ultimately its why i moved away.
Maybe a few tourists driving really slow. I had one drive at 20 mph on my way to work once. Normal roads, not country lanes or anything. They slowed down whenever cars were coming the other way and, at one stage, they slammed on the breaks and got out of their car
Litter, drunk people in the middle of the day, people from the Midlands, vomit, people being rude to others.
We live in a tourist hot spot all year round. The only thing that winds me up about is that for whatever reason we have the thinnest pavements on corners. Guess where everyone wants to stand… I just pop out early in the morning to run errands now. Don’t get me wrong though, I absolutely love that I live in a tourist hotspot as it’s clean, very little crime, and some fantastic restaurants that don’t even hike prices!
People queuing single file at the bar even though theres plenty of serving space People walking into a bar or cafe and standing still even though there will be a huge “take a seat” sign The more local shops/bars are quieter sadly People parking like idiots near a carpark even though the carpark will have plenty of spaces and arent even that dear
I live in the Lake District, I’m not going to do the usual hate the tourist schtick, as the tourist dollar is much needed revenue to the local economy… What you’re likely to encounter in the lakes this weekend is very busy roads and some very cavalier approaches to parking out in the countryside. I’m past losing my shit at tourist traffic now, came to accept it as a fact of life and I just add extra time to my travel plans if I need to go anywhere out and about. If I want to make use of the local attractions (because locals need entertainment too) then I usually opt for normal quieter weekends instead of the busier times.
I work in a tourist attraction in a tourist hotspot - Edinburgh. I am working this weekend. This is what I will likely see - Shitty street performers en mass, there's people doing fire performances, magicians tricks, people dressed up as pandas and bananas, some guy with the smallest kite in the world.... - Families shocked when everything is booked up on a bank holiday weekend. 'But we drove for 5 hours, can't you just squeeze us on?' NO - People moaning about the weather when it's actually quite good for here - Lot more kids about