There’s a strange irony unfolding in global travel right now. The more people dream about visiting a place, the more likely they are to ruin it – not through any bad intentions, but simply by showing up. Destinations that once offered magic, calm, and authentic culture are now under siege by sheer human volume.
In a 2024 survey on the impact of overtourism on travel plans in Europe, over a quarter of respondents intended to avoid visiting overcrowded destinations in the year ahead. That number is only growing. According to McKinsey, roughly four-fifths of all travelers visit just one-tenth of the world’s tourist destinations. The result? A handful of beloved places are being loved to death.
What follows is a gallery of the ten destinations travelers are increasingly crossing off their lists – not because the places lost their appeal, but because the crowds have.
1. Venice, Italy – The Floating City That’s Sinking Under Tourists
Let’s be real: Venice is breathtaking on paper. In reality, the experience for many visitors today is closer to shuffling shoulder-to-shoulder through a packed outdoor museum than anything remotely romantic. Venice’s population has dropped from about 175,000 in the 1970s to just under 50,000 today, all while millions of daily visitors crowd its narrow waterways.
In 2019, Venice recorded 30 million visitors – a staggering 50 times more than its population. With curbs such as entrance fees, arrivals dropped to about 20 million in 2023. Still, that figure remains overwhelming for a small, historically fragile city.
Strained by continuing overtourism, Venice doubled its tourist tax to €10 for last-minute day-trippers and expanded fee days from 29 in 2024 to 54 in 2025. Groups exceeding 25 people are also prohibited from entering the city, and audio guides or loudspeakers are restricted.
Overcrowding is especially problematic in Venice, which has narrow old streets designed for smaller foot traffic. Iconic sites like St. Mark’s Square can be jam-packed with tourists during the high season. Seasoned travelers are increasingly opting to skip it altogether, or visit in the depths of January when the crowds thin and the city reclaims a ghost of its former soul.
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2. Barcelona, Spain – When Locals Say “Tourists Go Home”
There’s something deeply uncomfortable about visiting a city where residents are openly hostile to your presence – and in Barcelona, that tension has become impossible to ignore. The city of just 1.6 million residents welcomed over 26 million tourists in 2024, with more than 15.6 million staying overnight, according to local tourism authorities. That’s over 10 times the local population, and those numbers don’t even count cruise ship day-trippers, which add another 1.6 million visitors a year.
Barcelona suffers from severe overtourism, which resulted in 3,000 residents protesting on July 6, 2024. Residents demanded reduced tourist numbers and for the government to prioritize fairer economies.
In 2024, an activist group called “Tourism is Killing Barcelona” gained momentum as a vocal opposition movement. With 12 million visitors recorded in the previous year, many locals saw property rents escalate dramatically, forcing long-term residents out of their neighborhoods. City officials responded by halting the issuance of new hotel licenses.
Las Ramblas in Barcelona has earned the title of the second worst tourist trap in the world, with over 826 negative reviews. This iconic promenade runs for 1.2 kilometers through central Barcelona, packed with shops, eateries, and attractions. While some travelers enjoy its vibe, others find the experience chaotic and overwhelming. The area is often packed with crowds and is known for pickpocketing. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine a less enjoyable afternoon.
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3. Santorini, Greece – Paradise Overwhelmed
Few places in the world photograph as beautifully as Santorini. The white-washed walls, the blue domes, the sunsets over the caldera – it’s iconic for a reason. The problem is that everyone on the planet knows that, and they’re all trying to get there at the same time.
Santorini draws 3.4 million tourists annually and is a popular stop for cruise ships. On peak summer days, as many as 17,000 cruise passengers arrive, placing significant strain on an island with only 20,000 permanent residents.
In 2024, reports documented up to 18,000 cruise passengers overwhelming the island daily, straining resources for its 15,000 residents. Think about that for a moment. On some days, the number of cruise tourists alone nearly equals the entire resident population.
The strain on local resources, including water and waste management, is immense, and the constant flow of tourists has driven up prices, making it increasingly difficult for locals to afford to live on the island. The Greek government has responded by limiting the number of cruise ship passengers allowed to disembark each day. For Santorini, 2024 was the busiest summer yet, and locals described it as “the worst season ever.”
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4. Kyoto, Japan – Ancient Temples, Modern Crowds
Kyoto is perhaps the world’s greatest victim of its own cultural perfection. Temples, zen gardens, geisha districts, bamboo groves – it has everything. Which is exactly why it can no longer breathe.
Japanese news outlets reported that 2024 saw a record 10.88 million foreign visitors to Kyoto. The massive number of people has led to street closures and overflowing trash cans. Officials in Kyoto have taken several measures to combat overcrowding and bad behavior, including barring tourists from visiting some streets in Gion, the city’s Geisha district, in response to tourists harassing the geishas.
Kyoto City has announced plans to increase its accommodation tax, setting a new maximum rate of 10,000 yen per night. This measure, set to take effect in March 2026, aims to address the sustainability challenges posed by overtourism. Once implemented, this will be the highest lodging tax in Japan.
The number of foreign visitors to Japan in April 2025 hit a single-month record of 3.91 million, bolstered by cherry blossom season and Easter holidays. In May 2025, the number of foreign visitors rose 21.5% from a year earlier to 3.7 million, a record for that month. With numbers like these, Kyoto’s serene reputation is increasingly at odds with its crowded reality.
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5. Amsterdam, Netherlands – Canals, Coffeeshops, and Too Many People
Amsterdam has tried just about everything to turn visitors away – or at least, to turn away a certain kind of visitor. The city launched a so-called “stay away” online campaign in spring 2023, aimed directly at “wild,” hard-partying British males coming to the city in search of sex and drugs. That’s a first in modern tourism history, and it tells you a lot about where things stood.
In 2024, Amsterdam recorded around 23 million overnight tourist stays, roughly a three percent increase over the previous year, despite its self-imposed cap of 20 million that was set in 2021. The city couldn’t even meet its own targets.
Visitors to Amsterdam should plan to pay the highest tourist taxes in Europe. The city announced the daily fee for cruise ship day visitors will go from 8 to 11 euros, while the nightly fee built into hotel room prices jumped to 12.5% of the room rate.
The Dutch city plans to limit cruise ships in its harbor to just 100 in 2026, down from 190 currently, before banning them by 2035. The rise of budget airlines and platforms like Airbnb have led to an influx of visitors more interested in nightlife than culture, leading to overcrowding, noise pollution, and a loss of the city’s traditional character. In response, Amsterdam removed the famous “I Amsterdam” sign to discourage overtourism. It’s a fascinating signal: even the landmarks are trying to escape the crowds.
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6. Dubrovnik, Croatia – Game of Thrones Brought a Curse
Before Game of Thrones, Dubrovnik was a stunning, relatively quiet gem on the Adriatic coast. Then it became Westeros, and everything changed. Dubrovnik, once a hidden gem, is now a well-known tourist destination thanks in part to its role as a filming location for the popular show. In 2019, Dubrovnik’s mayor introduced measures to cap the number of daily visitors to the city’s Old Town, yet overtourism continues to challenge its infrastructure.
According to Statista, Croatia tops the list for overtourism, with Dubrovnik experiencing an overwhelming 36 tourists per resident – a figure recorded before the pandemic and the surge of revenge travel that followed. That’s not a typo. Thirty-six tourists for every single local resident.
Dubrovnik has capped cruise ships at two per day to manage tourist numbers. In 2023, Dubrovnik amended its General Urban Plan to ban the construction of new holiday apartments. The city also decided to restrict cruise ships to only two at a time and for a minimum of eight hours. This staggering has helped prevent overcrowding in tourist hotspots including the Old City.
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7. Bali, Indonesia – Spiritual Island Under Pressure
Bali has long held a near-mythical status among travelers – the rice terraces, the temples, the spiritual energy. It’s the kind of place people put on their bucket list and return to again and again. The problem is, too many of them returned at the same time.
In 2024, Bali saw 6.33 million international visitors, surpassing the previous peak of 6.28 million in 2019. This was a 20 percent increase from 2023. The island alone accounted for nearly half of all foreign tourists to Indonesia that year.
Bali’s iconic rice terraces are being rapidly replaced with luxury hotels, villas, and resorts. The small island has been grappling with traffic congestion, plastic pollution, and overdevelopment straining its natural resources, including water.
Nearly 15 million tourists arrived in Bali in 2024, and many local communities protested against rapid, unchecked development. The replacement of sacred sites and traditional rice paddies with resorts and beach clubs sparked widespread concern. The Indonesian government initiated a crackdown on illegal construction and began promoting eco-tourism. Since February 2024, foreign tourists have been paying a one-time IDR 150,000 (roughly US $9) as tourism tax. The Bali provincial government collected 318 billion IDR (US$19.2 million) in 2024 through the Foreign Tourism Levy.
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8. Machu Picchu, Peru – The Inca Trail Is Getting Worn Out
There’s something almost poetic about the idea of hiking through the Andes to reach a lost Incan city in the clouds. It’s supposed to feel epic and remote. These days, it often just feels like queuing in the mountains.
Machu Picchu, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, has seen massive visitor numbers that threaten its preservation. The Peruvian government has imposed daily visitor caps and introduced a mandatory guide policy. There are also plans to restrict the number of people who can hike the Inca Trail at any given time.
In 2023, Peru announced it would suspend visits to Machu Picchu as overtourism caused erosion on some stone structures. When a wonder of the world is literally being worn down by foot traffic, you know the situation has gotten serious.
It’s hard to say for sure whether these restrictions will be enough in the long run, but the message is clear. Think of Machu Picchu like a centuries-old bridge that can only handle so much weight. Right now, too many people are crossing at once, and the structure is groaning. Many travelers who do still visit say the mandatory timed entry and guide requirements have at least made the experience more manageable, but the magic of solitude on the mountain is largely gone.
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9. Paris, France – The City of Light Dims Under the Weight of Visitors
Paris is the ultimate paradox of overtourism. It’s so achingly beautiful that everyone wants to go, and yet precisely because everyone goes, the beauty gets harder to actually feel. Officially the most overcrowded city in the world for 2024, Paris records an incredible 351,429 visitors per square kilometer. Its visitor-to-population ratio stands at 1,708 percent.
In Paris, workers at the Louvre staged a walkout to protest overcrowding and hazardous working conditions, and the museum later capped daily attendance at 30,000. When museum employees go on strike because there are too many tourists, you know things have reached a tipping point.
Top attractions such as the Eiffel Tower overflow with tourists, especially in peak seasons of spring and summer. The Eiffel Tower remains the poster child for Parisian dreams, yet the reality on the ground often falls short. A 2024 survey revealed that almost a third of visitors walked away feeling let down.
Think of it this way: Paris is like a perfect painting displayed behind scratched glass. You know the masterpiece is there, but the experience of seeing it is diminished by everything around it. The cafes, the boulevards, the architecture – they’re still extraordinary. It’s the crush of humanity surrounding every landmark that’s making savvy travelers reconsider their timing, or skip peak season entirely.
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10. Hallstatt, Austria – A Postcard Village That Became a Victim of Its Own Image
Hallstatt might be the most extreme example of overtourism at a micro scale anywhere on the planet. It’s a picture-perfect Alpine village sitting on the edge of a lake – the kind of place that looks like it was designed specifically to be someone’s profile photo. And that, unfortunately, is exactly what happened to it.
Despite its population of 800, the town receives around 10,000 visitors per day in peak season. This caused locals to protest against overtourism, holding signs saying “tourism yes, mass tourism no.”
Hallstatt receives around 10,000 visitors per day in peak season. Tourists flock to the small town to see its ancient salt mines, pristine lake, and Alpine scenery. The problem is that Hallstatt has a population of just 800 locals, which is tiny in comparison to the visitor numbers. In 2023, locals protested against overtourism while holding banners.
I think what makes Hallstatt so telling is that it represents what happens when a place goes viral without any infrastructure to handle it. It’s the travel equivalent of a small-town diner that gets featured on a major TV show and suddenly has a three-hour wait every morning. The charm is still there, technically, but the experience has been completely transformed. More and more travelers who value authenticity are quietly removing it from their itineraries, choosing instead to seek out lesser-known Austrian villages that haven’t yet been discovered by the algorithm.
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