Ciao, Bella.
This week, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and “alive girl”-slash-space-traveler Lauren Sánchez are expected to make it official in Venice, Italy. Should be a low-key affair.
Total wedding costs are rumored to hover anywhere from $10 to $21 million for a series of parties at undisclosed locales (but probably including Bezos’s massive $500 million yacht). Locals are, um, not thrilled.
This fête is happening during peak tourist season, and amid mass protests across Europe (including a forced shutdown of the Louvre in Paris) against overtourism that residents say is driving up housing costs, harming the environment, and creating unstable seasonable jobs.
So if you have summer travel plans and don’t want to get sprayed with water pistols, here’s how to spend your tourist dollars responsibly…
Beware the “crap economy.” Tourist traps often don’t benefit the locals. Pre-vetted small businesses > stumbling into an “authentic” restaurant and overpaying for a bad meal.
Double check your bucket list. Either skip the “last chance” visit, consider traveling during off-peak times, or find another location that can better withstand the impact.
Look into low-profile alternatives. Do a few extra Googles. Lots of tourism boards are marketing less-trafficked (and often less expensive) locations. And plenty of state parks offer just as much wow as the national ones, with fewer visitors and less pressure on the ecosystem.
Or, just become a local. See: This woman who purchased a cottage in Ireland for a grand total of… $12.67.
— Anna “Boosting the Local Economy by Buying All the Gelato” Davies, writer
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