How to avoid overtourism: 7 rules for travelling against the current

Avoiding overtourism isn't just about dodging the crowds: it means redistributing the value of tourism towards places and people who genuinely need it. In recent years the phenomenon has exploded in a handful of iconic destinations, which find themselves handling more visitors than their urban, environmental or social fragility can sustain. The good news is that overturning this dynamic depends, in large part, on simple, repeatable individual choices.

The seven rules

1. Travel in the low season: the same places, half the people. Often April, October or a weekend in November offer better light, fairer prices and locals more willing to stop for a chat.

2. Sleep in the village next to the "famous" one. Staying a few kilometres from the most celebrated destination eases the pressure on the historic centre and takes your money where it usually doesn't reach: small inns, village bars, little shops.

3. Spend local: eat and buy where the residents live. Look for the trattorias without a menu translated into five languages, the neighbourhood markets, the artisans. It's the most direct way for tourism to become a support rather than a burden.

4. Stay more days in fewer places. The "hit-and-run" approach multiplies journeys and impact, while slowness lets you settle into a place's rhythm and truly understand it.

5. Seek out the "unknown twin" of the iconic destination. Almost every city of art or crowded coastline has a lesser-known alternative, just as beautiful and free of queues: you only need to shift your gaze a valley over or a few kilometres along.

6. Use local public transport. Regional trains, scheduled buses and ferries not only cut emissions, they drop you into the everyday life of a place, made of faces, dialects and a pace different from your own.

7. Share places with respect, without geotags that overwhelm them. Sharing is legitimate, but consider when a fragile place risks being upended by the very visibility you give it.

Another way of travelling

They're simple rules. Put together, they completely change the kind of traveller you are: less a consumer of destinations, more a conscious guest. Undertourism, after all, isn't a sacrifice but another way of looking at the world, made of slowness, curiosity and attention to the people who live in those places all year round.