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Comment by ip26 | Hacker News Reader

The elephant in the room, of course, is that tourism helps people think of themselves as part of something bigger. The National Parks, for example, help drive votes for conservation. If you've never set foot in nature, and you've never left your town, other places and their problems will always be somewhere beyond the horizon.

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Yeah, I actually just got back from a trip to Spain last week. I saw the "TOURISTS GO HOME" graffiti in Barcelona and Granada. Very weird thing to run into when you're from Canada; we're all about new people and cultures and tourism bucks over here. I don't really feel guilty for wanting to see these famous historic places, though, and I'm not going to feel guilty when I go to Amsterdam in April and Japan in September to see their way of life.

But Canada is gigantic! Other than Niagara Falls, the tourist attractions are either in nature and not world famous (no Instagram-pressure to pick any particular place), in big, modern cities and not particularly focussed to one place (Montreal, Toronto), in old cities where people don't live (centre of Quebec), or in places like ski resorts where if all the hotels are full, it's full.

Amsterdam is large, but everyone only wants to go to the centre, which has mediaeval-size streets. In Barcelona there are a few expected sights. Both cities are also normal cities.

27 million tourists to Canada — 82 million to Spain — 17 million to the Netherlands

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Canada and similar.

If you want to see "Amsterdam's way of life" then stay away from the downtown. It's literally adult Disneyworld, with pretty much everything it implies. It's great if that's what you're into (all of Europe visits the city regularly to get high), but not if you actually want to see their "way of life"

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