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Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about the Ramen place (I can't believe that they wouldn't take cash?), but I agree with you that more places are doing this kind of "two markets" stuff -- it's even becoming official, in that now there's officially sanctioned "foreigner pricing" for certain temples, shrines, and parks. There's also Google Maps and Yelp vs. Japan's local version (pretty much any review on the former two are useless, and hopelessly biased by clueless tourists).

I'm of mixed minds. I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences, but those days are pretty much gone now. Foreigners are lining up for mediocre tourist traps because of something they saw on TikTok or Instagram, and there are business people who are willing to take advantage of that fact.

It's also really difficult to serve your local clientele when tourists "discover" your establishment. I have a friend with a restaurant that has become known amongst foreign tourists, and it's nearly impossible for the locals in the neighborhood to visit now. I was talking about it with him a month or so back, and while he seemed happy to have the money -- and therefore unwilling to change the situation -- he also interacted with the tourists in a completely different way. He had a back-channel reservation mechanism for locals and people he knows, but it still requires advance planning for a place that used to be a casual, walk-in experience.

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> I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences

you can still have that. I'm a fulltime traveller. the key is to stay in a place longer. I usually stay in a country for at least a month. that gives you time to meet and actually get to know locals. thats how you get invited to the really cool spots and get a view the daytripppers and resort goers don't get.

> you can still have that

... if you're a full-time traveler that can afford to stay for months at a time. For the rest (the vast majority) of us, the GP comment is what we get.

Nah, you don't have to be full time. You just need to figure out what to do based on not Instagram/tiktok.

It also helps if you rent a car so you can get to places that aren't accessible to most tourists unless they put in a lot of effort

Yes, I agree that it's a better way to travel if you can do it, but most people can't [1].

That said, even for short-term tourists, Japan used to be kind of a miracle in terms of the quality and service you would get for the money. I know it sounds like hipster whining, but that time is in the past.

[1] My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all, unless it's to go to a luxury hotel and sit on a beach or something packaged like that. But I realize that this will not be a popular opinion.

I used to live in Japan in 1999-2001, and I was just there again for a month this summer.

Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.

Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

The article mentions Yamaguchi, Toyama, Morioka, etc., and I definitely agree -- there are tons of places off the tourist beaten-track, and any of them is worth a visit.

On my recent trip I was in Kobe, which unlike Yamaguchi etc. I expect the average HN reader has heard of. But even there, there was little trace of overtourism.

Alex Kerr lamented all the way back in 1993 (in his book Lost Japan) that Kyoto had essentially lost its soul. And if you go to the areas most commonly seen on Instagram and TikTok, that's probably partially true. But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you!

> Anyway, I disagree with you: Japan is still a miracle in terms of the quality and service you get for the money. I saw this many times over.

I assume you mean "relative to other places" here, and in that sense, I agree. Japan is not yet entirely Epcot Center.

> Perhaps not in Kyoto, or in the most touristed areas of Tokyo. Or in whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

Right, exactly. Except that I'm seeing this spread like cancer -- which it always does. Sort of like gentrification, the "authenticity seeking tourist" leaves Senso-ji a few blocks, and then before too long Kappabashi is no longer a functioning street of restaurant supply stores (instead becoming a dead zone of "japanese knife" and matcha retailers), and so on.

> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you

Yeah, I lived in Kyoto a decade ago, and I say that to my Japanese friends, too. The thing is, even vs. 2-3 years ago, the number of those authentic places is dramatically fewer. People have been complaining about tourism in Kyoto forever, but they're also not wrong.

So is the advice "do not visit Japan, learn about it from books and the internet"? Or just pretend it doesn't exist? Maybe do the same with all other countries?

The Japanese in turn do a lot of tourism abroad, to the point the "Japanese tourist" is as much a stereotype as the American one. Should they stay put and not leave their home towns?

Do what Japan desperately wants people to do, and visit any of the 95% of the country that isn’t Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Fuji, or Nara.

Why do they advertise those cities then? No such thing as "Japan", there are multiple interests.

And what for those who haven't seen Tokyo, Kyoto, etc with their own eyes. Should they NOT visit then? Why not?

It's pretty amazing that you've managed to both take the least-charitable interpretation of my comment, and apply a dated stereotype of Japanese people in one post. So:

1) There is a whole spectrum of alternatives between "do not go" and "go take selfies in the same TikTok dead zones as everyone else, while drinking overpriced matcha boba tea and eating potato spiral on a stick from a Mario kart." Perhaps do something else?

2) "Japanese tourists" haven't been going much of anywhere with the yen near all-time lows to western currencies. Setting that aside, it's been a few decades since the stereotype you're invoking was anything close to real.

But TikTok and Mario Kart tours are just one form of tourism, which you're equating to all tourism that is not living there for some months or doing volunteer work or, I quote your other comment, "going to conferences" (the hell?).

Why not visit Japan and do sightseeing? Or do you think that's automatically equivalent to Mario Kart tours?

Or like someone else argued (not you, I'm not laying this particular burden on you, just mentioning it because the sentiment is similar) "it's clear cut that it's unethical to do tourism in Barcelona". What!? Well, excuse me if I cannot live in Barcelona permanently or spend 6 months there getting to know the locals, does it mean I should just see Barcelona in the movies? Or maybe just go to Disneyland, since apparently it's all the same thing.

Re: the stereotype, it's true I don't know about Japanese tourists in the last couple of years (let's say post COVID), but if that's because of the yen blah blah then that's no defense of the stereotypical Japanese tourist -- it has nothing to do with ethics if it's just that they cannot afford it anymore. And anyway, the obnoxious Japanese tourist exist(ed) and it was common in my country, so why give them a free pass just because this article mentions the kind of tourism that bothers them?

In any case: tourism isn't necessarily evil. You can simply not be the loud careless tourist who trashes everything, is not respectful and complains about everything. A lot of us cannot spend 3 months doing volunteer work or whatever, we just want to see the world and enjoy its wonders in the 2-week or so vacation we get once a year, and planning for the whole family, not just for a single person in their 20s with no attachments and who can backpack the world for a year or whatever.

The time of the year probably matters too. I didn't find Japan to be terribly overcrowded when I went this February. Certain areas (and the minuscule Kyoto buses) were, but that happens in every tourist location.

I also went to places like Beppu or Kagoshima where I barely saw any tourists.

In Beppu you’d mostly find Korean tourists who come by ferry, rather than the wrecking ball tokyo-osaka-kyoto tourists.

Yes, Shikoku and Kyushu are both very pleasant from my experience. Shikoku felt the least visited. In Matsuyama, I saw only a handful of western tourists and even those were mostly blended families probably visiting relatives.

It was really pleasant. I keep trying to move farther off the beaten path on each trip.

> But even in Kyoto, go off the beaten path a little, and you will find much to delight you!

Extremely true. I just got back from Japan and I was very pleased by how little effort it took to get off the tourist trail, even in Kyoto. Of course some popular attractions are still worth seeing and for those, visiting around opening is usually enough to avoid the worst of the crowds. (If you're flying in from the US there's a good chance jet lag has you up at 5am anyway, so this is an effective strategy even for non-morning people.)

> Perhaps not in... whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

When I went last year, two of the random places I went because they got featured in some anime were some of the most authentic-feeling experiences I had.

One was a small town on the east coast near a beach; a lot of it felt like a ghost town (I barely saw any locals, let alone tourists). I was able to go and respectfully visit a really nice shrine while being able to keep my distance enough that I knew I wasn't bothering anyone. I also found a cool aquarium I didn't know was there, and I'm pretty sure I was the only foreigner I saw/heard while visiting it.

The other was a less-deserted but still small area outside of a less popular city. There was an island I wanted to go onto that I couldn't, but I improvised and found a beautiful hike to a summit overlooking it instead. While I was walking up, I had at least two elderly folks say hello to me in Japanese, and a pair of young children walking with their mom say hello in English (way more unprompted interaction than I got just walking around in any of the cities, aside from employees advertising things).

So just because a place was featured in an anime doesn't mean it's necessarily a tourist trap. Just don't go in expecting the place to be entirely defined by that (and it also helps if it's been at least a few years since said anime was popular).

I fully agree, whirlwind "see the major tourist attractions" sort of travel where you visit someplace for a couple of days or a week is not very interesting to me.

Honestly travel in general is not very interesting to me. It's expensive, inconvenient, commoditized, cliche. But especially that sort of travel.

I can see taking a break to go somewhere warm if you live in a place with long gloomy winters. Or going somewhere to visit family, or to do something that just isn't available where you live (skiing or fishing trip or something like that). But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me.

It's nice to break out of your routine and experience something new for a few days.

Just hanging out in a walkable city for a few days is nice change from driving everywhere in the suburbs. I couldn't live in a city though.

Even if you're only going somewhere for a week, you don't have to see all the major attractions. You also don't have to plan every moment and research what restaurants to visit etc.

You can set out to discover cool stuff on your own. Walk around a non-touristy neighborhood until you see a restaurant full of locals dining and eat there.

Cool! So when will most jobs give you month-long (or more) vacations so that we mortals can do "proper" tourism?

> But going somewhere to just look around? Not attractive to me

What is there in life but looking around, learning new things and experiencing new stuff?

You’re basically saying that only extroverts are allowed to be tourists.

Fuck that.

> My snobby hot-take is that if you can't travel this way you shouldn't do recreational international travel at all

That's a bad take, because it means if you're not rich or a hippie backpacker without attachments, you cannot do international travel.

What's worse, many of these issues affect local tourism within your own country as well (ruining places for the locals, lots of tourist traps sprouting, etc).

So effectively the advice becomes "stay at home, don't vacation, or if you do vacation stay at some prepackaged place".

Which I frankly disagree with.

> So effectively the advice becomes "stay at home, don't vacation, or if you do vacation stay at some prepackaged place".

I didn't expect it to be a popular take, but I feel like the "sightseeing travel" model is varying degrees of bankrupt, and I'm not apologizing for my opinion.

Having lived in a number of tourist hotspots in my life, I've come to the conclusion that almost nothing one encounters in a tourist setting is authentic. Therefore, you're engaging in very expensive cosplay, erected entirely for your benefit, and almost always at the expense of the culture of the place you are visiting. However fun it may be for you or I, it's still just Disneyland. And while Disneyland may be of net economic benefit to the local people who live near Disneyland, let's not get hoity-toity about it and pretend that we're discovering deep truths of the universe by going to Angkor Wat and snapping a photo.

You don't have to do a "prepackaged vacation", but do something more substantial than moving around constantly and looking at stuff through a camera -- volunteer, take a course, attend a conference, teach English...whatever! Just go there for a reason other than "being a tourist".

It's not Disneyland, what's with the mania of taking everything to extremes?

> You don't have to do a "prepackaged vacation", but do something more substantial than moving around constantly and looking at stuff through a camera -- volunteer, take a course, attend a conference, teach English...whatever! Just go there for a reason other than "being a tourist".

The hell? We're discussing vacationing, not volunteer work. Teaching English? It's not my native language, why would I? I already have a job where I live, and I responsibilities here. Volunteer work? My country needs it way more than wealthy Japan, why would I go there?

What's wrong with tourism, seeing Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto? I don't get more than 2 weeks vacation where I work, I should use them to volunteer according to you?

I swear, the first world entitlement in some of these comments... like yours...

something like Banff or Leavenworth just is Disneyland.

but whats wrong with seeing different place's interpretation of disneyland? thats still fun and interesting. people do like Disneyland

I am giving/defending my opinion, in an effort to convince. It doesn't have to be yours.

> What's wrong with tourism, seeing Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto?

I just spent several paragraphs answering that question. TL;DR: a few days/weeks of lightweight entertainment for you does real damage to the places you visit. The ethical traveler should strive for something better than photos.

> I don't get more than 2 weeks vacation where I work, I should use them to volunteer according to you?

I am saying that my opinion is that "tourism" is more-or-less ethically bankrupt. You don't have to do anything in response, and in any case, I was pretty explicit that volunteering was only one of many possible alternatives -- but you knew this, because you quoted me saying it.

It's not a high bar. Visiting friends or doing a specific activity (rock climbing! diving! fishing! sports! cooking! meditation retreat! make art! take a class! gain a skill!) would be a perfectly ethical reason to travel somewhere, in my humble opinion. Almost anything is better than piling into to the same few tourist sites and taking the same few photos that everyone else takes. And you'll have more fun, too.

> I swear, the first world entitlement in some of these comments

Having the luxury to travel is a "first-world entitlement." It isn't entitlement to say that you should strive to be more thoughtful about the costs.

> TL;DR: a few days/weeks of lightweight entertainment for you does real damage to the places you visit.

That's a bizarre take. Beyond bad, just plain weird.

> It's not a high bar. Visiting friends or doing a specific activity (rock climbing! diving! fishing! sports! cooking! meditation retreat! make art! take a class! gain a skill!) would be a perfectly ethical reason to travel somewhere, in my humble opinion

That's an extremely high bar for most of us, and that you don't see it is hilarious.

Nothing is more artificial and touristy than a "retreat" or going someplace to scuba dive, but somehow you're placing these arbitrary definitions on what is more or less ethical.

All of those "ethical" activities are extremely artificial and damaging, it's absurd thinking going abroad to do "art" or "rock climbing" is more authentic and not artificial and damaging. Unless you know someone local who can take you somewhere non commercial (which is an extremely high bar, unless you have friends all over the world) all those activities are as much Disneyland as taking photos of the Eiffel tower, I'm sorry to tell you.

Visiting friends doesn't mean you won't go sightseeing, what does one thing have to do with the other? And what if you don't have friends all over the world?

> Having the luxury to travel is a "first-world entitlement." It isn't entitlement to say that you should strive to be more thoughtful about the costs.

What you're saying amounts to gatekeeping, which is even more entitled. "If you cannot travel like the entitled few can, in the extremely narrow way I deem ethical, then don't travel at all."

Also, I don't know if you understand everything you say applies to doing tourism within your own country as well. So your advice effectively becomes "do rock climbing (and hope your children and spouse want to do that) or stay at home". Your world shrinks because you cannot do "ethical tourism" according to some absurd definition.

Yuck.

You balked at the idea of volunteerism, but then I gave you less...demanding...versions, and you criticize them as being imperfect. It's clear that I'm not going to convince you, and you keep cherry-picking the most expensive / burdensome examples I provide, so I'm done replying after this.

But since I didn't explain it explicitly, the principle is that while all travel is damaging, you can thoughtfully pick activities which:

1) Will help offset that damage (e.g. volunteering)

2) Require that you be in a place (e.g. seeing family / friends), or

3) Otherwise spread out your impact and/or engage with locals on a more authentic level -- even the horrible, very bad, "extremely artificial and damaging" yoga retreat (lol, come on) will put you in a small minority of travelers, many of whom will be locals themselves.

Despite your repeated mischaracterizations of my argument, it doesn't have to be expensive, and perfect is not the enemy of the good. It doesn't take much more than creativity and effort to do better with your travel.

That's rich. You haven't proven any of your alternatives is any better. Like, none of them. They are all as artificial as sightseeing, but if it makes you sleep better at night...

Your "yoga retreat" is the worst of the Eat Pray Love kind of tourism, I cannot believe what I'm reading. It's artificial as fuck, please don't suggest it ever again.

I also do not want to visit friends and family, that's a different activity entirely!

You mischaracterize all sightseeing tourism as "damaging" and the equivalent of TikTok and Mario Kart tours, yet complain that I am mischaracterizing you.

Wow. The sense of entitled gatekeeping I'm getting from you is off the charts.

I have to follow your very strict and arbitrary standards -- you, who by your own admission have lived in "several tourist hotspots" (making you a bigger part of the problem than me) -- because... somehow my visiting several interesting parts of the world where I know nobody is "damaging"?

Wow. That's rich.

I think you kind of missed his point. The current era of tourism does to foreign cities what gentrification did to working class neighborhoods.

At first, people want a taste of something different and authentic. But eventually the place sells out and stops being a real place and starts catering to the new entrants, pushing out the natives in the process.

Florence is a good example of this. Not long ago it was a real place where real people lived. Nowadays everyone there is a foreigner, including the workers and the people who own the businesses and Airbnbs. A tourist goes there and feels like they've gotten to know Italy, but really all they experienced was a theme park designed to take their money by catering to their expectations of what Italy is supposed to be like.

Ok, I can get that. I've been to Florence and it does feel artificial to me. And it's indeed overcrowded with peddlers selling crap. But it's not the only city in Italy, and I don't particularly like it. Italy as a whole is an amazing country and a wonderful place to do tourism and sightseeing.

What I could do without is the sanctimonious attitude of "tourism is bad unless you do it exactly like I tell you to, which also happens to be a way that 90% of the middle class that can afford traveling cannot do, but hey, I can, and I've lived near many tourist hotspots anyway [sic], so I guess it sucks to be you!".

The backpacker that can go do volunteer work or rock climbing or living among the locals for 6 months is a tiny minority of those that can travel; saying it's the only valid way of traveling abroad is gatekeeping, plain and simple.

You can be a tourist and simply not be obnoxious, but apparently that's not enough for some people.

The moralizing aspect comes in when we admit that we all made Florence (and Rome and Venice) the way they are, and that this is the inevitable end of any tourist destination.

Therefore an alternative is needed, that lets us visit a place without destroying it and stealing it from the locals. I think that's what was being proposed.

I think it's worse than that. I'm starting to think that there may not really be an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country. Especially coming from a high cost of living area to a lower one.

Just being there puts you in economic competition with the locals. You can spend more on everything than everyone else and that raises their costs too. Especially housing and food. Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate and Airbnb means locals have to compete with the tourist rental prices.

And there is more and more people traveling all the time so some areas are just overloaded -- as in the article here.

Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

It's not quite that simple. Your tourism money is valuable. It's a huge influx of money into the local economy. They don't want it to go to zero.

It literally is quite that simple. I can tell you from experience via friends and acquaintances that tourists are crushing the locals out of Barcelona and Amsterdam. And I expect the same to be true of Warsaw or Berlin.

And its not just tourists. ASML has completely destroyed the housing market in the Brainport region. They're planning to hire 20.000 more people, but with The Netherlands currently being in one of the most severe housing crises in the world, these expats just end up pushing everyone out of the local housing market because they can overbid on houses / rental properties so much.

ASML has woken up to this and is underwriting affordable housing developments, but only at a clip of 1500 per year. So yeah, the locals are not exactly happy, even if it is good for The Netherlands and EU as a whole.

Frankly, I expect the next decade or two to be about harsh protectionism. People are really, really tired of globalisation eating the world.

Barcelona has immigration problem, not tourists. The same with Warsaw and Berlin.

Meaning they've become gentrified by rich foreigners?

Medieval places that have nowhere to expand to (Venice, Dubrovnik) are hit extra hard.

That said, I visited Rome 20 years ago and a year ago, and what used to be fairly live city center is now one writhing mass of bodies.

Japan closed their borders to tourists during COVID. If it's as simple as you say, then they can do it again.

They won't because you couldn't get a majority of their populace to agree with you, which doesn't necessarily mean it's incorrect but does at least mean it's not simple.

I suspect the people profiting off tourism aren't the same ones who gets squeezed out by it.

Who's holding people's hands and preventing them from building new houses? It's possible Netherlands genuinely has very little land left, but the "housing crises" in most other places are completely made up. Housing is either affordable or an asset that appreciates, it can't be both.

> Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

I think this is definitely not true.

And I think oversaturation generally happens because most people don't think that, or think about it at all. They have a checklist of spots to hit, photos to take, things to eat, and they follow it. They'll put up with huge lines, crazy prices, etc. Overcharging isn't terrible for everyone local, of course, but the crowding certainly changes a place. Often not better for most locals.

If you're trying to be respectful I think that rules out following those huge crowds usually. Like, seeing the Mona Lisa is usually a shitty experience, but at least its in a controlled environment. Visiting a trendy vacation spot like Barcelona, on the other hand, is hitting the whole town and frankly ... maybe not that interesting or novel. There are other places out there, many not even that far away from the hotspots. Though you also need to rein in any instinct to show off any other finds or places online, let the local place you enjoyed become deluged.

How do you say it’s not true and then immediately follow by suggesting people just shouldn’t go to Barcelona?

I'm not sure what you mean?

This is what I said isn't true: "Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average"

I think most people don't think about being respectful much at all.

I think someone who does want to be respectful would be like "hey, locals say tourism is currently out of control in Barcelona, we'll pick somewhere else for now."

This is in the section you quoted before saying it’s not true:

> the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

I think there’s a zero sum fallacy in play here. For example you say “Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate” but many resort towns in Mexico like Cancun were literally invented out of thin air for international tourism. The alternative reality is not “Cancun for the locals”; the alternative reality is no Cancun.

In general we have the ability to expand the amount of available housing/hotels/etc. to meet increased demand. It’s not a zero sum game.

Even sticking with Japan, Kyoto was basically saved by international tourism. An American tourist ended up ended up intervening 20 years after his visit when he saw Kyoto at the top of America's list of cities to use nuclear weapons on.

Although I don't think the commonly repeated story that Stinson visited on his honeymoon is true, he had gotten married in the previous century

more details on the Honeymoon myth in this https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2023/07/24/henry-stimson-did...

Wow, this is an extremely long-winded and self-indulgent "well actually" comment. I read the whole thing hoping to find the point, but it never came.

Who cares if it was an actual honeymoon or another trip decades after he was married? He was key to sparing the city, and his personal experience with its rich history was a part of that. That's the interesting story, and nothing in this article refutes that.

This is a little bit what confuses me about these stories.

As someone who lives in NYC and works with Broadway shows we thrive on tourists. Are there locals who live in Times Square or a few blocks off? Sure, it’s not all that annoying, and most folks like me live in an area that isn’t particularly crowded with tourists, if at all.

When I read stories like this, I never quite understand if it’s worse other places than NYC. Or if I’d go there and be unphased. That it’s just people from some empty suburb where lots have a 10 acre minimum that are bothered by this and write these stories.

Your fallacy is that you are implicitly thinking of yourself as an intrinsically evil corrupting force that should be minimized as much as possible, in fact it would be better if you didn't exist at all.

This is a very bleak misanthropic view that isn't true. It's possible to be a force for good. To form a symbiosis where each side benefits from the other. If you see a native resident, do you think he is perfectly pure, content and happy? Or does he have his troubles and issues. How can you help him? Entertain? Teach? Trade?

There are so many humans that are blithely destructive and nearly all of them believe themselves to be good, because it is human nature to have faith in your own wholesome intentions. Overtourism is one area among many where we would be better off if more people at least considered their impact.

The ones who are going to heed your advice to minimize their existence are not the ones who need to hear it, generally. That mentality just punishes thoughtful people and will not reach the vast majority of the ones you believe are a problem.

Living an examined life and choosing actions in tune with your conscience is its own reward, not self-denial.

Staying home is not the only alternative to participating in the most destructive acts of overtourism.

I understand you're not the same person as the one who started your side of this argument, but you can't just jump from "there's not really an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country" to "I was only talking about overtourism, stop being extreme."

If self-denial is rewarding to you, that's your business. You don't decide with vague statements what's rewarding to others.

There are so many great options for exploring the world. Even in your neighborhood all it takes is a novel perspective to discover something new, and the same is true elsewhere.

Are there no mountains to climb other than Everest? Is there no way to experience a mountain other than scaling the summit?

Why must considering how you impact your surroundings mean “self-denial”? Why can’t it mean choosing amongst abundant riches and savoring the very experience of choosing?

I know what you mean but I live close to the border of another country. Can it really be unethical to stay in a hotel in a city two hours west but not two hours northeast because of a border? Maybe you're just talking about the American experience.

There are certainly places where it is clearer cut. Hawaii and Barcelona come to mind.

It's unethical to do tourism in Barcelona? What's so "clear cut"?

The locals really don't want tourists to be there.

As a blanket statement that's false. Barcelona is a very welcoming city for tourists. I don't think it's unethical to visit as long as one behaves and is not a loud obnoxious tourist.

Do these locals ever go on vacation to other parts of the planet?

Ok, so there's no ethical way of doing tourism. So what's the alternative?

Stay at home? Do not take vacations? Never learn anything about the outside world that's not mediated by books or the internet?

Because I can tell you not even your own country (whatever that is) is spared from this. You cannot travel within your country without causing this, either.

What a ridiculous statement... so applying for a remote job is unethical if you live in a lower cost of living area than your employer? It's only natural that people want to make money from higher cost areas and spend it elsewhere.

And this article is about Japan, a freaking island where the government has a total control over how many people are getting in...

Can I recommend thinking about your own country and then extrapolating from there to understand how foreigners feel? For example: I'm Australian. I actively want you to come be a tourist here! What I'd like you to do, though, is not go to the exact same place as 80% of the rest of the tourist inflow goes.

You don't need to go to the Gold Coast: the entire country is surrounded by water ("girt by sea" is in our national anthem), most of it has great beaches, and you're legally allowed to be on any of those beaches up to the high water mark! The 12 Apostles are cool, sort of, but they're surrounded by beautiful coastline and rainforest filled with waterfalls which a big chunk of international tourists drive through without stopping longer than a toilet and coffee break. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are neat and they aren't too busy, but they're also just a bridge and a big building. Uluru is big and impressive, but it's next to the far more interesting Bungle Bungles which get a tenth of the visitors each year, and the entire centre of Australia is scattered with gorges and craters and rock formations.

Go somewhere other than the top places! The best thing you can do for the locals struggling with house prices on the Gold Coast is to save your own money, skip the queues, and go literally anywhere else along the coast in NSW or QLD. Australia has the same population density as Idaho. We can absorb an effectively unlimited number of tourists as long as they ramp up slowly and spread themselves out. It's easy to be an ethical non-disruptive tourist if you just ignore tiktok and don't treat other countries like bingo cards.

> there may not really be an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country.

You can hire a full time tour guide using your wealth disparity. Providing a real job to someone with a real schedule and predictable income.

Lots of people saying this is ridiculously false, I think it's ridiculously true: Of course there are more ethical uses for your money than traveling, including thousands of legit charities you can write a check to right now. Tourism creates jobs and helps the economy? A good charity creates better jobs than hawking souvenirs and asking for tips.

People just quietly pretend this isn't the case, probably so they don't feel guilty about it. Or maybe they just never put 2 and 2 together.

I take it you have a degree from a US university

In touristy places, tourism can easily be 10-20% of the GDP. That's not nothing.

> I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences

How long ago was that? It was certainly true in fairly large portions of the world, but there are plenty of places where, for as long as I can remember, you could pretty much expect to be scammed regularly. In many cases those scams would be for trivial (to visitors from wealthy countries) amounts of money, but it nonetheless often seemed like a large fraction of local economies would be driven by scamming tourists.

I think that the real recent change is that the “beaten path” of touristy areas has gotten larger.

In Japan? A few years ago the experience was completely different.

Not Japan. Plenty of other countries, though.

> How long ago was that? It was certainly true in fairly large portions of the world, but there are plenty of places where, for as long as I can remember, you could pretty much expect to be scammed regularly.

To be clear: "scamming" is still thankfully uncommon in Japan. Getting ripped off in the tourist-trap way is the new development.

I don't know when it started exactly, but I lived there around a decade ago and it was rare then. The prices around tourist spots would always be elevated and world heritage sites often had a line of crappy souvenir shops, but you didn't see the same kind of fake "wagyu" and the like that you see everywhere today.

There were catch bars in the 90s, and Roppongi has been full of assholes as long as I can remember (anyone remember Tokyo Gas Panic?). I have not been to Japan for more than ten years so I do not know how bad it is, but my point is that even in the good old days you could get ripped off as a gullible foreigner (usually by other foreigners).

Yes, agreed. I’m not talking about places like Roppongi or the sketchier parts of Shinjuku and Shibuya, Dotonbori, Umeda, etc., which have always been red light districts.

I’m talking about a more pedestrian type of ripoff, which is simply to overcharge and underdeliver - think of $40 for tough meat, labeled “Kobe beef”, and you’ll get the idea. It’s always been around, but far more prevalent now.

It can be pretty shocking seeing all the shell games immediately underneath the Eiffel tower, to your point.

Post Olympics, the Eiffel Tower is now surrounded by a tall fence and requires passing through airport style security to get in. Bit of a hassle, but no shell games in sight.

> it still requires advance planning for a place that used to be a casual, walk-in experience

So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?

> So, much like every restaurant that becomes popular, anywhere in the world?

No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.

Many restaurants in Japan (my friend's included) are quite obviously one-man, standing-room only operations. They weren't designed or intended to accommodate big groups of people, pulling huge rolling suitcases, ordering off menu, getting offended when the proprietor doesn't offer vegan/gluten free/snowflake options, and tons of other nonsense that goes along with serving tourist hordes.

I realize that you can't un-make the baby, and that Japan's government asked for this, but a lot of locals are still upset about this kind of stuff and I have empathy. Tourism inevitably turns anything authentic into a high-volume, Epcot-center version of itself. That might be fine if you're visiting, but it sucks if you live there.

I wonder what the end state is here. Will there be a backlash (or more of a backlash, as there's a bit of one already) against the Japanese government's policy? Something worse?

Indeed, I’ve seen a lot of “visit Japan” ads lately.

But the thing I worry about, having never been there, is that I might get some good recommendations for out-of-the-way spots where there would be few if any other tourists, and take the time to go find them, only to be denied entry because I’m a foreigner.

> But the thing I worry about, having never been there, is that I might get some good recommendations for out-of-the-way spots where there would be few if any other tourists, and take the time to go find them, only to be denied entry because I’m a foreigner.

Yep, that's the part I hate, too. The locals put up completely understandable roadblocks to preserve their own culture, but those roadblocks end up making the whole situation hostile and unpleasant for anyone who is not known to the locals.

Since you've never been, let me just say this: most tourists are utterly clueless, so just not being clueless goes far. Blend in, imitate the locals' behaviors, try to speak the language, eat what you're given, etc., and you'll be fine. For now, at least, relatively few places ban foreigners outright.

Telling someone “just speak Japanese and blend in!” is sort of an absurd suggestion. That is impossible if you’re not East Asian and even if you are, it would take years of study.

Being East Asian doesn't make you blend in (visually). Japanese people look different to Korean and Chinese people.

The three are a Venn diagram with much more overlap than any of the three officially pretend. A Japanese friend of mine passes for a (Chinese) local across China and SE Asia.

Clothing and makeup is a better giveaway than facial features or skin tone, but even that is becoming harder with K-pop creating a pan-Asian style to aspire to.

Then you don't go "off the beaten path" and instead stick to the tourist friendly places.

Demanding the locals to accommodate your lazyness is basically shouting "I'm entitled".

I didn't say "speak Japanese" (I said try to use the language, which is just table stakes for visiting a country), and it should go without saying that you cannot change your race.

You can still blend in far more than most tourists do by a) watching the people around you, and b) being a little bit self-conscious.

It's absolutely astounding how much tourists stand out in Japan (or Paris, or London, or New York...), and it's mostly about their behavior and clothing. Ten minutes of internet research and a little bit of introspection would go a long way to solving both problems.

I got the two fingers making an x sign a handful when I was in Japan. It’s really not a big deal and it never felt malicious. You just move on, though it does kind of suck when you’re hungry!

Nah, that’s just discrimination. It’s bad when anyone does it

This is discrimination of the worst kind: Against me.

It shouldn't be taken personally. It just means that they don't speak English, don't have an English menu, and are not staffed enough to be able to devote the time for understanding you.

Indeed. And it's not always final... I've not had it ever happen to me at a place that serves food, but I also generally only hear about it happening at bars/night clubs and I don't drink so never had a reason to visit one. I suspect a lot might change their stance if you just say you speak Japanese... it's not like you need to know a lot for basic food ordering anyway. The closest related experience I did have was one time I was with a friend taking him to an outdoor idol concert, a guy saw us coming and came up trying to shoo us back / something about no entry, but I just told him in Japanese that I have a ticket and the QR code was already ready to go on my phone. Immediately it's "right this way".

I also remain convinced most of the anti-foreigner tourism sentiment is anti-Chinese tourism sentiment. For westerners who can behave, it's still a great place to visit. (Though skipping Kyoto wouldn't be a bad idea.)

I have Google Lens and Translate. Lack of an English menu is a very small problem these days.

When I, personally, am discriminated against, don’t be surprised if I take it personally.

> No, but thanks for the spot-on imitation of an entitled foreign visitor. The insinuation that somehow it's the local people's fault that they don't want their quaint neighborhood restaurants to become McDonald's is indeed part of the problem.

This seems a little unfair. I think the parent was talking more about restaurants in big cities.

In Tokyo, lines down the block are extremely common, and the lines are primarily Japanese people, not foreigners. Maybe there are Japanese tourists visiting Tokyo, maybe they are Tokyo locals. But it happens with or without foreign tourism.

GGP is responding to my own anecdote, about my own friend who runs a small neighborhood restaurant that is now overrun with tourists.

I don't think I misinterpreted the response.

So you disagree that popular restaurants have long lines regardless of foreign tourists?

Japan is a big place. You can find anything.

> I'm of mixed minds. I really miss the days when it was possible to be welcomed pretty much anywhere as a foreigner and have almost universal expectations of high quality, scam-free experiences, but those days are pretty much gone now.

I don't think they're gone though? I just got back from a trip to Japan and I was very pleased to find these experiences were still the norm outside the most heavily touristed areas. Even in big cities. Have been to Colombia twice in the past two years and it was the same way.

It is almost a paradox or something; what makes a lot of places is the local clientele (or the long term visitors). Plus, the tourists won’t support the business during the off season (although I’m not sure if Japan really has an off season).

Is there any place you can go to avoid Scam culture? Anywhere at all? It seems pervasive.

I would like to think there is somewhere in the United States, maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia, there has to be someplace where there are decent hard-working Americans, who are not trying to scam each other.

>maybe in the Midwest, or West Virginia

My family is from the "decent hard-working" part of mid-America and I am the only one without a felony so whenever one of my relatives dies, I get their guns. It used to be the crime of choice was check fraud but now it's simple burglary and drugs.

I as a non-gang, non-dealing, tall middle aged white dude am safer in Baltimore than I am at the local gas station full of tweakers in "real" America.

West Virginia has the highest, by a lot, percentage of people on social security disability because their state doesn't have good welfare benefits. All of the decent folk figured out how to scam the government out of disability payments by lying about back and stomach pain.

In Wyoming County West Virginia >33% of all adults aged 18-64 are on disability. These aren't broken down coal miners they are normal, healthy, unemployed people.

My county? 6%.

The only parts of America where people aren't trying to scam each other are uninhabited.

If you go as a tourist to a place in the US that doesn’t get a lot of tourists, like a small Midwest city, people will happily give you recommendations of things to see and do. The same if you go in a neighborhood bar or coffee shop in a big city neighborhood that’s not overtouristed.

Nobody will try to charge you the tourist rate because there isn’t one. There may be scammers and shady merchants operating in town but you will not be their primary target.

West Virginia is a deeply red state; I don't think you want to go there to avoid scams. It's pervasive in the US because the political leadership is all now scam culture, all the time. Trump is, at core, a corrupt, subliterate, small-time real estate huckster. Everybody he's surrounded himself with is either an insincere grifter or severely mentally ill. And they're running the federal government and the red states, and trying to destroy the state governments of the blue ones.

Just because Trump can be inserted into almost any conversation doesn't mean Trump should be inserted into almost any conversation.

Those places are all over the US but just not very interesting. Ft. Davis (or maybe Alpine) Texas is what you're describing but no one really goes there because it's just a small town with people working and living their lives as best they can. There's nothing to attract any outside attention really. I only know that area because of my wife introducing me to Marfa TX which does a little bit of tourism because of the Judd foundation.

I fell in love with that part of Texas and the people. My wife and I were married in Marathon which is in a ~75 mile radius of the towns i listed above

i'd generally expect that if they're an american and theyre talking to you, there's likely a scam.

if you arent somewhere to mutually enjoy something, they're there to sell something

Some of the restaurants have ticket vending machines outside the shop. This avoids the need for a cashier inside the restaurant. It also mostly avoids the process of staff taking your order. Purchase your meal ticket from machine outside, hand ticket to cook as you enter, and take your seat.

Most of the ticket vending machines do take cash, but if they wanted to eliminate tourists then that would be an easy change to make.

Sure, of course. I've just never seen one that didn't take cash or credit card.

On my last trip to Tokyo, I went to one of the Ramen restaurants that had a vending machine to order food. The machine, unfortunately, did not give us any change. I felt bad trying to explain to one of the employees because we both couldn't really understand each other. He eventually understood and gave us the exact change we did expect. After that experience, I wouldn't blame them for wanting to make the change and limiting tourists.

> There's also Google Maps and Yelp vs. Japan's local version (pretty much any review on the former two are useless, and hopelessly biased by clueless tourists).

I do not understand why one would even look at tourist reviews for "authentic Japanese jalapeños" or whatever on Gmaps. But people do so what do I know.

Interestingly, Apple Maps is integrated with Tabelog. So using Apple Maps to search for restaurants in Japan can be an effective strategy.

I’ve found many times that Apple Maps simply couldn’t find the restaurant though, as if it didn’t exist.

I remember when Four Barrel Coffee had blown up in SF. I lived in the neighborhood, and learned, there was just an entrance in the ally behind the building for locals. No sign, just a way to skip the line.

I have no idea if it’s still there, but I thought it was a super clever way of doing things.

> I can't believe that they wouldn't take cash?

What's so hard to believe about that? Lots of places in the Netherlands don't accept cash (probably out of convenience).

If you know anything about Japan it's very strange that a place wouldn't take cash. Post-covid (and a lot of that thanks to Olympics preparations) a lot of places in Tokyo have advanced to taking things other than cash.

You're not going far enough: before Covid, finding a place (excluding conbini) that took a credit card was rare. Credit cards are common now, like you say, but nearly any business will still accept cash.

I think I've encountered at most 1-2 restaurants in Japan that don't take cash, and none that don't at least accept credit cards.

Yes as recently as 2010s Japanese travel as a westerner was mildly stressful managing your cash balance.

Taxis, conbinis and restaurants all wanted cash.

Lots of ATMs (majority even) don't take western ATM cards, so you need to look out for JP/7-11/Citi? ones.

Delicate balance of keeping enough yen so you don't run out / have to go out of your way ATM hunting but also not head home with $100s in yen you don't need.

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