Fodor’s No List 2026

Antarctica doesn’t need marketing campaigns to lure visitors or tourism dollars to fuel a nonexistent economy. It doesn’t need tourists at all. Yet, the most recent data showed the continent received 120,000 visitors from 2023 to 2024. That’s projected to double by 2033, making the call for restraint crucial. 

Mike Gunter, professor of political science and chair at Rollins College in Florida, who studies ecotourism and environmental policy, has traveled to Antarctica and believes there is some value in visiting, “provided the traveler uses their experience to substantially impact larger issues of sustainability.” However, the way many tourists travel there, and their reasons for doing so, are often problematic. “Unfortunately, in the last quarter century, Antarctica has been moving more toward mass tourism instead of the traditional ecotourism world.”

Large ships can’t land in Antarctica, but small expedition-style ships can, giving visitors a chance to set foot on the driest land on the planet and witness calving glaciers. It’s an extraordinary experience, and Elizabeth Leane, professor of Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, acknowledges Antarctica “still has that mystique of being the last place, the last wilderness, and that’s a big attractor.” 

Leane has noticed people go to celebrate or honor an important life event. “It’s a watershed moment,” experienced in the last true wilderness, says Leane.

But Jessica O’Reilly, associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University and an advisor to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings, says, “The environment is fragile, and it’s a rare environment. That’s why people want to go there, but it’s also why it can’t really sustain high numbers of tourism.”

At the moment, there are no caps on visitation in Antarctica. Many cruise lines are members of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). The voluntary industry body, founded in 1991, promotes “safe and environmentally responsible travel to Antarctica,” and has put forth a list of rules and regulations that its members must adhere to, but as of 2025, despite representing more than 100 member companies that voluntarily follow the regulations, IAATO has no authority to cap visitor numbers.

As tourism in the region has grown and as affluent individuals with the means to access the region via private ships increase, it is undoubtedly stressing the system, explains O’Reilly.

“But some of the primary concern is the growing interest in vessels that are not members of IAATO,” says O’Reilly. “These can be personal ships or others that simply don’t want to join. It’s a voluntary organization, and as we’re seeing different markets in tourism expand, there’s less willingness to join this organization.” IAATO could not be reached for comment.

Researchers, scholars, and some cruise companies hope visitors to the region will become advocates for it. But most agree that putting advocacy into practice back home is challenging. Word-of-mouth may be one way. Choosing the right tour operator and spreading the word is another.

But even the scholars most sympathetic to ecotourism agree: Antarctica isn’t meant to be on anyone’s bucket list.

Behind the postcard-perfect scenes in the Canary Islands, pressure is mounting. In the first half of 2025 alone, the archipelago welcomed 7.8 million visitors and processed more than 27 million airport passengers, a 5% increase over the previous year. It’s a record that has locals questioning how much more their islands can take.

Thousands marched through the streets of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, and Lanzarote in May under the banner, “Canarias tiene un límite” (“The Canaries have a limit”). Their message was clear: booming tourism, soaring housing costs, and mounting environmental strain are threatening the foundations of island life.

Tourism contributes more than a third of the Canary Islands’ GDP and employs roughly 40% of its population. Yet success has come at a price.

“Residents have started protesting because they’re genuinely fed up,” says John Dale Beckley, founder of the sustainability platform CanaryGreen.org. “Traffic is one of the biggest issues. What used to be a 40-minute drive from the north can now take well over an hour each way.”

Housing, too, has become a flashpoint. 

“The government previously changed regulations that allowed residents to rent out their properties on Airbnb and Booking.com,” Beckley explains. “This has driven up both rental prices and property values. Many young people now find it almost impossible to rent or buy a home.”

That reality is echoed by ATAN (Asociación Tinerfeña de Amigos de la Naturaleza), one of Tenerife’s oldest environmental groups. “Access to housing has become virtually impossible due to the invasion of vacation rentals,” a spokesperson tells Fodor’s. 

“Natural spaces are constantly degraded, with alarming losses in biodiversity. Overcrowding has erased peaceful places where we could once enjoy life there are no truly local spaces left.”

Water scarcity and infrastructure strain are the next looming crises.

“Tenerife has been under an official water emergency, but honestly, on the ground, we’re not feeling a ‘water emergency’ at all,” Beckley says. “People are still showering, watering gardens, filling swimming pools, everything as normal.”

Yet academics and experts warn that the combination of rising visitor numbers and a warming climate is unsustainable. Desalination plants and eco-certified hotels have eased some of the burden, but progress remains uneven. “Buses are overcrowded, traffic jams are constant, and beaches close more often due to pollution and sewage runoff,” Beckley adds. Imagine wading into what should be crystalline hotel-resort waters, only to realise that 100 million liters of untreated or barely treated sewage gush into the sea every day, swamping beaches with fecal contamination.

ATAN paints an even starker picture: “The continuous arrival of new residents–mainly Europeans–worsens overpopulation, environmental degradation, and land occupation, given the islands’ very limited space. Essential resources like water are also being pushed to their limits.”

In early 2025, the regional government introduced a law barring newly built properties from being used as short-term rentals, requiring landlords to obtain permits, and allowing neighbors to veto tourist flats in their buildings. National reforms soon followed, giving communities the final say on whether apartments can be used for tourism. But on the ground, few believe this will solve the problem. 

“So far, there hasn’t been much visible change,” Beckley notes. “Enforcement has been slow–maybe by 2026 we’ll start to see more concrete results.”

ATAN is more direct: “All regulatory changes have either deepened this predatory model or been mere window dressing. The proposed law on vacation rentals could even double or quadruple the current number of accommodations. Meanwhile, large urban projects and new hotels continue to be approved–nothing is moving in the right direction.”

For many Canarians, tourism is both a lifeline and a burden. The islands rely heavily on visitor spending, yet locals often see little of it. Beckley, who’s been based on the islands for 25 years, says. “Tourism brought money and opportunity, but it also concentrated wealth. Today, most hotels are owned by large investment groups, often managed by foreigners. So much of the profit leaves the islands.”

Despite better infrastructure and higher living standards, he adds, “There’s a growing awareness that the real financial benefits of tourism aren’t reaching locals.” Grassroots projects like Canary Green are trying to build alternatives. 

ATAN says the issue goes beyond economics. 

“We are losing our identity, culture, and, ultimately, our right to exist as a community,” the group says. “Tourism has become unlimited, mass-oriented, and largely low-cost party tourism that doesn’t come to truly discover the islands, but to consume a fake backdrop.”

When Glacier National Park opened in 1910, it ignited a scramble of “last chance tourism.” The U.S. government had decimated and displaced the Blackfeet tribe, and there was a general expectation that they were nearing extinction.

More than 100 years later, it is not the Blackfeet, the resilient Indigenous guardians of Montana’s Northern Rockies, who have vanished—it’s the glaciers themselves. And once again, the park is a destination to which visitors are urgently swarming. 

Glacier National Park (GNP) is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average. Of the estimated 150 glaciers ringing its peaks in the early 20th century, only 27 remain. Those, too, are expected to disappear by 2030. 

Climate change, says Michael Jamison, Northern Rockies campaign director for the National Parks Conservation Association, is profoundly affecting virtually every aspect of the park’s ecological sustainability. It’s not just the melting glaciers, which are warming streams and decreasing the flow of water on the landscape: Wildfires are more frequent and expansive, milder winters are leaving forests more vulnerable to destructive infestations, and key animals are disappearing from the landscape.

“For a lot of these species, climate change is what they call a ‘threat multiplier,’” Jamison explains. “It magnifies existing threats and intensifies them … We’re seeing changes to migration routes, to seasonal habitats and winter range, and to entire populations.”

For some travelers, the message about the gloomy future already well underway is crystal clear: See the glaciers now, or never see them again. “No one has any meaningful data on the extent to which last-chance tourism is motivating travelers here, but anecdotally, there’s no doubt people are racing to see a glacier before they’re gone,” confirms Jamison. “I get many direct inquiries from folks wanting to do exactly that.”

Already one of the country’s most visited national parks, Glacier saw around 300,000 more visitors in 2024 than 2023, more than half of which came in just the months of July and August. Those coming in September and October went up by 60%.

These large and growing numbers have various impacts on the park. There’s increased traffic congestion on Glacier’s iconic Going-to-the-Sun Road—a narrow, snaking artery carved into the steep mountain slopes—the faster accumulation of garbage, and a greater risk of wildlife disturbance. But there’s also the effects of increased carbon emissions on air quality and the way wildfire closures concentrate hikers and backpackers across fewer accessible trails, making it harder to maintain them and to reach people in an emergency situation. 

As with Antarctica, some argue that more visitors mean greater awareness and advocacy about the changing climate and the difficulties facing the park, but there isn’t much evidence that this is happening on a meaningful scale. Instead, a “sustainability paradox” has emerged in which “increased visitation itself contributes to the degradation of the places people are coming to visit in the first place,” says Jamison.

Glacier National Park has implemented policies to mitigate some of the effects. Since 2020, for example, visitors have been required to have timed reservations to enter during peak summer months and hours (though it’s still possible for those without reservations to arrive before 7 a.m. or after 3 p.m., doing little to decrease overall numbers). Many park facilities run on solar or hydro power, and GNP’s fleet of vehicles is gassed up, in part, by fossil fuel alternatives. 

“But on the other side of that sustainability equation is industrial-strength tourism and ‘wreckreation’ supercharged by social media, and what has really become an extractive travel industry. All of that pressure is being compounded and amplified by climate change,” says Jamison. 

For management plans to meaningfully ameliorate human-caused impacts, Glacier National Park needs not just financial and staffing resources—both of which have taken a serious hit under the Trump administration—but holistic “coordination and integration across multiple land management agencies,” Jamison says. Political and economic leaders would need to “take a longer view with policies intended to extend, rather than to reduce, the lifespan of the goose that is laying the golden eggs of a tourism economy.”

Visitors aren’t off the hook either. There’s a “staggering disconnect” between the surging interest in “last-chance tourism” and the lack of concern over the negative environmental impacts associated with it, continues Jamison.

While fundamental changes in behavior– traveling through the park with the Blackfeet-owned Sun Tours instead of in a private vehicle, focusing on low-carbon activities like hiking and paddling instead of scenic drives–could alleviate some of the strain of overtourism on the park, it’s too late for the park to reverse course.

“The challenges absolutely are unprecedented,” says Jamison. “At no point in the history of Glacier Park have so many existential threats intersected all at once.”

Popular tourist destinations around Europe, including Venice and Santorini, are demonstrating the devastating impacts of an unchecked cruise industry. Yet, Italian authorities have given the green light to a project in a small community near Rome for a new port, where some of the world’s largest cruise ships will dock. The plans have drawn ire from residents and environmental campaigners.

Isola Sacra is a quiet coastal district in the town of Fiumicino, just 20 miles from Rome. The planned port, known as Fiumicino Waterfront, is a joint venture between the cruise giant Royal Caribbean and British investment fund Icon Infrastructure. It will include berths for approximately 1,000 small boats and a pier for mega cruise ships: over 230 feet high, over 1,150 feet long, and capable of carrying up to 6,000 passengers. 

Authorities say the project will bring an employment boom and realize the area’s full tourism potential. But various local and national associations disagree; they have been fighting against these development plans since 2010. Long-time residents of Isola Sacra have formed Tavoli del Porto, a committee working to safeguard the area. “Only together can we stop these projects that threaten to destroy a delicate ecosystem of dunes, wetlands, agricultural land, unique vegetation, and terrestrial and marine animal species,” the activists told local press ahead of a protest planned in November. 

The council says the project includes measures for the protection of marine biodiversity and complies with the regulations for sites within the Natura 2000, a network of protected areas conserving Europe’s most valuable and threatened species and habitats. But opponents say it lacks transparency around its environmental promises. One key document that has not yet been finalized is the Environmental Impact Assessment. National political party Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), one of the country’s most important populist parties and a proponent of green policy, has called for “an independent review of the project in light of European sustainability and environmental justice objectives.”

Among the primary concerns is that Fiumicino’s seabed is shallow. More than 105 million cubic feet of sand would need to be extracted to create a deep channel allowing access for ships. The council has proposed transferring 1.6 million tons of extracted sand to the nearby Fregene coastline to counteract erosion. However, experts have warned that this will have little long-term effect as the new port infrastructure will exacerbate coastal erosion by altering the natural water flow at the mouth of the Tiber River. 

Anna Longo is president of Italia Nostra Litorale Romano, the local branch of the non-profit organization Italia Nostra, which is dedicated to the protection of Italy’s historical, artistic, and environmental patrimony. She notes that the seabed dredging will have to be repeated in the future, but it will not be able to replenish the Fregene coastline again, as the extracted sand will be polluted by port activity. Environmental scientists of the collective Scienza Radicata highlight this issue in their official observations of the project. 

Just 1,000 feet from the port construction sites lies a protected natural area. Environmental experts say its flora and fauna would be devastated. Large swathes of the coastline will also be cemented over. 

“The use of sustainability strategies would never eliminate the impact of a project of this magnitude on a delicate environment like that of the Fiumicino coastline,” says Longo. “The scenario that looms appears apocalyptic: the coast will be overturned by piers and docks, hotels, and new commercial buildings.” 

Although the local council has promised the port project will regenerate the area, campaigners say historic structures along the beach are at risk, including the bilancioni, traditional stilted fishing huts. 

“For us, [the coastline] is a place that still holds its magic,” resident and Fiumicino city councillor Barbara Bonanni told Italian press, “and perhaps not just for us, since [Italian music artists] Tiromancino, Ultimo, and Calcutta came here to shoot a video, and many directors have chosen it as a set.”

Campaigners also highlight the disruption that would come from thousands of cruise passengers disgorging into the town and making onward journeys to Rome, a city already struggling with over 35 million tourists a year. Experts say the current road infrastructure could not support that volume of traffic, and air pollution will soar, exacerbated by the hundreds of port workers making the same trip. The area is already burdened by traffic heading to the nearby Fiumicino Airport. 

Plus, a new publicly managed commercial port for Fiumicino’s fishing fleet, where cruise ships will also dock, is being planned a few miles north at the mouth of the Fiumicino Canal, which will further impact the coastline. Work began on this port in 2024 and is expected to be completed in December 2026. 

Adds Longo, “The need for an additional cruise port just a few miles from the first, in an area without dedicated roads and inaccessible to the railway, is incomprehensible.” 

Set in the Bernese Oberland of central Switzerland, the Jungfrau Region stretches from the valleys of Interlaken to the imposing summits of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau. It is most famous for its Alpine villages of Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Wengen, and Mürren. 

Despite its stunning scenery, the Jungfrau Region faces a key challenge: balancing booming tourism with the preservation of its environment and local quality of life. The area’s popularity strains natural resources and the daily lives of residents, making it a critical moment to address sustainability.

According to Jungfrau Railways’ corporate announcements, both visitor numbers and profits have never been higher. More than 1 million people visited the Jungfraujoch–the ridge that joins two of the Bernese Alps’ towering 13,000-foot peaks dubbed “the Top of Europe”–in 2024, up 5.1% from the previous year. The Eiger Express gondola transported more than 2.1 million passengers, while the Harderbahn, Firstbahn, and Lauterbrunnen-Mürren cableways also broke attendance records. In the first half of 2025, transport income has generated record profits.

The booming demand underscores just how easy it has become to reach the high Alps. The Eiger Express now whisks visitors from Grindelwald to the Eiger glacier’s edge in just 15 minutes. For locals, that convenience comes with consequences: coaches jam mountain roads, the delicate paths around Kleine Scheidegg show visible wear, and tour groups crowd Lauterbrunnen’s once-quiet waterfalls. 

Meanwhile, the Aletsch Glacier, the largest in continental Europe’s Alpine range, has retreated more than 1.4 miles over the past 75 years. “Where there was ice, there are now trees,” writes climate and science reporter Mark Poynting of the Great Aletsch.

As highlighted by Kathrin Naegeli, head of corporate communications for Jungfrau Railways, tourism now accounts for up to 90% of the local economy and supports more than 1,000 jobs in the peripheral mountain. She also highlights sustainability measures as proof that growth and stewardship can coexist, but both aims require ongoing vigilance.

Mico Witzke, who manages Restaurant Eigernordwand and the Alpinhotel Bort above the quintessentially Swiss mountain village of Grindelwald, says the shift is as much about guest behavior as it is about numbers. “There are far more day visitors now, and most guests stay only one or two nights before moving on.” They arrive, take the cable car, snap their photos, and leave, missing the quiet moments that make this place so special, he explains.

“I wish visitors would take more time to appreciate nature. Many don’t even realize where they truly are; they just go where all the other tourists go,” Witzke says. “Many only want to go up to the Jungfraujoch, no matter the weather or what they’ll actually see once up there.”

Matthias Michel, who runs Hotel Fiescherblick with his brother Lars, has also experienced the shift in tourism. Their family has been part of Grindelwald’s hospitality story for more than a century.

“While a few years ago we still had an off-season, that’s hardly the case anymore,” Michel says. “The summer guest is in many cases a touring visitor, meaning they travel from hotspot to hotspot and have a packed itinerary. With little time on hand, it is usually a rush to get from place to place with few options to truly experience the local culture,” he says. 

The influx of day-trippers adds another layer of strain. “Day visitors use the tourist infrastructure without paying the local visitor’s tax that is by law dedicated to supporting the infrastructure,” Michel explains. “And in many cases, consumption is limited to the outlets of the big railway company here, the Jungfrau Railways, and the small actors like your average Grindelwalder have little direct gain…That stirs some resentment in the community.” 

Parking shortages and unprepared drivers compound the issue. “We always recommend arriving by public transport,” he says. “Our railway network is probably the best in the world.”

Both Witzke and Michel believe sustainability must include community well-being. “Housing is becoming scarce,” Witzke notes.

Michel agrees. “Many homeowners are renting out their apartments on Airbnb instead of renting them out to those who need accommodation. It is, in terms of income for the homeowner, an easy decision whether to rent permanently or on a daily or weekly basis, which is just a lot more. Furthermore, when building or renovating and applying for a bank loan, it is a security guarantee for the bank that the apartment can be rented to tourists. ”

“Maybe we should start thinking about residents and tourists in equal measure,” says Witzke. 

When “kill a gringo” becomes a spray-painted rallying cry, it’s clear dissent runs deep. On July 4, large protests erupted in Mexico City against gentrification, short-term rentals, and rising rents, with some demonstrations turning violent. Foreign tourists were harassed by the masked and unmasked. Windows were smashed, and stock was looted from tourist-facing businesses. Signs abounded, reading “Mexico for Mexicans” and “gringos out.” Being held on U.S. Independence Day, the date of the protest itself was indicative of where the lion’s share of anger was directed, anger which Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum decried as “xenophobic.”

Many point to the proliferation of Airbnb and other short-stay listings as contributing to housing displacement and rental inflation.

“Simply put, Airbnb should be banned from Mexico City,” says Natalia de la Rosa, the Mexico City-born and bred operations leader of Club Tengo Hambre, which has been taking curious travelers on food tours since 2012. “It’s a platform that incentivizes evictions and tears at the social fabric of communities in neighborhoods.”

Overseeing a team of local tour guides whose livelihoods are inextricably linked to tourism, Natalia de la Rosa believes the platform is extractive–it demands high commissions, which trickle down to low wages in hospitality. “Deep-pocketed elites and large corporate and international portfolios purchasing entire apartment buildings to convert them into short-term rentals are negatively impacting our city,” she says.

Inside Airbnb, an advocacy group that analyzes the company’s footprint on residential areas through data-driven research, estimates that there are over 25,000 short-term rentals in the city. Drawn by relaxed COVID-19 restrictions and cheaper living costs, the pandemic was a turning point when many North American digital nomads moved to the city to work remotely, and Airbnb listings have since shot up by 35%.

“The years 2022 to 2024 were significant for the tourism industry in Mexico City due to the so-called revenge travel.” De la Rosa notes that tourism is now steady in the city, but the phenomenon of social media and list-driven travel means that people are drawn to the same handful of places, experiences, and supposed hidden gems. “You’d miss many—maybe most—of the gems of Mexico City’s food and drink scene if you follow the 50 Best Lists and Michelin Guide to a T,” she laments.

Dr. Corinna J. Moebius is a cultural anthropologist who has explored urbanization and social justice across global cities and runs an eco-social impact business, TerraViva Journeys. She concurs that Instagram, along with Airbnb and Uber, has played a highly influential role in transforming spatial, cultural, and economic dynamics in Mexico City. “All contribute to a commodification of community life. Places lose their uniqueness. They all begin to feel the same, with the soul ripped away, and a few in their McMansions profit. Now the focus is on ratings and catering to privileged tourists,” she states.

Among the litany of complaints during the July demonstrations: landlords showing a preference for foreign renters, “parasitic” foreigners not paying taxes, remote workers taking up space, apartment prices being listed in dollars and not pesos, and long-term residents being evicted legally or illegally to make way for tenants with higher purchasing power. Dr. Moebius thinks that “doors will open to foreigners because they can often pay more than locals, and as doors open for them, they close for locals who have an intimate connection to these places.

Elements of Mexico City’s culture have reportedly also been impacted by its newer residents. This includes spice levels being toned down at restaurants to suit foreign palates and widespread English-speaking, particularly in Condesa, neighboring Roma, and also Polanco, where housing prices saw an eight-fold increase between 2000 and 2018. These neighborhoods have been widely criticized as “neo-colonies” where wealthier outsiders are reshaping the landscape, creating cultural alienation and resentment among locals in the process.

Not everyone is sold on the idea that foreigners or even Airbnb are responsible for the capital’s tourism-related issues. Groups of Mexico City residents who run short-term rentals feel that the city’s housing crisis is actually more impacted by government policies, such as a long-standing failure to regulate the housing market or enforce rent controls, and the roughly 207,000 abandoned or uninhabited homes in Mexico City. The government is also accused of actively encouraging foreign relocation. Case in point: a 2022 Airbnb partnership signed by Claudia Sheinbaum when she was the city’s mayor to promote tourism and remote work.

July’s protests were partly organized by Frente Anti Gentrificación CDMX, and with no clarity about when or where the next ones will be held or their extent.

In an effort to reclaim Mexico City’s neighborhoods for locals, new rules now cap short-term rentals to no more than 180 nights a year, though it doesn’t come into effect until after the 2026 FIFA World Cup, when Mexico City will host five matches, and landlords and hosts are expected to hike rents to capitalize on increased arrivals. Still, the move is meant to coax homes off Airbnb and back into the long-term market, and slow the unraveling of community life that comes when neighbors are replaced by a carousel of suitcases. 

“Long-term visitors not only have an effect in terms of housing prices and availability,” says Dr. Moebius. “They also affect neighborhood relationships of reciprocity that may have been nurtured for years.” 

Kenya’s tourism industry has been booming since COVID, hitting a record 2.4 million international arrivals last year, a 14.6% surge versus 2023. Travel is the third-largest industry in the country for amassing foreign currency, and Kenya is rapidly positioning itself as Africa’s premier tourism hub. Cruise travel is one of the sector’s new tourism products, bringing a 164% rise in port traffic in coastal cities Mombasa and Lamu in 2024. This year, Kenya has hoped to push inbound arrivals to 3 million, with no plans to slow down. 

But amid the country’s vigorous campaign to attract more travelers, Kenya lacks data on its tourists’ carrying capacity, meaning officials do not have a clear understanding of how many tourists it can accommodate without harming ecological health. The canary in Kenya’s coalmine is Mombasa, the country’s oldest coastal city. Renowned as “the white and blue city,” the historical destination now hosts 70% of tourists visiting the coast. Mombasa is admired for its pristine tropical beaches with white sand and coconut palms, and is home to protected natural reserves with unique wildlife species. Popular sites with cultural richness–the UNESCO Heritage Site of Fort Jesus, built by the Portuguese, and Mombasa Old Town, renowned for its antique shops specializing in traditional Swahili, Indian, and Arabian crafts–are now overrun with tourists. 

Overtourism has left the city grappling with depleting resources, overcrowding, poor and congested roads, poor waste management–littered beaches and polluted oceans–plus encroachment that’s endangering the shoreline, and a plethora of dilapidated buildings on prime beachfront, leftover from uneven development as captured in its 2024-2025 development plan. Tourist exit surveys warn that Mombasa is in danger of losing its attraction. 

Officials have continuously prioritized tourism over local needs, going so far as to establish a Tourists’ Inspectorate Unit, a special security team safeguarding tourist centers, despite worries about crime outside these areas, many of which have been hard hit by staggeringly high 44% youth unemployment. In April, an armed gang of 50 youths attacked cruise ship tourists in the streets and robbed them of their valuables, prompting the security response.

Recent academic research on Mombasa’s overtourism calls for urgent interventions to sustainably manage the problems. The study’s researcher, Juliet W. Muchiri, a tourism and hospitality lecturer at Presbyterian University of East Africa, tells Fodor’s that overtourism in Mombasa can effectively be tackled when destination managers and local leaders acknowledge the need to implement a comprehensive tourism management strategy.  

“This necessitates the ongoing execution of carrying capacity studies to ascertain the maximum number of visitors that Mombasa can sustain without jeopardizing its social cohesion, environmental integrity, or cultural authenticity,” Muchiri says. 

Muchiri states that overtourism in Mombasa has also incited uneasiness and discontent from the erosion of the locals’ cohesion caused by sex tourism and substance abuse. A 2023 report also highlights serious economic, social, and environmental problems locals face amid overtourism.     

Dr. Edwin Muinga, a conservationist and founder of Clean Mombasa, a community-based organization established in 2018, focused on clean-ups and tree planting, both mangrove and terrestrial, says general cleanliness is the destination’s major problem. He cites poor garbage disposal and non-functional sewage treatment systems polluting marine areas.

“Initially, there were stations for cleaning up sewage everywhere, but today people connect raw sewage into drainage systems and flow directly into the ocean, killing the mangrove and fish,” says Dr. Muinga. “Locals have been complaining and even engaged the various government players like the National Environment Management Authority and the Mombasa county government, but no mitigation has been undertaken.”  

The city has established the Mombasa Tourism Council, comprising various stakeholders, including hoteliers, travel agents, tour operators, locals’ representatives, and government officials, to look into problems affecting the destination.  Although the local government has affirmed its commitment to address the problems facing the destination, laxity in resolving them puts Kenya’s coastal city at serious risk of being avoided.  

Mohamed Osman, the minister for Tourism, Culture, and Trade in Mombasa County, acknowledged challenges facing the destination and stated that numerous short-term and long-term measures are being put in place to address them. 

“We have a comprehensive draft law, the Beach Management Bill, which is progressive with provisions on proper management of our beaches, waste disposal, and drainage, among other issues,” Osman told Fodor’s. “Currently, we do not have such a legal framework.”   

Paris’ hilltop village of Montmartre has long drawn artists to its picturesque cobbled streets and preponderance of cabarets. But these days, the latter cost far more than Vincent Van Gogh would have been able to afford, and you’d be hard-pressed to take a photo (much less paint a work of art) without a selfie stick in the background.

Montmartre owes much of its quaintness to a question of zoning. When Paris underwent its great 19th-century makeover at the hands of urban planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann, the city became an ode to symmetry, known above all for wide boulevards. But Montmartre, then a village on the outskirts of the city, remained untouched, maintaining the narrow cobbled streets of yore. Today, those picturesque ruelles join the snowy Sacré Coeur basilica, the Place du Tertre teeming with on-demand caricaturists, and the restaurant that claims to be Paris’s first bistro as undeniable tourist draws. 

But in recent years, it’s become more than the 30,000 residents can bear. Some 11 million visitors now throng the basilica each year–more even than the Eiffel Tower. And they’re flooding even further than the typical tourist haunts, according to Rémy Knafou, professor at Paris 1–Panthéon Sorbonne and author of several books on overtourism. He recalls that, while 10 years ago key destinations like the Place du Tertre or the steps of Sacré Coeur were already thronged, since this past spring, he has noticed that even previously quieter spots, notably the northern flank of the hill, now teem with tourist shops and thus with tourists.

“At night, the Place du Tertre is completely invaded by café and restaurant terraces,” Knafou tells Fodor’s. “Some of the population living in the area is protesting–discretely, politely, but firmly–its discontent. It is therefore possible to speak of overtourism.”

Indeed, locals find the influx “unlivable,” Anne Renaudie, president of the Association “Vivre à Montmartre,” founded to help protect residents from the influx of tourism, told C News. It’s not just the crowds that are putting people off. Real estate prices for the area have skyrocketed 35% in just the past year, according to data from BARNES, a luxury real estate company. And the arrival of ever-more tourists is leading to sorry losses in local culture and color. CLAP, the local pétanque club, was expelled from the space it had held since 1971 in 2024 to allow a luxury hotel to expand.

Local government officials claim that they are working to reduce the impact of tourism on residents. Jean-Philippe Daviaud, a delegate of the town hall of the 18th arrondissement, which includes Montmarte, tells Fodor’s that the local government has maintained public schools despite falling matriculation “so that families can continue to live in Montmartre.” He also cites an active reduction in the number of furnished apartment rentals geared to tourists in the area from 9,131 in 2023 to 8,853 in 2025.

But some new policies have actually made it more difficult for locals. An ongoing project to pedestrianize the butte as part of a wider Parisian “Beautify Your Neighborhood” plan has led to massive roadworks likely to stretch over “several months and even several years,” according to Daviaud. And while the overall goal–more space for pedestrians, more green spaces–is laudable, many locals are less than enthused.

“When the town hall says it’s giving the neighborhood back to residents, it’s hypocritical,” says Elisabeth, a member of both Vivre à Montmartre and another local association, Association de défense de Montmartre, and a Montmartre resident of 40 years. “It’s all being done to make it easier for bars, restaurants, and some businesses, but there’s nothing for residents.”

If trends continue in this way, Knafou warns, Montmartre may be “progressively emptied of its population.” And this, he says, could contribute to “a loss of ‘authenticity,’ or, at any rate, a modification of the local identity,” something he says has already taken place in the historic centers of Venice or Bruges.

Of Montmartre, he says, “We’ll need to ask ourselves: whether tourists will be satisfied to come and only encounter other tourists.”

Contributors to the 2026 Fodor’s No List: Rosie Bell, Georgie Darling, Rebecca Ann Hughes, Sam Kisika, Stacey Lastoe, Rachael Levitt, Olivia Liveng, Eva Morreale, Emily Monaco, Shoshi Parks, Jeremy Tarr, and Nikki Vargas.