Highlands and islands on Lonely Planet's 'Best in Travel' list

[HairyHaggis]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-45940644

the muppets, in the ongoing rabid desire to provide copy and a name for themselves, and make money, have once again promoted the destruction of a place that should be left alone. i guess if you are coming from a hellhole like the midlands it must still seem like a nice place, but it's already nothing like the beautiful, peaceful place it was 10 years ago and the degeneration continues apace.

feckers + wreckers

signed: angry from scootland

 

[gintonic]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-45940644

the muppets, in the ongoing rabid desire to provide copy and a name for themselves, and make money, have once again promoted the destruction of a place that should be left alone. i guess if you are coming from a hellhole like the midlands it must still seem like a nice place, but it's already nothing like the beautiful, peaceful place it was 10 years ago and the degeneration continues apace.

feckers + wreckers

signed: angry from scootland

we spent 3 weeks there this summer and it was jolly nice and peaceful. There is a balance to be achieved. We met many rural communities who thought the increase in incoming tourism was an excellent thing, providing employment opportunities and other economic boosts.

the OPs post sounds like Nimbyism to me. I am glad to say in my three recent extended road trips in Scotland I didn't meet a local who had anything bearing a resemblance to that attitude. Interestingly, many of those I met appeared to be inbound tourists from elsewhere in Scotland.

it certainly didn't appear overrun.

We'll be back next year to pollute your air, keep your rural economies alive and support your local industries by eating your delicious food in Michelin starred restaurants. If you PM me your address, I sure I can arrange to turn up outside your house, with my loud Grime, Drum'n'bass and Drill music...

See you next summer.....

 

[blossomchris]

I tend to agree with the op. It is becoming a worldwide issue and some sort of controls need to be implicated, I have no idea what/how!

Bloss

 

[gintonic]

I tend to agree with the op. It is becoming a worldwide issue and some sort of controls need to be implicated, I have no idea what/how!

Bloss

well yes once Brexit and full independence happens you can control tourism from foreign shores by pricing people out of visiting through the cost of Visas......

 

[blossomchris]

well yes once Brexit and full independence happens you can control tourism from foreign shores by pricing people out of visiting through the cost of Visas......

Cities have fewer issues with tourism. I have no idea how you could deal with this, it may be a fact that it is not preventable.

Bloss

 

[HairyHaggis]

well yes once Brexit and full independence happens you can control tourism from foreign shores by pricing people out of visiting through the cost of Visas......

a tad 'but what about meeee'. it's nowt to do wi pricing or excluding people. it's all to do wi protecting precious wilderness and wildlife. once it's gone it's gone. and you don't know what you've got until it's gone. there is a steady erosion of both (wilderness and wildlife) in the highlands. it's a bit like the native north american indians. increasingly constrained to artificial confines, reservations in the drive for money. a bit like an enlarged zoo and nothing like the pristine environment it ought to be.

...the midlands used to be what would be classed as wilderness. it's now a hellhole.

 

[gintonic]

Cities have fewer issues with tourism. I have no idea how you could deal with this, it may be a fact that it is not preventable.

Bloss

I suspect it reaches some kind of equilibrium, where inbound slows or stops as it has reached capacity.

I was advised by a tour guide friend based in Orkney to avoid August to avoid the crowds, and to book early (in Jan 2018 for a trip in late Aug/early Sept) to get the pick of the accomodation.

Anyway I suspect the disruption in remote Scotland on really happens for four months a year, so they should make hay whilst the sun shines....

 

[gintonic]

increasingly constrained to artificial confines,

now there is a thought why not round up the native Scots stick em in a compound, supply them with a neverending supply of Buckfast, Iron Bru and deep fried stuff. Then the untouched wilderness can be left to itself.

 

[Snufkin]

...the midlands used to be what would be classed as wilderness. it's now a hellhole.

Although I do agree broadly with you opening post and for all sorts of reasons there is far too much 'tourism' across the globe, why do the Midlands stand out when compared with the South East? On my rare visits to the Midlands it all seems pretty good to me with a few spots of grimness. The South East, particularly if you get too close to London, is becoming a mess.

 

[HairyHaggis]

now there is a thought why not round up the native Scots stick em in a compound, supply them with a neverending supply of Buckfast, Iron Bru and deep fried stuff. Then the untouched wilderness can be left to itself.

lordy gt, i'm glad for your sake that we scots are not black. you'd be banged up for that remark

here's a thought. next time you're up knocking about in your car, why not stop at the highland line, strap on a rucksack and a pair of boots, and head off, by yourself, quietly and respectfully, for a week or two. and find out what the highlands are really about?

 

[Mr Cat]

I tend to agree with the op. It is becoming a worldwide issue and some sort of controls need to be implicated, I have no idea what/how!

Bloss

it's a very tricky balance as people like to go to these places to appreciate the wilderness but then end up spoiling it... look at the lake district for example - the roads are often gridlocked..

please up north like weardale, swaledale, parts of north Yorkshire, Settle etc, and Northumberland are still very quiet - and mainly because they are working environments and nothing much for the average joe to do apart from appreciate the beauty...

 

[gintonic]

strap on a rucksack and a pair of boots

I did - that's why we were there for nearly three weeks. Unfortunately some of my planned walks were curtailed due an encounter with my ankle and a hole at Duncansby Stacks.

We took our time to enjoy all that your homeland had to offer

 

[stevec67]

the muppets, in the ongoing rabid desire to provide copy and a name for themselves, and make money, have once again promoted the destruction of a place that should be left alone.

Hardly. As GT says the place needs tourism to survive. Other than the Wallace Arnold tours the place generally attracts the rucsac and boots brigade, I'm one of them. Witout tourism the place is knackered, I remember the F&M outbreak, I was up there just after the ban was lifted, climbing on the Ben. Everywhere we went the place was falling over itself to look after us. All the gear shops had sales, the B&Bs were empty, the pubs likewise, even the petrol station said "we're glad to see you people back, it's been bloody hard, it's not just petrol sales that are down, it's the food, papers, cigarettes, everything." Of course it didn't take long before the locals forgot and we went back to being scum of the earth tourists who just clog up the roads. A welcome in the glens indeed.

As far as being overcrowded, is it hell. Get 5 minutes off the road and you have the place to yourself. A mate and I went on the Cuillin for 3 days in February and once beyond Corrour bothy, where we met 2 Germans, we never met another soul until we came down at the Sligachan. Which was closed. Similarly a walk in the 'Gorms one March 2 years ago, if we saw one other party that was all. This was just outside Newtonmore so hardly remote.

 

[Bobbyrab]

I'm just curious and not arguing here, but what is it specifically that you think is doing the damage and what kind of damage is it.
I live in Glasgow and increasingly friends from Edinburgh and Glasgow are bemoaning tourism in rural Scotland, but surely the erosion and possible disturbance to wildlife is much more likely to be from walkers and climbers than a coach party pulled in at a lay-by which seems to be the majority of the tourist experience. I know one guy who gets so angry about coach groups [he's a long time walker and climber who lives in Edinburgh], but he contributes almost nothing to the areas he visits as he takes his own food and sleeps in his car if he goes on longer journeys, I'm pretty sure rural communities would much rather the coach parties. I get the visual blight of busy roads, but really when compared to motorway or dual carriage traffic the pollution can't be that bad?
I assume as you've recommended someone take walking boots and see it properly that it's the road traffic you think is the issue. Is it?

 

[HairyHaggis]

As GT says the place needs tourism to survive

and there is the insane fallacy that is propagated. the place doesn't need tourism. the people who have decided to live there need it. the place has survived very well for 1000's of years without people thank you very much. survived and become what it is now. and become the place that people are now seeking to exploit in order to make money. it's like me moving to a pacific atoll and then declaring, "this place owes me a living, what can i sell to make the money i need to live here"...destructive, stupid and short-sighted

but i suppose if you don't get it, then you don't get it. many many beautiful places on earth are now expoited by people who don't get it. as joni mitchell once wrote, 'they paved paradise, put up...'. same pov, different location

 

[stevec67]

and there is the insane fallacy that is propagated. the place doesn't need tourism. the people who have decided to live there need it. the place has survived very well for 1000's of years without people thank you very much. survived and become what it is now. and become the place that people are now seeking to exploit in order to make money. it's like me moving to a pacific atoll and then declaring, "this place owes me a living, what can i sell to make the money i need to live here"...destructive, stupid and short-sighted

Great, so exclude the tourists and allow it to revert to Scots pine, larch and rowan, with a population of half a dozen sheep farmers. It has become what it is on the back of hundreds of years of sheep farming, which has cleared the native forests, house building and tree cutting for fuel likewise. This generated the "natural" landscape. It has not survived in its current form without people in any way shape or form. Peope say the same of the Lake District, equally wrongly. Exclude the tourists and the corner shop and pub are done for in most places, the more remote villages would empty. Romeve the tourists from, say, Applecross, what's left? What indigenous commercial activity is going on?

Short sighted is people who think that the current population can be sustained without an inflow of tourist money.

 

[whatsnext]

I wonder what the disgruntled think about Faroe Islands. Roads everywhere with tunnels, mobile phone usuable almost everywhere, untouched? Not quite but respectfully having humans living a life. Beautiful balance.

 

[The Far North]

I realise this is only an actual study which is likely to be dismissed, but https://www.heraldscotland.com/news...und-nc500-brings-problems-as-well-as-profits/

“A lot of people are saying the NC500 is affecting their enjoyment and access to the outdoors.

“I was staggered at the number who said they had withdrawn in some way as a result of the increased tourism even to the extent of wanting to move.

“Those who have withdrawn to some extent has amounted to between 15 and 20 per cent so far.

“Community leaders say they are not being consulted by those running the route while some businesses are saying tourists are now flying through rather than staying a lot longer in their towns and villages.”

He added: “Undoubtedly accommodation and places of interest have done well. But issues over sanitation, traffic and management have also been well raised by respondents.”

PS: I've lived, worked and holidayed here for the past 25 years, including part of the NC500.

 

[Bob McC]

OP are you a landowner complaining of trespass?

If not, shut up.

I’ll go wherever I am allowed and want in the UK.

 

[HairyHaggis]

OP are you a landowner complaining of trespass?

If not, shut up.

I’ll go wherever I am allowed and want in the UK.

dear god bobby boy, wind yer neck in