I recently read an article about a beautiful farm in Woodstock, Vermont, which is famous for its picturesque location and fall foliage. However, due to the immense popularity of this spot on Instagram, it has attracted many tourists. But local residents complain about littering, disrespectful behavior and the issues of how such tiny municipalities can handle a huge amount of visitors.

Are there such places in your area?


34 comments
  1. That general situation has been an issue every fall in Vermont since long before Instagram.

    Similarly, one that has been a thing for decades, but definitely got much more popular since Instagram has been taking pictures of/on Acorn Street on Beacon Hill in Boston. the residents are old money types that absolutely hate that there are constantly people outside their windows taking pictures

  2. Surprisingly, no. Or at least not that I’ve noticed. Perhaps local Philadelphians are already sufficiently uncouth that I don’t notice who’s being a disrespectful outsider in their midst.

  3. Tourists haven’t ruined anything around Chicago. They don’t really know how to walk in the loop/ other pedestrian heavy areas, but that’s a common complaint about tourists in big cities.

    I think the drunk frat bros are typically the most obnoxious.

  4. The corner of Water Street and Washington Street in Brooklyn has gotten much busier in the past few years for its view of the Manhattan Bridge. If you’ve seen a photo of one of the bridge’s blue arches framed between two buildings, you know what I mean. Every time I walk by there, the street is full of people taking pictures.

    I don’t live in Brooklyn anymore though, so I can’t say I’m personally affected by it. It’s a nice view after all.

  5. Not that I know of. To be fair we get lots of snowbirds and weekend beach visitors all the time. I really wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference.

  6. Not ruined, but the ice lake trail. Ten years ago you would run in to a few people, but it was never packed. Now, I still go every year, but I have to leave the house at 4am so I can find a spot to park at the trailhead. When we come down, there’s typically a line of cars over a mile long on the side of the dirt road. Luckily, even with that amount of people it’s still very clean. Most are following LNT so I’m cool with it.

  7. Western North Carolina. They’ll go into the National Park during springtime and pick up bear cubs to take selfies with.

  8. Not necessarily Instagram influencers but tourists in general. NC mountains and beaches get heavy traffic during the summer and last time I went hiking on some trails in the mountains, I noticed a bunch of disposable vapes and trash in general littered around.

  9. Sedona had a bit too much tourism in the 2000s, but since smartphones and Instagram it’s been completely almost unbearable. Far too much people, everyone’s trying to get the same pictures in the same spots, and a lot of people aren’t as respectful to the land as they need to be.

  10. If Dave Portnoy ruins one more local pizza spot with his reviews…

    Yes to answer your question.

  11. not from nyc, but my cousin studying there said the stairs where they filmed the joker scene is super popular for tourists now, not sure if it’s still happening but i think he said it was funny cos it’s in a pretty questionable neighborhood?

    this family friend lives in laguna beach and he said the tourists clog up the main town centre road so he gets rly annoyed at the traffic lol

  12. No one is instagraming the Capital or the Lincoln memorial. Parks department handles the trash.

  13. I live in the arse end of California, so no danger of Instagramers here. 😆 The IE for those who are wondering.

  14. We have a bunch of tourists that come down during winter time and usually make things a lot busier than they already are. I don’t even want to live in the town I grew up in because of how many people moved here and how over developed it has gotten. I have a few places near me that are still low key for the most part that I’m trying to enjoy as much as I can before they end up going down the same road.

  15. I feel like VT takes the brunt of that damage for us and the state loves the tourism money leaf peepers bring in so we’ll take it

    Altho it doesn’t stop the inevitable complaining on the NH sub when someone posts a pic of a wicked overcrowded scenic view spot

  16. >beautiful farm in Woodstock, Vermont, which is famous for its picturesque location and fall foliage. However, due to the immense popularity of this spot on Instagram[…]

    That’s the problem with Instagram tourism. People need to understand they can pick like half the farms in a hilly state like VT, ME and NH and they will be picturesque in the fall foliage season. There’s no *one farm* that’s super awesome. Most of them are.

    Try this:

    “beautiful farm in Vermont, which is awesome for its picturesque location and fall foliage.”

  17. I live right outside Shenandoah National Park…. the fall traffic is miserable. We can’t even enjoy Skyline Drive and the fall leaves due to bumper-to-bumper traffic and tourists everywhere literally walking out in the roads.

  18. Nah, no one is coming to Phoenix for their insta. Maybe the Grand Canyon but given that you could fit the entire human race in there, I wouldn’t say it’s been *ruined* by them

  19. Yes. There’s a beautiful waterfall and a small grassy field by me, someone on TikTok posted it at the beginning of the pandemic and they had to close it because assholes were destroying it with litter, the town didn’t have enough money for constant clean up

  20. Not sure if I should take this to r/AskOldPeople, but what exactly is “Instagram tourism”? Is it people that flock to a spot because it’s been popularized on Instagram, or is it people who home to become famous in Instagram posting photos from new places?

  21. A rock formation called “potatoe chip” it’s basically become a hotspot for people to take pictures at so there’s usually a line most days

  22. There is a market in FDR Park in Philadelphia that went from “nice little market” to overcrowded. Mainly because influencers started making posts about it. Kinda same with bok bar, but that was really inevitable. That place is great.

    ETA: There are a lot of touristy spots that have been touristy before influencers. I don’t really count that cuz it’s to be expected. Mostly the historic buildings in old city. There is also Angelo’s. It got some good reviews and no people flock there. Kind of places in the Italian market. Back when food network was more popular, some places really blew up, but I think it died down back to normal levels.

  23. One of my local ice cream stores went down that path. The other one thankfully hasn’t

  24. Kerry Park in Seattle used to be pretty chill. You’d get the occasional “did their research” tourist or professional photographers, but now it’s just overran. Luckily there’s other parks w/ good views, but it was nice when you could casually visit Kerry Park, and enjoy the view.

    (for those that don’t know Kerry Park is the iconic view point of Seattle. If you’ve google a picture of the Seattle skyline odds are it was taken from Kerry Park.)

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