by Robert McGarvey

“Traveling is the vice of the many and the virtue of the few. ‘Travel in the younger sort is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience,’ said Bacon; but Bacon lived fortunately early and so escaped the modern cult. He never saw what we have seen: the devastation of fair countries, the desolation of old cities, the desecration of sacred shrines, by the intrusive presence of people who do not belong.“

It’s Francis Bacon, by the way, and as for the author of the above screed it’s not me, indeed it was written before I was born and before my father was born. It appeared in the June 1911 issue of The Atlantic with the headline “The Immorality of Travel” and there isn’t a byline.

I wish there were so that I could toast him or her for this scorching piece. This is simply dazzlingly insightful copy that could have – should have – been written this year as locales from Barcelona to Venice and Bali grapple with the ugly consequences of too much tourism. We deface Roman walls, we defile the sacred in Bali, we fall to our death snapping a selfie at a Bavarian castle.

Overtourism is destroying what we say we cherish and we are the ones doing the destruction.

Like this anonymous writer I have seen the desecration of cities, tourists wielding selfie sticks that become unintended weapons, and – perhaps most disturbingly – thick crowds of tourists pushing for space in front of Guernica at Reina Sofia or Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights at the Prado and they push not to get a better look at the art but for position for a selfie (and, thankfully, the Prado bans selfies so the Bosch largely escapes that indignity).

2024 becomes 1911.

The piece goes on:

“Travel is the great epidemic of the modern world, common to most races, wasteful of time and money, disastrous to the places visited, most unbeautiful in all its effects.”

Why do they bother to travel at all? I have no idea, other than that they seem to want to put a notch in their metaphoric pistol, been there, done that and their friends, they hope, will be envious and believe them cool. The friends probably won’t think them cool (cool? them?) but probably will want to take the same trip themselves or one up it. Travel metastasizes.

“One of the saddest features of the whole matter is the havoc wrought upon innocent regions by the pestilence breathing hordes of travelers,” howled the 1911 scribe.

The poster child for a destination that is imbued with innocence that now is being defiled by over 170,000 tourists annually is Antarctica, a place with no compelling reason to visit except to be able to make the claim that you’ve been. Psst. If you care an iota about the planet, just lie and say you’ve been. As a 2023 Atlantic story proclaims, “[It’s] The Last Place on Earth Any Tourist Should Go.”

Antarctica is just the iceberg’s tip.

The numbers pertaining to tourism make one shiver. In 1975 7.2 million Americans traveled internationally. In 2023, 48.96 million Americans traveled internationally. That’s 6x more but the planet has not gotten any bigger and the spots that draw us have not gotten bigger either.

Add in millions of Chinese tourists and fast growing number of Indians and what we get is a planet with too many visiting too few places.

The 1911 Atlantic writer is correct, by the way, in pointing out that travel is a comparatively recent phenomenon. In olden days people traveled on business or by necessity. When my Irish grandparents came to the US two things were true: they did not believe a good life was to be had for them in Ireland and once in the US they had no intention of returning to Ireland, not even for a visit, and they didn’t.

When tens of thousands of Africans pile into flimsy boats to get to the Canary Islands they do it because they have come to see their African homelands as unlivable. They are not on a holiday vacay.

You may ask: What am I doing to combat overtourism? I won’t travel to any of the many places that already are howling about too many tourists (and I hear their pain because they are right) and when I do travel overseas I will travel to places less trafficked by Americans, that plainly want tourists, and where I can stay a longer time.

What about you?

by Robert McGarvey

One early morning in July I was drinking coffee in the kitchen of a rental apartment in Lavapies, Madrid when an email came in from a friend who dates back to high school. “Why aren’t you in Barcelona,” he wanted to know.

I did not hesitate with my answer. I happen to like Madrid very much but just as important is that Barcelona in summer is stuffed with tourists, locals howl about overtourism, and the place just didn’t seem welcoming.

The next morning another email from my friend arrived saying, in effect, you’re right.

That’s because the day before an anti tourist protest had erupted in Barcelona where protesters fired water pistols at tourists.

There was none of that in Madrid although there were July protests against tourism in the Canary Islands and Valencia as well as Barcelona.

Spain is not unique. There have been loud grumbles about overtourism in Amsterdam, Greece (Athens and Santorini), Amsterdam, Bali and even places like Dubrovnik and Bruges.

I cannot say I have never been to an overtouristed destination. I was in Santorini in 1999 and swore I’d never return because the streets were thick with too many cruise passengers. Matters have only worsened but I’ve never returned so don’t blame it on me.

I went to Dublin for the first time in mid June 1989 and talked with more Americans than Irish. In this case I resolved never to return in the peak summer months and have often been to the 32 counties in late fall and early winter when few Americans – few tourists of any kind – are about. I have been the only guest in a hotel on the Antrim coast and one of a handful in hotels in Letterkenny and Donegal. Nobody complained about overtourism to me on those trips.

Of course I have been to Rome but my time to go is the first week or two of December when there are no tourists – and no wait times at museums or in Vatican City.

I have been to Berlin in that same early December slot and the Christmas markets are open but just about everybody you’ll talk with is a local (although in Berlin that often means a foreigner).

Note: A massive benefit of traveling in non peak times is that everything is cheaper – airfare, hotels, and and sometimes even restaurants.

But the other plus is that you won’t hear kvetching about tourists and you won’t be fired at with water pistols. Locals are happy you’re there because you are ringing the cash register.

Isn’t July a peak month for Spain’s tourism? It is but I did not see floods of tourists in Madrid except on the Gran Via, at the Prado and Reina Sofia museums and in the glitzy Salamanca neighborhood. And many of the tourists I encountered in Madrid were from other parts of Spain. Of course I spent many hours in the museum district but most of my time was spent in Lavapies, La Latina, El Rastro and Embajadores, a few miles removed from the Gran Via and – at least in the case of Lavapies – the population is a multicultural stew and who could tell if I’m a tourist or a local?

Lavapies has its issues around its future. There were bed sheets hanging from a building a block from where I stayed that protested the eviction of a family from an apartment up the street – Lavapies is well into a gentrification that is transforming a neighborhood that had once been impoverished – but the evictions seem to more blamed on the gentrification than on tourism per se and that’s the proper call.

The solution isn’t to ban Airbnb et. al. and grumble about tourists but to enact tenant protections and barriers to evictions.

Personally, while in Lavapies I ate in many local restaurants, drank in local bars, shopped in local markets and did not sense significant hostility.

Sure, some local bars are unwelcoming but I encountered more overt hostility in bars in South Boston a half century ago where in many cases the bartender simply would not serve an outsider. Nobody refused to serve me in Lavapies.

Bottomline: Overtourism is a real issue. Don’t contribute to it by going to destinations and places where there are overflows of tourists. Go if you want to but go in non peak times and to neighborhoods that aren’t bursting with tourists. And wherever you go, stay curious and respectful.

Oh: it helps to spend a long while in one place. I spent a month in Lavapies and, about halfway in, folks began recognizing me, some even started saying “hola.”

But a point I mull: erase tourism from the Canary Islands or Santorini for that matter or many of the places that complain the loudest and then what? 35% of the Canary Islands GDP derives from tourism. Overtourism can be ugly but so can poverty.

by Robert McGarvey

How many apps do you have on your phone? I have no idea how many are on mine but I’ll tell you I only needed two to navigate around Madrid and Spain in the month of July.

I will use a third – AllTrails – the next time I walk the Camino de Santiago and especially useful is that AllTrails allows the user to download the trails and that’s good when occasionally there’s no cellular signal.

But in more urbanized Spain the only two I used were Rome2rio and Google Maps. Both are free. But I use them not because of the price but because they work.

I stumbled upon Rome2rio in 2021 when I was walking a Camino from Leon and wanted to get from Madrid’s airport to Leon and. bingo, Rome2rio showed me the Metro route to the Chamartin train station. Earlier it had shown me the two options for travel from Madrid to Leon – high speed train (under two hours) or bus (nearer four hours but half the price). I opted for train and Rome2rio showed me multiple departures and fares. A few clicks and. shazam, it was all arranged.

Similarly, this year, when I wanted to arrange trips to Toledo, Avila, Segovia and Seville, trains won my patronage and booking travel was quick and simple with Rome2rio

For next year I am planning a possible stay in Marseille where I want to fly from Phoenix to Paris. train from Paris to Marseilles, and possibly train from Marseille to Madrid. Rome2rio sorts it out literally in seconds. The train from Paris to Marseille, incidentally, is a little more than a three hour journey and costs around $120.

The key that lets me know all this: Rome2rio, founded by a couple of former Microsoft engineers, uses Google Cloud and Google Maps to sort its data which is plentiful. Per Google, “Rome2rio collates transport and fare information from more than 5,000 companies, including airlines and hotels, as well as train, bus, ferry, taxi, and rideshare operators. Developers add the transit data as a map layer on top of Google Maps Platform to improve search relevance. Using Rome2rio’s search engine, travelers can query more than two million travel destinations and make informed decisions based on travel time and pricing.”

Rome2rio now is owned by Omio, a travel booking engine. I used Omio to buy tickets for the four train trips I took this summer and have no complaints. Note: you’re not forced to use Omio, it’s just that inside Rome2rio it is simpler to. I could have booked trains directly with Renfe…but why incur the extra steps? Besides I’ve always thought it appropriate to pay for one’s lunch and using Omio pays for what I’m getting from Rome2rio.

As for Google Maps, it’s probably on just about every smartphone in the US and most of us use it regularly to drive to destinations we are unfamiliar with. I still remember – with a shudder – fumbling with paper maps as I sped down a highway. I also remember getting lost when I misread a map. For me, driving now includes Google Maps. Period.

In Madrid I learned to use it – and depend on it – as I walked 225 miles in the city and went to restaurants and small museums and mercados that I’d never been to. When walking, click that tab in Google Maps and you can also click a Steps tab that gives turn by turn directions.

It’s easy to get lost walking in a strange city – there are sights and sounds that grab our attention and, 10 minutes later, we realize we’re no longer heading where we want to. Google maps with Steps activated is the cure.

Google Maps also is very good for taking public transit. It shows the next arrival time, how many stops, expected travel time – all the info you want when choosing the best transportation option. I used it in Madrid for the Metro and found it reliable (and it also informed me I had two metro stops very near where I was staying, not just the one I knew about).

The terrific thing is that both Rome2rio and Google Maps are free. AllTrails+ is $2.99/month fee but if you hike at all, it’s money you need to spend. I use it in national parks in the US and it’s a wonder.

Three apps for smarter, often cheaper travel. That’s traveling light but cleverly.

by Robert McGarvey

Experts rate Spain’s train system as second tier – below the first tier of France, Germany, Switzerland and a few more robust EU economies – but to me Spain’s Renfe system is brilliant. Sure, that’s partly because the US system is miserable – tell me why there is no passenger train from Phoenix to Los Angeles even tho there is a train station in downtown Phoenix – but also because in my month in Madrid I used the train system four times to visit Toledo, Avila, Segovia and Seville.

Remember this: if you are spending weeks in Madrid or Barcelona, the country’s train system offers a low cost way to explore towns throughout the country. You can even take the train (8 hours) from Madrid to Marseilles or to Lisbon (10 hours – but in 2034 a high speed train that will do that journey in three hours is supposed to debut).

Here are the costs, distances and travel times for my recent trips:

• Toledo 11.10 euros 36 minutes 75 km
• Avila 23.27 euros 1 hour, 28 minutes 113 km
• Segovia 25.30 euros 27 minutes 100 km
• Seville 40.26 euros 2 hours 42 minutes 400 km

And note, the return to Madrid from Seville arrived 15 minutes early! Has anybody said similar about Amtrak in the last year?

All trips except to Avila were on Spain’s high speed trains. Avila was on an old fashioned train.

In the process I used three Madrid train stations – Atocha, Chamartin, and Principe Pio. The last serves up old fashioned trains. The first two have all kinds including high speed.

All fares were second class but that bought a comfortable seat in a clean carriage with good air conditioning on warm Spanish days. There’s WiFi but I made little use of it so can’t comment. But I can say the last time I traveled on Amtrak’s Acela the wi fi was so poor I simply used the T Mobile cellular network which generally provided a connection. Whatever was available on the Spanish trains had to be as good.

Why did I go to Avila when that involved a low speed train? Simple: it has wondrously preserved medieval city walls. Once when asked where he might most want to live, Orson Welles said Avila, which he described as “a strange, tragic place.” Whatever it is, its city center looks like something from perhaps 600 years ago which is what it is. It’s worth the trip.

Toledo is the place I got the least from, but that was my fault. I went to Toledo because the train ride was so short but I’d done no research and so signed up for a city tour with an operator at the train station. The tour was blah but that’s on me. I should have taken a taxi into the center and seen the Museo de Greco, the Alcazar, and walked St. Martin’s bridge. Next time I go I’ll do all that and will have good things to say about Toledo. Oh – I did see the Cervantes statue. Everybody who goes to Toledo should and if you haven’t read Don Quixote, do so.

Segovia is a place I also knew almost nothing about before walking into the centro from the train station – but I did know it has one of the best preserved Roman aqueducts with some 167 arches. It was built perhaps 20 centuries ago and it still stands. While in Segovia know that the town is famous for suckling pig and, while I often ignore local favorites I succumbed and ordered that dish (for two or three!) at Meson Don Jimeno. It comes with potatoes, doubtless cooked in pig fat. I enjoyed every bite. I would go back to Segovia just to eat there again but don’t tell my cardiologist.

Seville was our destination on our last weekend in Madrid and this time we elected to spend Friday night in a hotel and that’s because the ride is almost three hours, one way. Mark this down: Hotel Boutique Casa de Colon. Cost: $137.28 for a lovely room in an old but well cared for building that’s steps away from the magnificent Cathedral – don’t miss the Christopher Columbus tomb (which may not house his remains but let’s not cavil). Included in that tariff at the hotel was breakfast for two, which we elected to eat on the rooftop which provided a terrific view of Seville. Also take in a visit to the Alcazar where you will get a quick insight into just how – and how fast – the plundered wealth from the New World transformed Spain.

As I sit at my desk in Phoenix writing this, I sigh because I can’t hop on a high speed train and go to LA or Santa Fe or San Diego this weekend. Why not? If I can do it in Spain why can’t I do it here?

By Robert McGarvey

Fifteen years ago, after my first trip to Madrid, if you had asked me about Spanish food I would have said it’s fine if you like ham and cheese and bread with olives, the occasional anchovy, and some mildly potable vino tinto.

I would not have mentioned paella because what I ate in Madrid was profoundly mediocre.

Fast forward and everything is different today. Well, the restaurant paella still mainly is mediocre (just as spaghetti and meat balls in most north Jersey eateries is a pile of bland. Both probably are at their best in home cooking) but today’s Madrid is a gourmet’s delight because now there is so much diversity and a lot of it is tasty indeed. The onetime rigid Spanish hegemony has been shattered. A new culinary standard is taking shape and some of this comida Nueva is good indeed.

Start with La Canibal, an extraordinary wine bar where a coravin preservation system allows pours of glasses of very good wines at appropriate prices and there are suitable foods to pair. I officially take back my comment on the mediocrity of Spanish wine. We also had fried squash blossoms – the only time in memory that I’ve enjoyed this dish that has always before looked better than it ate. Here the good wines had a match with the food. The tab was around $60 for a couple pours of wine and the blossoms but everything about this place is right and so is the price.

Next is Chuka Ramen Bar where, yes, a good bowl of ramen is to be had. We also had a Korean fried chicken bao bun and shrimp wonton dumplings. The m.o. here is to deliver a mash up of Japanese and Chinese and a little Korean and it succeeds at about $50 for that lunch for two in a cozy restaurant a few hundred meters from the Prado. The bao bun alone is worth a stop – it’s 10 euros and the portion is generous.

Time for small bites at Comparte Bistro where the food is prepared with French techniques using mostly Spanish ingredients. A pat of butter even made an appearance on the table, the first I’d seen in three weeks of eating around Madrid. My advice: order the tasting menu, 57 euros for nine courses that included everything from vegetables and fish to steak in a mole and chocolate drizzled with olive oil. It’s mainly one or two bites of food per course, it’s not a belt busting chef’s table but rather a persuasive display of cooking talent and imagination. The tab for two including a good bottle of white from Bierzo and espressos: 159.70 euros.

And then we ate at Kuoco where we ordered the nine course tasting menu – called taste the world- and upgraded with an optional starter. Every dish was meant to be eaten as a single bite and along the way we ate shellfish, fish, duck, steak, ravioli, and in each case the flavorings were imaginative and probably nothing you’d had before. Consider the “pre dessert” which is a yuzu frozen tablet. You don’t know what that could possibly taste like? Isn’t that the point. The meal, by the way, took two and a quarter hours. Cost with a modest bottle of bierzo tinto was 227 euros for two.

About now you hunger for old Madrid. So do I (and the photo below is taken at an old restaurant in Ávila Spain where there also are good eats to be found). Probably my personal favorite in Madrid is La Sanabresa, an old time eatery that serves up home cooking and for around $3O I got a good steak with potatoes, a salad and a little cake. Nothing fancy about La Sanabresa but it has authenticity and the food is great at the price. No reservations, it’s first come, first served and the others wait in line. We went around 3 pm and there was no line. Your luck may vary. Oh, the restaurant is on Calle amor de dios – god’s love.

But before you head to La Sanabresa, you might pop into Taberna La Concha where my strong advice is to order the house vermouth cocktail, 3.5 euros, which completely changed my mind about sweet vermouth. This is a cocktail that works. Don’t stop at one, have two – and enjoy the clever free tapas. I remember a brilliant little pile of potato chips topped with a delicious anchovy sliver. But stop at two so you can make the one kilometer walk over to La Sanabresa.

That doubleheader is about as old Madrid as it gets but it shows there remains charm and value in that old. But today’s Madrid is more fun – and better tasting – with the new players on the scene. Enjoy both. Buen provecho.

by Robert McGarvey

Fitbit tells me that since I landed in Madrid 15 days ago I have walked 94.84 miles and by the time I leave at month’s end I suspect I will have added another 100. Yes, it’s true that I like walking but I walk in a city to get to know it. Nothing does that better than shoe leather.

Every city I have grown fond of I have walked a lot. Dublin, Belfast, Venice CA, Berlin, Manhattan, Washington DC, central Phoenix, and recently Madrid. A big plus to the Lavapies barrio of Madrid where I’m based -it is quite hilly. Central Phoenix by contrast is a flat mesa but in Lavapies there is a constant up and down. Hard on the legs for the first week but they get stronger.

Of the 50000 residents of Lavapies perhaps half are not Spanish and some 88 countries are said to be represented in the barrio. In that respect it is an atypical Madrid barrio but its long history – it dates back to the 1500s – makes it madreleno at its core.

Other than a taxi ride from the airport to the Airbnb where I’m staying I have not been in a car. I have logged four heavy train rides – round trips to Toledo and Avila – and two Metro rides. I also was on a tour bus in Toledo. But for me feet are the way to discover what is really happening in a city.

I walk with no particular plan except to keep my eyes open. And I usually see much that tourists rarely do.

In Lavapies I have discovered the city has a substantial homeless population – some even sleep on mattresses on the sidewalk. The official number is 28,000 in the country, with Madrid having 4000+. Phoenix, where I live, has as bad a problem, maybe worse. But the question that always is on my mind is why. Everybody knows the cure for maybe 90% of homelessness is housing and that’s not that hard to provide. But Madrid like Phoenix doesn’t and both hope we simply won’t see the homeless but it’s difficult not to when you walk the city streets.

There are those who blame Airbnb for the homelessness but I don’t buy it. What I see in Madrid centro is widespread gentrification as neighborhoods, notably Lavapies but also in adjoining barrios, that had been lower income are sprucing up and real estate prices accordingly are soaring. This has been a 20 year process, although it now appears to be heading into its last act. People will be displaced, some will become homeless. A ban on Airbnb won’t cure the problem. Housing will, nothing else.

In walking Madrid I have also discovered that the city employs an army of street cleaners who hose down sidewalks and streets daily, broom up debris, and daily produce a sparkling city that within hours will be covered with litter, everything from discarded clothing to beer bottles and cigarette butts (about twice as many Spaniards smoke compared to the US).

Lavapies also seems to have armies of police who come in two flavors, national and municipal, and in any hour walk I will see around a dozen. In one case three responded to what I guess was a shoplifter and four responded to take into custody two teenage fare evaders on a train. A reality: Madrid has a very low crime rate. The streets are quite safe (but do watch out for pickpockets and backpack carriers need be aware of crooks who slash a back with a knife and, yes, I have seen sad, slashed backpacks). The police patrols probably play a part in the city’s safety if only for their visibility.

Another fact about Madrid centro: just about every short block has a coffee shop. Most are tiny, just a few tables. Indeed, the building that houses my Airbnb also houses a coffee shop and the coffee is pretty good. (See photos below.) All also sell cakes and cookies and Spaniards do eat them and nonetheless have an obesity rate perhaps half ours. No, I can’t explain this either.

Most blocks also have a bar, also usually small, perhaps with 10 stools at a bar or one variation I saw had no stools and patrons stood up to drink vermouth, usually sweet, usually much better than the products we see in the US, although Martini rosso seems to have a big market presence here despite its unexceptional flavor. There’s a tiny bar housed in my building – see La Turra below. Spain’s alcohol consumption is about twice the European average which you would have guessed if you’d walked the morning streets with me.

Another reality, at least about the Lavapies barrio, is the human density. Sidewalks are narrow and always full. The streets are narrow cart tracks from the 16th century. Cars drive slowly, not much faster than the people walk.

Remember that: it is fine to walk slowly in centro Madrid. Don’t rush. Nobody else is and probably you can’t anyway.

by Robert McGarvey

By Robert McGarvey

Ever since it debuted I have been an Airbnb skeptic. Indeed the very idea of paying money to sleep on a stranger’s couch – when I wouldn’t sleep on a friend’s couch for free – seemed, well, absurd.

I wasn’t more enthusiastic about paying money to use a spare bedroom of a stranger.

And then a funny thing happened on my way to Madrid this summer. We’d decided to flee Phoenix’s heat this year and spend the month of July in a cooler clime and of course I know Madrid is hot but the fact is yesterday it was 90 in Madrid but it was 117 in Phoenix. The Phoenix low was 93. The low.

So Madrid – a city we like for its great museums, good foods, lively street scenes – is where we chose to flee in escaping Phoenix heat.

At what cost? At $200 per night – a modest hotel room in a European capital – the tab for July would be $6000 plus taxes.

I glanced at Airbnb, mainly out of frustration with the hotel prices I found, and pretty much instantly came upon a listing for a whole apartment in Lavapies, an edgy multi ethnic centro neighborhood about a mile from the Prado. This particular listing was for a place a couple blocks from a 24/7 Carrefour supermarket and a metro stop.

How much? Under $1900. For the month.

Sold.

The unit is in a very old building but is totally renovated and looks to be an IKEA model apartment. Around 400 square feet, including a sleeping loft with a king size bed and a real staircase, not a ladder. There’s a tiny but fully equipped kitchen, a similar bathroom, an ac, and surprisingly fast WiFi (about 270 mbps just now).

Of course I knew that Barcelona had banned short term rentals, to take effect in 2028, but to me Barcelona is an utterly different and glitzier place than Madrid, which has all that a European capital should have but with little self importance.

But I now know that the Spanish government is making noises that it plans to do something about Airbnb and its brethren but that may be sheer noise. What is true however is that rents are jumping skyward in Barcelona, Madrid, and other tourist destinations. The locals are complaining.

And then I saw the large graffiti across the street from the Airbnb I’m housed in: Fu** Airbnb – resiste Lavapies.

Know that Lavapies sometimes has been called “the coolest neighborhood in the world.” I don’t know about that but walk through it and you will walk along blocks thick with North African retail and culture, other blocks that are straight out of India, some that are old Madrid, others that are sub Saharan Africa, and then there are the blocks of upscale hipsters.

If I had to name a neighborhood in the United States that reminds me of Lavapies I’d say Venice beach a quarter century ago – I moved from it in 1999 just as its gentrification took off — or maybe Adams Morgan in Washington DC where I lived in 1974-75. But neither was anywhere near as multi racial and multi cultural as Lavapies.

Lavapies definitely has a cool vibe. And now I wonder if I am undermining it by spending a month in an Airbnb.

And then I remember Venice Beach which was definitely hip when I moved in in 1986 but it had lost much of its cool when I loaded up a U-Haul in 1999 and relocated to Sonoma county where I stayed a couple years. I liked the Venice I lived in but then it was gone.

There was no airbnb to blame then. But more wealthy homeowners were renovating beach shacks into palaces and late model BMWS and MERCEDES were replacing the battered VWs and Datsuns and even a few orphan vehicles such as Morris Minors on the local roads. Money was changing the place and the attraction was a great location on the Pacific. What had once seemed improbable suddenly had become inevitable.

So it now is happening in Lavapies. A great cheap location has been primed for gentrification and it will happen with or without Airbnb. Money talks louder than graffiti.

By Robert McGarvey

Consider this blog a continuation of last week’s blog on Booking.com numbers about where we find our travel inspiration and information.

This week, the news in a press release issued by Accor caused me to sit up straight in my chair: We read reviews of hotels by guests, just about all of us do, says Accor research.  

“A staggering 97% of hotel guests have consulted guest reviews when looking to book a stay in a hotel or resort, according to a new report from Accor, a world leading hospitality group.”

We read them in bunches, apparently: “On average, guests read nine reviews (8.63) for each hotel or resort they’re looking to stay at.”

The results go on: “After staying at a hotel or resort, nearly six out of ten people (57%) say they write reviews themselves for at least half of their stays.”

That is: not only do we read ‘em, we write ‘em.

Then I began sorting through my most recent hotel stays: a couple nights in Dallas, nights in Gretna VA, Fountain Hills AZ, Manhattan, San Francisco…and, you know what, not only did I write no reviews for the online sites (I may have written a column or two. But no reviews as such), I also read exactly none.

Yes, I long was something of a fan of TripAdvisor in particular and I know the company has an expensive arsenal of weapons created to hunt down and destroy fake reviews, machine written reviews and the like. I salute the company’s tenacity. But this is a losing battle, a reality I accepted about a year ago when I saw a Guardian piece entitled “Fake reviews: can we trust what we read online as use of AI explodes?”

The verdict then was no. The verdict today is why are you even asking?

Today’s powerful AI tools mean fake reviews can be spit out in a second and even if Tripadvisor’s tech snares many, some likely will get through.  

And there also are human content mills – often in India – that generate fake reviews by the ton.  

There’s a flood of the stuff and, frankly, I can’t bet on the review sites winning this battle.

Today there’s even a website, Fake Review Watch.  Check it out, it’s an informative destination and even a cursory glance will tell you the problem of faked reviews is monumental.

There’s another glaring reality too: even when the reviews are real – that is, probably written by a human being who actually stayed in the hotel – I honestly don’t care about these opinions and see no value in reading them.

A month ago I stayed three nights in a Hampton Inn in Gretna, Va.  It was adequate for its modest price that even included a decent, free hot breakfast and drinkable coffee by the gallon.

What did other guests say?  

The first review I read included this: “The Italian Restaurant across the street is worth the trip.” Uh, I ate there and, no, it’s not unless one’s standard is Chef Boyardee.  After a long day or flying and driving it was an acceptable meal. But it isn’t “worth the trip.”

Then there was this posted in April 2024: “Old and tired hotel which gave the appearance of not being the cleanest, bed on the softer side, couldn’t reach the shower head to make an adjustment. The breakfast was ill prepared with rubbery eggs and not enough of other things to make up for it.”

And this was posted in May: “Excellent service. Breakfast was great with lots of choices. One of the better hotel breakfasts. Rooms were spacious. We got free drink at checkin and checkout. Very good experience here.”

Rashomon. 

If I had checked the review site before booking at the Hampton I would have given up about there.

Opinions are as plentiful as weeds and less useful.

How do I pick hotels where I’ll stay?

Well, in Gretna, the Hampton Inn was the only convenient choice and we needed to be at this location for a family trip.

For a recent stay in Fountain Hills AZ the hotel I stayed in was the site of the meeting I was attending so, naturally, I stayed there.  

On recent walks along the Camino de Santiago in Spain I usually booked hotels in small towns with limited lodging choices and what was available was where I stayed.  

Often, where I stay isn’t a matter of much real choice. Of course I don’t read any reviews for those trips.

In other cases, where there are choices, I’ll ask friends and acquaintances for recommendations and they are a well traveled lot and their opinions are sensible.  I’ll bet you do likewise because we trust the opinions of friends.

I know I trust friends a lot more than reviews written by computers, at content mills, or by real people I don’t know. That’s why I don’t and won’t read them.

But I do wonder who responded to the Accor poll. Was it an army of AI bots?

By Robert McGarvey

Booking.com wants to know and it has developed research that aims to identify where you and I come up with our ideas about our future travels.

There’s also the question: have new information modalities rewritten the results? Is TikTok the beginning and end of travel inspiration?

Speaking for myself. I can say I have never looked at TikTok for anything.  I’m not dissing it, just yawning at its mention. I know others think differently, so be it.

So what do the Booking.com numbers have to tell us?

The show stopping chart result is that in the lead is what has always been in the lead.  That’s because 45% of us say we get travel ideas from friends/family.

Of course we do, we always have and that “we” is the broad word meaning people, all of us. A friend comes back from walking the Camino de Santiago and talks your ears off about that pilgrimage and soon you are planning your own walk across Spain because that is how inspiration works.  We take it from trusted sources and the key word is trusted.

Of course not everybody we know is a reliable source.  But we know who among our relatives and exaggerates, who lies, who always is in full bore Panglossian mode.  

we also know, because we know the people, whose tastes are utterly dissimilar from our own.

We also know who we’ve listened to in the past and it’s been worthwhile.

But we also pay attention to other sources.

For instance: What’s in second place with 39% of us tabbing it: social media.  Personally, tho, I see this as a subset of friends and family.  Those are the people whose posts I glance at and might believe.  There is no way I am reading and certainly I’m not believing some stray influencer’s insistence that I really ought to vacation in Albania because it’s like Greece but cheaper (and, yeah, there are such posts).  Now there is a good reason to be interested  in Albania – it was the planet’s most isolated and poorest nation for many decades after WW II.  In this century it has taken steps to join the rest of us and that’s probably an intriguing course to witness. And the location, above Greece and across from southern Italy, is spectacular.

But what I see in social media that’s posted by paid influencers is dross. I skip it. But I do look at travel posts by friends and family and they look at mine.

Quite probably the top two on the Booking list surprise no one.

Where the Booking.com numbers get genuinely interesting are at the bottom of the list.  Travel agents and tour operators come in at third from the bottom with 17% of us giving a hoot about what they say.  That means roughly five of six us don’t listen to them. Sure, I see the headlines in travel trade publications that tout the resurgence in use of travel agents. But the Booking numbers throw shade on that thesis.

And then the results really sting. 

That’s because in next to last place – with 14% paying attention – are newspaper and magazine articles.  86% don’t look at such stories and if they do they don’t heed the suggestions. Ouch.  That number makes me glad that although I have written thousands of magazine and newspaper articles I’d guess that under 5% dealt with travel destinations.  Sure, I did write some but mainly I wrote about business and tech and credit unions and real things, not where you should go on vacation this summer because, honestly, I have no idea what you should do.

In that vein, by the way, I’ll tell you I am going to Spain which has emerged as my go to place to get out of the US.  But I won’t tell you much more about it because apparently you don’t care what I have to say.

Speaking of which is that last place – with just 10% of us saying they get good travel advice from this source- are podcasts.  Whew.  I do a podcast – the CU 2.0 Podcast – but it is not about travel, but credit unions.  There are maybe 400 shows in the library and I don’t believe I have ever offered travel commentary.

Which is good because you wouldn’t pay any attention.

by Robert McGarvey

Probably the biggest change I have experienced in my personal travel planning since the arrival of the World Wide web some 30 years ago is today’s rollout of generative AI tools, especially by Google and Chat GPT. 

That means bigger than iPhone, bigger than the many hundreds of travel apps, bigger than the admittedly sometimes useful airline apps. AI is huge and getting bigger.

Don’t they misfire? Sure, we all saw Google’s recent ai “hallucinations” – notoriously, to one user’s question about how to keep cheese from sliding off pizza, Google suggested a dollop of glue but do note it suggested non toxic glue (Elmer’s) and probably it would actually work and wouldn’t really harm the taste of many homemade pies.

But as Google rejiggers its search screens -putting emphasis on AI driven “overviews” – it has gotten sensitive about the mockery its overviews sometimes have triggered and accordingly it’s issued a white paper.  

Interestingly, Google says that many of its slip ups happened when questions that involve “data voids” were asked. That’s a question like how many rocks should I eat?  Nobody really had asked that question until the Internet’s merry pranksters sought to embarrass Google’s AI and the ploy kind of worked.

Remember, generative AI revolves around scraping bushels of information across the web and sorting it into best answers.  Where there are few web documents, what are you going to expect? Garbage in, garbage out.

I just asked Google how to cook baby armadillo. It returned not a summary, overview paragraph but links to Youtube and websites that offered how-to’s.  Did those sites have silly info? Doubtless some did. But Google neatly ducked any blame for silly content by just pointing to it and allowing caveat emptor to rule.

If you were online 30 years ago every day you saw improvement.  Ditto nowadays.  Every day Google and Chat GPT get better.

For $19.99 per month I now get Google Gemini Advanced, its pro version, as well as two terabytes of storage and a few more benefits in a package marketed as Google One AI premium.

I just asked Gemini to tell me the best sites related to Spain’s Civil war (the battle between Fascists and progressives where the fascists won) and it came back with a list of the obvious — such as Picasso’s Guernica housed in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía — but also a pointer to Belchite, an Aragonese town that was “completely destroyed during the war and has been left as a memorial. It’s a haunting and evocative place that serves as a reminder of the conflict’s devastation.” I had never heard of Belchite and now it’s on my to do list.

Last weekend I was at Potato Patch Campground in Arizona and when I got home, to see if I missed anything i shouldn’t have, I just asked Gemini to tell me the best activities at Potato Patch.  It came back with hiking, wildlife viewing (can’t say I saw anything unusual but there were many signs saying black bears are around; I saw none), stargazing (indeed excellent), fishing at Mingus Lake nearby (I don’t fish but probably an excellent suggestion for some), scenic driving (you bet, the 10 mile drive in from US 17 is a twisting and turning maze with extraordinary views – but if you are driving keep your eyes on the road), visiting Jerome (we did and the old mining town is abuzz.  Gemini didn’t  mention it but a few miles beyond Jerome is Cottonwood, also worth a visit); and just kicking back at the campground which in fact has large individual camping spaces – private, quiet.  

In this Potato Patch case Gemini didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know but it did remind me of what makes Potato Patch worth multiple visits.

I’m just back from spending several nights in a hotel in Fountain Hills AZ where I attended long daily meetings and so I asked Gemini what’s the best hotel in Fountain Hills. When I saw the results I was surprised because the place I stayed at wasn’t on the list and nor were a few other places I knew of. Then it dawned on me that I’d asked the wrong question. So I went back with: what are the best resorts in Fountain Hills? The places I knew all popped up on that list (including where I stayed).

If at first you don’t like the results you are seeing, rephrase and try again.

My strong advice: when going anywhere ask Chat GPT or Google Gemini what to do there. You just may be surprised with the results. And you’ll probably learn about something you hadn’t been aware of or reminded of something cool that you’d forgotten